The California power crisis has made the headlines again, as the state’s Public Utilities Commission has declared that the culprits all along were the power companies, who deliberately created the crisis by “withholding electricity.” Princeton’s Paul Krugman, the economics columnist for The New York Times, has joined in, declaring that the crisis was nothing more than a “$30 billion robbery” that took place “in broad daylight.”
“Sustainability” is the doomsters’ rallying cry. The slogan is clever. It sparks apocalyptic urgency. But clever slogans and vivid imagery are no substitute for clear thinking about the place of private property in environmental concerns.
It’s a neat trick, writes Adam Young: the media sell a certain viewpoint, then take a poll and cite public opinion to illustrate that, yes indeed, the public agrees with what it has been told, and that the only solution is more government intervention.
Facing a looming recession, the Federal Reserve resolutely lowered its discount rate and frantically expanded its credits. Eager to stimulate the sagging economy, it enabled and encouraged businessmen to invest more and consumers to go ever deeper into debt. Yet the specter of recession refuses to fade away. What is the Fed to do?
In the latest move to revive Japan’s financial system, the governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) announced that the central bank would buy stocks directly from lending institutions in order to help them reduce the impact of falling share prices. According to the plan, the BOJ will hold the purchased stocks for at least 10 years.
If people are pro war, they are referred to as “hawks”; if they are pro peace, they are called “doves.”
Interestingly, these monikers are also used to describe viewpoints on monetary policy, especially when it comes to members of the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee. Monetary doves tend to follow an “easy money” policy, while hawks favor tighter monetary policy to prevent runaway inflation.
