Infinite Monkey Theorems 20100330
March 30, 2010
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Posted by Michael S. Langston
Obamacare - was the final push an act of noble means or just hubris? (via Reason.com here)
…At a time when America’s economy is still in bad shape and when we face numerous problems abroad, Obama has put the country through a shattering political battle—and, with legal challenges and promises of repeal, the fight may be just beginning.
This seems, at the moment, less a monument to idealism than to hubris.
Rep. Mike Honda, D-CA seems to think Fannie Mae knows their stuff (via Politico here). In asking for more money to prevent legal foreclosures, he gives us this:
…In addition, Fannie Mae estimates that as many as 50 percent of the minority homeowners who received a subprime loan should have qualified for a prime loan. This clearly indicates the need for housing counseling services….
With all due respect to Mr. Honda, I think all this clearly indicates is poor critical thinking skills. When a GSE which apparently knew nothing about the impending crisis and was proactively laying down on the job when it came to auditing loan standards gives you estimates on who might or might not have qualified for what kind of loan – laughter is the appropriate response. Not regurgitation.
Cato on telephony deregulation, cell phone innovation, & ingratitude (here). Discussing his memories as a child where phone line were costly and long distance was only slightly less expensive than actual driving as compared to today’s age:
Then came the breakup of the AT&T monopoly in 1984. Phone technology and competitive service provision exploded. In 1982, Motorola produced the first portable mobile phone. It weighed about 2 pounds and cost $3995.
Within a very few years they were much smaller, much cheaper, and selling like hotcakes. Today there are some 4.6 billion mobile phones in the world, and counting, or about 67 per every 100 people in the world.
Then he moves forward to the ingratitude:
And to celebrate this incredible achievement, Slate and the New America Foundation are holding a forum titled “Can You Hear Me Now? Why Your Cell Phone is So Terrible.”
From the CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute), we learn the EPA is about to expand its powers (here):
Washington, D.C., March 30, 2010 – The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are expected this week to finalize their joint greenhouse gas (GHG)/fuel economy standards rule. This will make carbon dioxide an “air pollutant subject to regulation” under the Clean Air Act for the first time. The rulemaking, and the endangerment finding that is its prerequisite, will allow EPA to immediately exercise and continue to amass powers never delegated to the agency by Congress….
I suppose those supporting the decision know nothing about the EPA’s massive failure in just the Energy Star program.
Lastly, as a reminder, most places and people in the US did NOT buy homes they couldn’t afford (via WSJ here):
The U.S. still is feeling the effects of widespread housing bust, but a new report serves as a reminder that large swaths of the nation didn’t experience a boom in home prices and hasn’t suffered from the bust….
In fact, most of the insane double digit growth in real estate prices were in 5 main areas – NY corridor, Florida, Arizona, California, Nevada. Make of it what you will that almost all flyover states never experienced the irrational boom, to be inevitably followed by the burst.
Categories: Business, Critical Thinking, Economics, Environmentalism, Legislation, Regulation/Deregulation
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Tags: Cato, CEI, Deregulation, Economics, EPA, Health Care Reform, Housing Crisis, Politico, Reason.com, WSJ
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