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Posts from September 2020

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (‘clean energy’ bonanza makes more stimulus unnecessary)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 30, 2020

“The energy stuff [in the 2009 bill] … was ginormous…. Ten years earlier, [President] Clinton pushed a five-year, $6 billion clean energy bill that went nowhere; at the time it was seen as preposterous and unrealistic, and it was. And here, 10 years later, $90 billion in the guy’s first month in office. Plus it leveraged another $100 billion in private money.”

– Michel Grunwald [Author, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (2012)], quoted here.

A matter of contention in this year’s Pandemic-related stimulus bills has been extraneous ‘Christmas Tree’ items such as targeted subsidies to wind, solar, batteries, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, “grid modernization,” and carbon capture and sequestration. (Note that such subsidies would be in addition to what is already received as other businesses.)…

‘The Crisis of Interventionism’ (Mises’s wisdom 80 years ago speaks to government-forced energy transformation today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 29, 2020

Ed. note: Today is the birth date of Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), the greatest economist of his generation and, indeed, the 20th century. His many books and articles are eclipsed by his magnum opus (below), a book that profoundly influenced the current generation of free-market economists and classical liberals.

Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action: A Treatise on Economics stands as the single greatest social science book of the 20th century. Written in 1940, with an English edition in 1949 (with slight revisions in 1961 and 1966), Human Action has been described as economics as it might have been and should be. 

No economists jokes here! This book is all about using sound assumptions and logically deriving the qualitative truths, the science, of economics.

I spent the summer of my sophomore year in college (1975) teaching tennis and studying Human Action.…

Hunter Biden: Where are the Environmentalists? (fossil-fuel cronyism anyone?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 28, 2020

” … environmental groups, which are increasingly opposed to all fossil fuels at a time of heightened concern about climate change, are split over how to respond to the fact that a leading presidential candidate’s son worked in the natural gas business.”

“When asked by a reporter over the weekend if she would allow the son or daughter of her vice president to serve on the board of a foreign oil company, Sen. Kamala D. Harris said ‘probably not’.”

“‘It’s not just Hunter – it’s Vice President Biden’s multitude of connections to energy experts who continue to push the false narrative that there’s a place for gas in a clean energy future,’ Collin Rees, a campaigner for Oil Change U.S., wrote by email.” [Washington Post, October 1, 2019]

MasterResource in vain has tried to uncover evidence of the energy knowledge and industry experience of Robert Hunter Biden through a Call for Information, issued October 23, 2019, and again September 1, 2020.…

Climate Hustle 2 (‘Are They Trying to Control the Climate Or You?’)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 25, 2020

Global Carbon Taxation for Redistribution (“last opportunity” for “game changing”)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 24, 2020

Remembering Fair Reporting on Climate (Houston Chronicle circa 2010)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 23, 2020

Oil & Gas In History: Some September Remembrances (from Civil War tax to OPEC founding)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 22, 2020

Bravo EU/UK Climate Realism Groups (DesmogUK pays its respects)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 21, 2020

Jimmy Carter Was Right?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 17, 2020

‘The Value of Books’ (David Boaz, Alex Epstein on Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#r_donway">Roger Donway</a> -- September 16, 2020