The free-market energy blog MasterResource is nearing its second anniversary (first post: December 26, 2008). Our viewership has steadily grown, and we have reached as high as #7 on the “green blog” list of Technorati (as of 11/24: #32 out of 6,246).
The strength of MasterResource is the quality of our bloggers, some well-known names in the free market movement and others new names with now uncovered expertise. In particular, we have tapped into a talent base of individuals who are critics of industrial windpower, many of whom come from an environmental background and now appreciate the free market perspective.
We also appreciate the hundreds of comments that our blogs are generating, which is more talent bubbling to the top. In addition to supportive comments, we post critical comments that are in good taste. We are not afraid to debate the issues so long as the critic is sincere and avoids attacks at the person.
Philosophy
MasterResource is grounded on energy realism (versus energy hype and alarmism). Our preference is for free energy markets over energy statism. We prefer voluntary solutions to private and social problems wherever possible and believe that the intellectual case is strong against government coercion from an intellectual elite (the smartest guys in the room, to use the Enron vernacular).
Our worldview can be summarized as follows:
More specifically, MasterResource posts have explained:
MasterResource seeks to inform the public, academics, policymakers, and even ‘Left” intellectuals that public policy activism must take into account not only ‘market failure’ but also analytical failure (false claims/corrections of market failure) and government failure (political waste in the proffered non-market solution).
We believe that open-minded opponents will come our way when they learn the full story of climate science and of false Gods such as windpower. But these individuals have to want to know. That is the challenge–embracing a challenge culture to mid-course corrections are made with views that have been held for a long time, even passionately so.
The world has real problems. The resources that both sides are pouring into the political energy debate can be better spent on here-and-now human needs.
A Thanks
The principles and guest bloggers of MasterResource thank our many dedicated readers. We invite submissions from new names and welcome comments on any of our posts for the historical record and for posterity. We believe that MasterResource will be a scholarly tool for many years and decades to come for all things energy.
———————————–
Previous MasterResource Reports
Opening post (December 26, 2008)
Traditionally, people as disconnected from reality as whoever wrote this, are locked up in the asylum and subjected to therapy so that they don’t hurt anyone. At the very least, in a working educational system, they get Fs in their physics classes in high school and never graduate. In today’s world, they are considered authorities on energy matters…
Re: “subjected to therapy so that they don’t hurt anyone”.
Maybe Mr. Bradley should be taken into custody and sent to a re-education camp. Not sure how anything I have read on this site would hurt anyone or advocates hurting anyone.
On the other hand, given the effective energy tax that the current administration and many in Congress want to impose; increasing the costs to heat our homes, drive our cars and turn on the lights (recall “under my plan for cap and trade electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket” – see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viqaNuOE8UE at 32 seconds in) it seems to me that these are the people that are trying to hurt others; while they enrich themselves.
Please, offer something constructive.
GM
Jee whiz–Happy Thanksgiving!
I consider MasterResource to be the definitive, most comprehensive and technically accurate source of information concerning energy and how it is influenced by, or influences, government policies here and abroad. I often refer back to articles first published at this site concerning wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas and coal energy, and policies such as cap and trade. Keep up the great work and happy thanksgiving!
Thank you Chris for the highest of compliments, and one that I will share with others busy here at MasterResource.
And something I failed to share on my update: we invite our readers to gin up a post if there is an energy/environmental topic of sufficient interest where you can dig in and then educate us all with your research and insight.
GM, interesting reference to physics. Have you noticed how many physicists are given public policy positions? Wonder why not? Maybe because they think the world of human interaction is as simple as physics equations.
Judging by the amount of comments posted, the site itself probably isn’t such a threat. The kind of thinking it promotes, however, is actively threatening the very existence of the human species (and possibly life on the planet as a whole). If that isn’t causing harm (some would actually call it crime against humanity), then I don’t know what is…
Than I don’t have anything nice to say about you intelligence and critical thinking abilities.
