Obama Care’s Commissar’s Conceit

As a writer on  Soviet planning, I am struck by its parallels with Obama Care.  Both believe their planning is “scientific” and executed by “the best of the best,” who know what is best for ordinary people. Both types of planning commissars suffer Hayek’s “fatal conceit” – the belief that they can plan incredibly complex economic systems. Their “scientific” plans, however, fall apart under the weight of unintended consequences as ordinary people circumvent their genial rules and instructions.

The New York Times’ Mr. Health Care Mandate features economics professor cum scientific planner, Jonathan Gruber. After the Supremes’ brutal questioning, the Times probably felt that Obama Care needed a boost from Gruber, who, by his own admission, “knows more about this law than any other economist.” It was to Professor Gruber that the White House turned to design its new health care law.

The Times reassuringly describes Gruber as “the numbers wizard at MIT,” who has “spent decades modeling the intricacies of the health care ecosystem.”  Gruber has “brought a level of science to an issue that would otherwise be just opinion.” The Soviets reserved such praise for their planning commission, Gosplan. I draw little comfort from Professor Gruber’s scientific-planning credentials, especially when I learn “he’s the only person you can go to for that kind of thing.”  Gruber, aided by his MIT graduate student assistants, is a one-man Gosplan. Science is better served by competing ideas not by monopoly.

go to Forbes.com

The Coming Clash of Titans: Environmentalists Versus Global Warmists

Robert Bryce (“The Gas Is Greener” NYT June 8, 2011) provides ballpark calculations of the land requirements to meet the California mandate that one third of its electricity be from renewable energy by 2020. I use his calculations to ballpark the requirements for a nation-wide mandate of the same proportions.

Here is what I get:

1,300 square miles of land to meet the solar requirements (an area about equal to Delaware)

18,200 square miles of land to meet the wind power mandate (an area about equal to New Hampshire and New Jersey combined)

One half the nation’s steel production to produce wind turbines

These calculations do not include the long swaths of land needed for new power lines.

With such massive land requirements, consider the clash between global warmists and environmentalists: The Mohave Desert is an ideal location for solar farms. But the desert tortoise is on the endangered species list. The Bureau of Land Management has already ordered the halt of construction of part of the Ivanpah Solar plant because it threatens the habitat of the desert tortoise. Environmental groups also have sued to halt the Sunrise Powerlink to carry electricity from renewable sources to San Diego because it cuts through a national forest.

With land requirements equal to Delaware, New Hampshire, and New Jersey, there is no telling how many snail darters, beetles, blossom clams, thorn mint plants, and Tobush cactus are threatened.

At last global warmists and environmentalists understand the notion of opportunity costs. Neither has much concern abut the increased cost of energy to industry and the consumer, but the loss of desert tortoises is something they can worry about.