“A free market in electricity is not ‘utopian’ or problematic. It is practical and timely with a strong intellectual case. It just needs classical liberal champions rather than technocratic schemers.”
“I will not dance to your tune” proclaimed technocrat Lynne Kiesling in our exchanges on electricity policy last year. A free market in electricity is “utopian,” she added in another exchange. All this in the service of a centrally planned wholesale market imbued with government-enabled wind, solar, and batteries (Kiesling’s VPP–‘virtual power plant‘). And an implicit preference for climate alarmism/forced energy transformation from an academic that pretends to be free market but is a woman of system.
Giberson Exchange
And so once again, I debated just this with Michael Giberson (Kiesling’s designated one-off voice in a peculiar relationship).…
“Will the Trump Administration challenge against climate alarm and forced energy transformation reach its logical end? Can commercial nuclear power be privatized away from DOE for this to happen? Can ‘carbon management’ be demoted as part of this? Free market, classical liberal proponents can only hope so.”
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was a mistake on Day 1. It continues to be a harem of government intervention on the supply and demand sides. It should be abolished as an easy budget cut, with the military side moved back to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Remember President Reagan’s campaign pledge to abolish DOE? He continued the promise into his first term, with his energy secretary, James Edwards, promising to work himself out of a job and “spread salt on the earth to make sure [DOE] never rose again.”…
“It’s the biggest sociological reboot in American history, or perhaps human history: For this, the conformists among us will never forgive Donald Trump. For the rest of us, it’s a liberation of far deeper and lasting significance than the merely political.” (- Michael Hurd, below)
A post in The Neo-Liberal Drawing Room (May 5, 2025) shared this from Objectivist psychologist Michael Hurd. He began:
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS) refers to an unhinged hatred of Donald Trump and all things connected to him. To me, the fascinating question about TDS is not what those who succumb to it hate — but what they love. What they hate is obvious. But what do they love?
Hurd continues:
…From my observation, people with TDS do not really love anything. What they suffer from is anxiety, of the deepest and most metaphysical kind.