Go to TheOilDrum and pick a random article on those subjects. What does it talk about – it mostly talks about physical units. Compare it to the typical masterresource article, which talks about nothing else but $$ signs. Now what is governing reality – physics or $$ signs? If you think it is $$ signs, you should get the same kind of treatment that I suggested in my first post in this thread, and I am afraid that it may be too late for you even if you do get it…
There aren’t any physicists in positions of power, that’s correct. You are, however, assuming that the social structure that there is is the social structure that there should be. A grand mistake that nobody who can see further than his nose should never commit as you have to be completely blind not to see the hopeless dysfunctionality of our society at every level…
Anyway, in general, politicians should disappear completely from the face of this planet and decision making should be done by scientists after careful examination of the data. It is a testimony to how tragically stupid we are that this is not the case. As I will not get tired of repeating, reality is physics, not money and politics, therefore decision making should be based on physics, not on complex political balancing acts that usually aim only at stepping on as few toes as possible and hardly ever at finding a solution to a problem…
“As I will not get tired of repeating, reality is physics, not money and politics, therefore decision making should be based on physics, not on complex political balancing acts that usually aim only at stepping on as few toes as possible and hardly ever at finding a solution to a problem…”
Never mind the free choices of those uneducated proles. They don’t know what’s good for them!
Churchill said it best when he described democracy as the worst form of government, save for all others.
The refreshing side of this blog is that most correspondents deal in realities (note well GM), as opposed to the now traditional fare we get from the progressives and many politicians of the emotional sciences of wishing and hoping.
The battle of ideas goes on, and this blog provides real ammunition that can be used by those with the desire for the truth to prevail, and those with vested interest who seek to place the majority of the population under constraint and liability can be rejected.
In truth also, this is not a site for the rent-seeker to flourish in which in my view is an excellent outcome.
Do you want to know why so many find a free market in energy so threatening?
Because a truly free market is one that cannot be gamed, controlled, manipulated or otherwise used by government to channel favorable rules, regulations and subsidies to their friends and campaign contributors!
A free market is repulsive to so many commenters on this thread/statists/collectivists because it grants all power, choice and control to the consumer and not government. A world in which energy markets are unregulated and uncontrolled by govt, where tax dollars cannot be taken to subsidize the enviro-energy business adventures of the politically connected, fashionable or otherwise in vogue “green” energy companies is simply not a world in which the collectivist can bear to live.
How about the “greed” of Wall Street…are they going to get rich from a free market? Well, not the greens on WS…they dont like profits…oh wait, I think these green energy upstarts and ultimately their accomplices in the netherworld of cap-and-tax climate dreamland have been busy setting up such exchanges for the past several years JUST WAITING to cash in on the green energy fraud (oh wait, I think one of those exchanges just collapsed. sorry Al Gore) the moment Cap and Trade gets passed.
Dear collectivists: Let me give you a clue to the nature of rational people: I know you understand that greedy free-marketers want to make money. How does one make oodles of money might I ask? By investing in profitable technologies!
Do you think for one moment that evil, greedy capitalists would not be falling over each other to invest in electric cars and windpower and solar-powered washing machines if such industries were profitable? , i.e., if people actually wanted to buy them because they saved them real money on energy costs, not spared them bad feelings of regret over their 2 SUVs.
Green energy is a fraud and you all know it. Please stop the hand-wringing and accusations. You love capitalism as much as the contributors of this blog do–here’s the key—you just love *crony capitalism*, because it allows you to make the same profits under the guise of “protecting” society and looking after the “public welfare” by showering the “responsible” companies (your friends) with subsidies, tax credits and general good will. And they thank you for passing their pet regulations, of course, with lots of campaign $$$$$. (Is the guy who wrote all the $ $ signs in his post about evil energy free marketers reading this..?)
Free marketeers don’t want to tell people how to spend their money or shame and bully them into anything. We just want the right to use our heads and collaborate on rational solutions that will provide cheap and abundant energy for the masses, and only by making society insanely better off will be get insanely rich!
🙂 Cheers!