Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Left, in a Nutshell
I had to comment on this before I exploded. From a Washington Post article:
The regulation actually would have cost relatively few mining jobs and would have created nearly as many new jobs on the regulatory side, according to a government report — an example of the frequent distance between Trump’s rhetoric, which many of his supporters wholeheartedly believe, and verifiable facts.
This requires a little setup. The article was about the Trump supporters who attended his rally in Florida this weekend, and how differently they see the world from the media portrayal of the Trump administration. Specifically, here the article was quoting a supporter who’d been disappointed that there hadn’t been more coverage of the law Trump signed rolling back last-minute Obama administration regulations, some of which would have put more coal miners out of work.
So rather than acknowledge the jobs saved, what does WaPo do? It says hey, the government says those regulations would have created almost as many jobs for regulators as it would have cost for coal miners?
Whaaaa? Stop, read that again.
Jobs gained for regulators are being equated to jobs lost for coal miners. In what world do these people live?
Coal miners produce … wait for it … coal — a useful substance that is burned to produce electricity that powers everything from vacuum cleaners to printing presses to hybrid cars, all things that people want.
Regulators produce … still waiting … still waiting … Oh, I remember now, they produce interference for people who are trying to do useful things that other people want.
Is this WaPo, or The Onion? Why don’t we just give everybody a job as a regulator if there’s so much demand for regulation? I’m sure some of those coal miners would be happy to sit in an office eight hours a day. Mining coal is actually hard work. That’ll be great (until the power goes out in the offices).
It reminds me of a Facebook post I saw a while ago that said “California makes technology, Texas makes energy, Iowa makes food, Washington makes it difficult.”
This WaPo sentiment is the same mindset that counts a dollar of government spending as a dollar of GDP just as a dollar of private industry spending — as though a dollar paid to someone providing a good or service by someone who wanted that good or service represents no more value than a dollar earned providing a good or service that someone was compelled to pay for at gunpoint through a tax.
This is the same mindset as the apocryphal(?) Chinese bureaucrat who told Milton Friedman that a canal was being dug with shovels instead of heavy machinery because it “was a jobs project,” as though the value of the canal depended on the amount of labor that went into it. (Friedman purportedly quipped, “then why don’t you give them spoons.”)
This is the same mindset as the guy who thinks the way to grow the economy is to break windows, because it will keep glaziers busy replacing them.
This is why we get Trump.
Published in General
I didn’t know that. I’m still a gas guzzling, fossil fuel burning planet destroyer.
Plus that would “stimulate the economy” because of the Keynesian multiplier. I mean, that the argument for paying people to dig ditches and fill them back in, right?
For a news rather than opinion article, this is snarky:
“…the frequent distance between Trump’s rhetoric, which many of his supporters wholeheartedly believe, and verifiable facts.”
Furthermore, the Washington Post ought to have a fact-checker looking at its own articles. In one piece about Trump’s action on the coal mining regulation, a reporter wrote:
“Trump, who signed legislation last week that nullified a recent regulation prohibiting surface-mining operations from dumping waste in nearby waterways…”
Incorrect. There are already regulations that prohibit the dumping of waste in waterways. This regulation was to require mining companies to test and monitor waterways – even for years after the cessation of mining operations. Basically, it was to put the responsibility and cost of monitoring on the mining companies, to detect any inadvertent pollution.
That’s quite different from what the liberal media portrayed, implying that Obama, on his way out of office, at the very last minute signed an order prohibiting wholesale dumping of waste into streams.
I am unable to share what words I wrote in the margin of this particular paragraph, as it would be a direct violation of the C of C, but other than those words, I also wrote one of our favorite descriptions for these Coastal ultra-elites– sniffers! And as for the comparison with The Onion, the Washington Post is rapidly becoming just that– the New York Times got there some time ago, without a doubt, in my humble opinion. There were several other “sinfferisms” in this outrageous, sneering, snarky and arrogant article such as the description of the lady who “gets most of her news from talk radio–and Fox News”, with a tone which made it sound like she had some kind of dread disease or mental disorder. I also got a smile out of her description of the “pink knit hats” some of the protesters wore — seems she just couldn’t bring herself to call it what most of the marchers in the grotesquerie called, among other things, The P___y Parade, called them! However, I found myself in agreement with the “protester” who said “there’s so much anger and hate and foulness” but, for the life of me, I do not know where this idea is coming from that “he’s encouraging it”! Guess I’m just not getting my talking points and I’m committing the definite offense against The Deep State of thinking for myself. God Bless America!
Or you could do as I did and have to de-program your child after school each day as did for 18 years. I wrote my Snowflake post about those years. You would never believe the fluff they tried to fill my daughter’s head with. Wait, yes you would.
seems like it’s gone downhill since it was sold. IIRC, Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) sold it to Jeff Bezos (Amazon).
http://ricochet.com/archives/the-snowflakes-have-come-home-to-roost/
Thanks, Captain! It was my first post.
I think we should go back and tax Gates personally for all the people put out of work by desktop computers.
I had friends who assumed that Bezos (being an entrepreneur) would correct some of the leftward lean of the Post. Instead, as you note, he made it worse.