“The doomsters’ favorite subject today is climate change. This has a number of attractions for them. First, the science is extremely obscure so they cannot easily be proved wrong. Second, we all have ideas about the weather: traditionally, the English on first acquaintance talk of little else.”

“The fact that seasoned politicians can say such ridiculous things [about reordering civilization] – and get away with it – illustrates the degree to which the new dogma about climate change has swept through the left-of-centre governing classes….”

– Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (2002).

Boris Johnson is in a tight spot with his failing energy policy, so the climate lobby is out to shore him up. Stated Carbon Brief:

A scientific briefing that UK prime minister Boris Johnson says changed his mind about #globalwarming has been made public for the first time, following a freedom-of-information (FOI) by Carbon Brief.

Business as a force for government intervention into the economy is evident with one of the major global economic issues of recent times, climate change. Wind companies, solar companies, energy-efficiency companies, carbon capture and storage investors, etc. Their bread is buttered by special government favor, whether a direct payment from the public treasury or a tax credit or a regulatory preference.

Rent-seeking by business is a contra-capitalist practice, long exposed and criticized by free market economists and classical liberals. But there are two other related practices that classical liberalism has long warned against and censored.

One concerns strategic deceit by a business to outside parties, whether stock analysts or direct investors. In the spirit of Ayn Rand, this can be called philosophic fraud. This syndrome is present with companies that are overhyped and desperately trying to keep the music going.…

The Enron story has more twists and turns that a spy thriller. The company’s rise and fall was the corporate novel that Ayn Rand did not write–or need to write in retrospect.

Let history know that just-convicted Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of defunct Theranos, is the daughter of a former Enron vice president, Christian Holmes, who peddled an environmental services product that never got off the ground.

Father and daughter … Enron and Theranos … imaging over reality. Whatever the level of connection, of causality, it happened. It is a footnote to history.

Elizabeth Holmes’s fraud was exposed by John Carreyrou reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who went on to author Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. Regarding father Chris’s venture at Enron, I reprint my description from Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years (2018).…

Ed. note: MasterResource is closely associated with the worldview and example of Julian Simon (1932–1998). But a second influence would certainly be that of economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), born on this day 140 years ago.

Below, Robert Bidinotto’s “Von Mises: A Final Salute.” Unbound! Boston: Individuals for a Rational Society 2, no. 1 (September-October 1973): 1–2 is reprinted with permission of the author.

A surprisingly fair obituary in the New York Times (October 11, 1973) follows that of Bidinotto below. I then conclude with a final observation.

“The scope and content of von Mises’ work boggle the imagination. He was easily the greatest economist of this century, and the list of his original achievements in that science rivals that of anyone since Adam Smith.”

Our age may well be labeled by future historians as “the Age of Mediocrity.”…