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By way of Instapundit comes proof of something I knew way back when it was first put into place: Obama’s Cash For Clunkers was a complete waste of time and taxpayer money. It also had a net negative effect on car sales as compared to if the program had never been implemented.
One must also remember that the Obama Administration pushed for the closing of car dealerships as part of the automaker bailout (Chrysler and GM) because “there are too many dealerships.” The problem is that a good number of those dealerships slated for closing were selected based not upon their sales but upon the owner’s political leanings. A lot of very successful and prosperous dealerships saw their franchises ended because the owners did not identify as being with the correct political party (meaning they were Republicans and therefore not worthy of retaining their businesses).
Cash For Clunkers was an unmitigated disaster. Then again most politically motivated economic programs have no relation to economic realities and end up doing little to help the economy and, worst case, end up having negative impacts on the economy and the wallets of consumers.
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Though over a year old, this piece by Richard Fernandez stands as a warning to both tyrannies and self-deluded democracies (in this case, the EU). It boils down to one simple principle:
…people, under pressure to conform by culture leaders, often told public lies to get the pollsters and thought police off their backs, even as they nurtured largely undetected private resentments inside them. Over time, two divergent perceptions would emerge: the public lie would determine how the regime thought about itself while the private truth contained the real, but hidden data.When both the public lie and the private truth are exposed, the government falls, sometimes violently.
How does this apply to the EU, a nominal democracy? The elite have been telling themselves and the citizens lies in order to fit a narrative, one that has now come back on them in spades.
It's becoming evident that the European elites failed to understand how explosive the migrant issue was until it detonated full in their face. Now it is in the midst of a crisis which could literally bring down the European Union. Why didn't they see it coming? Because they believed their own Narrative, even when they should have suspected it was a lie of their own making. If the PC Western elites are overtaken by a cascade similar to that which collapsed the Soviet Union, the ultimate irony will be that the very migrants which they had counted on to create the Curley Effect will turn out to be the engine of their own destruction.As one of my favorite movie characters said, “Welcome to the party, pal!”
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I’ve known this for years.
If you believed the DNC-MSM, it appears Trump had a bad time at the G20 summit. But if you read the foreign press you get the impression that Trump kicked ass.
When you get better coverage of US national news from newspapers like the Telegraph rather than the New York Times or the Washington Post, you know they’re in trouble.
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It appears the experiment with school vouchers in Chile has proven to be a success. Of course I expect school voucher opponents to use the “But that’s Chile! It won’t work here,” line even though there’s plenty of evidence here in the US that proves that it does.
One commenter had the best take on this: “If vouchers didn’t work nobody would bother opposing them.”
Indeed.
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The Party of Peace, Love, and Tolerance strikes again.
In this case yet another “unhinged” liberal staked out a Harley Davidson dealership in Iowa in an attempt to kill US Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA).
Why is it that all of those attempting to kill members of Congress come from the Democrat Party, “unhinged” or not? The Left talks about all of the violence going to be committed by the Right, but the only ones actually committing the violence come from the Left. Projecting much?
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Want a preview of what single payer health care is like? Well here you go.
A million patients a week cannot see a GP.
Doctors said they were working “flat out” but under “unsustainable” pressure, leaving “worrying” numbers of patients without any help.It’s expected to get even worse. Is this something we really want to do? I doubt we’ll be able to do it any better than either the British or Canadians, and certainly not any less expensively.
The NHS figures show the number waiting at least a week to see their GP has risen by 56 per cent in five years, with one in five now waiting this long.
The pressures left 11.3 per cent of patients unable to get an appointment at all – a 27 per cent rise since 2012. This amounts to around 47 million occasions on which patients attempted but failed to secure help from their GP, forcing them to give up, try again later or turn to Accident & Emergency departments.
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Step back: I’m a professional journalist!
And they wonder why the people hate the media.
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Helicopters…with frickin’ lasers.
It’s about time.
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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer has settled in, the summerfolk are enjoying themselves, and where the time to go back to work has come around again all too soon.