Choice is in our genes

That (to the left) is Google's tribute to Gregor Mendel whose 189th birthday is being celebrated today in biological circles.
It is to Mendel, that we attribute our first understandings of the rules of Genetics. By using simple mathematical concepts after observing generations of garden peas, Mendel made Genetics into a science. He showed that his hypotheses could be turned into theories and eventually rules or laws that had predictive value. Good Science, occurs whenever a prediction can be made from a theory and shown to concur with reality. Many of you may recall studying Mendelian Genetics in school.
So it was interesting to me reading the National Post this morning, to learn that a Rutger's University study shows that a human behavioural trait is likely hard-wired in our genes. That's right, genes seem to influence other thing besides physical traits, like eye colour, or hair colour. This behaviour is our (humanity's) apparent desire to have "choices." This of course is interesting to me as a member of The Party of Choice - Ontario Libertarian Party. Choice is something all libertarians would cherish, and as one of the researchers, Lauren Leotti says:
"It makes sense that we would evolve to find choice rewarding, since the perception of control is so adaptive. If we didn't feel that we were capable of effectively acting on our environment to achieve our desired goals, there would be little incentive to face even the slightest challenge."
For me, that explains a lot.

Scam of the Century!

I have never written about the junk mail that I receive, but I couldn't resist in this case. 

Circulating in my neighbourhood this week is the flyer to the left. I've removed names to protect the guilty except for those involved with funding this project, the Ontario government. 

The issue here is one that extends not only to Ontario but across this country and to our American neighbours. The issue is "green jobs." 

Green jobs are jobs that many governments prefer because they are high tech, and created to wean populations off fossil fuels. By promoting and funding green jobs, government can engineer the behaviour of populations to reduce their carbon footprint and mitigate the evil global warming. 

It has been a hot few days in these parts and throughout central and eastern North America, but it is July after all, and if it's not going to be hot in July, then when? So I'm not going to rant about global warming, I'm just going to look at this flyer (click to enlarge) and try and understand the economics involved even though I'm not an economist.

The flyer points to an Ontario government program (microFIT - microFeed-in-Tarrif) that offers homeowners and businesses the opportunity to sell electricity from privately owned solar panels or wind mills back to the government electric grid at a "fair return on the initial investment (ROI)." The chart in the flyer shows the ROI for solar panels in this case - 12 to 14% damn good for these times. Of course the red box (my highlight) shows why the ROI is so good:

"Your Local Distribution Company will buy the electricity produced by the Solar System on your rooftop at $0.802/kWh. (Approximately 8 times the price you pay for your consumption)" 

Please read that again just to let it sink in. Ontarian's get electricity for less than 10 cents per kWh at peak periods, but the utility will pay 80 cents  per kWh for your solar electricity, wow, some fair return! So who pays for the additional 70 cents  per kWh between production and consumption? Good question, and I will let you guess the answer.

There you have it, my junk mail is telling me how my Province is creating the conditions for bankruptcy. I didn't make this up, this is where green jobs (producing and installing and servicing the solar systems) come from, and you don't need an economics degree to understand this.      

Libertarian Look-a-likes?

"Those people, they all look alike." That kind of comment is a hackneyed joke among racist types. It references the observation that the people of one race may have difficulty distinguishing differences in the faces and expressions of people of another race. There is actually a psychological term for it: Cross-race or other-race bias. For those who recall the fictional Archie Bunker (picture at left) of All in the Family fame, that is the kind of bias one would expect from him.
Just as racists characterize a particular group as all having similar features and behaviours, so I find that Statists, Leftists, Liberals or collectivists like to lump everyone to the right of them as the same. From that, it sounds like I'm guilty of that very thing, but I try to be more discriminating in my "lumping." I also hate to use the term "to the right," I don't consider myself to the right of anyone, and in libertarian parlance "right" (describing political view) is kind of meaningless.

As proof that I am discriminating when I reference Statists and collectivists, I know there are some who are anti-war, and generally very socially liberal, they tend to be leftists or socialists like NDP supporters in Canada. I am anti-war, and very socially liberal, so we both share those values. They however believe that big government is the solution to virtually all social, environmental and monetary problems that people might have, I don't.
I also recognize that there are Statists who share with me the belief that governments should be smaller, yet those same people would support the war on drugs, deny marriage rights to gays, and support the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror. I don't.
So you see I do discriminate, what irritates me is that the statist/collectivist types somehow can't discriminate between libertarians and conservatives and like Archie Bunker they say: "those people are all alike."
A case in point: several weeks ago Stephen Metcalf of SLATE the online magazine, wrote an article called The Liberty Scam. That same article popped up in the National Post this week but Canadian-ized, as The Hypocrisy of Libertarians  In it, Metcalf slams libertarians and their philosophy, politics etc., naming several guilty practitioners including: Republican fiscal hawk Paul Ryan, Glenn Beck, the creators of South Park, the founder of Whole Foods, P. J. O'Rourke, David Mamet, and Sarah Palin. Hello what?! Ryan, Beck, Palin are libertarians?! See what I mean? They all look alike to Metcalf, its like other-race bias but political. 
Paul Ryan voted for TARP, the auto bailouts and the Patriot Act, some libertarian he is supposed to be. Glenn Beck, give me a break and Sarah Palin, you have got to be kidding. To the credit of the National Post they also printed right beside Metcalf's mess, a column by Jesse Kline called A narrow view of the libertarian creed. It is critical of Metcalf's column and rightly points out that Palin does not support: "gay marriage, ending the drug war, allowing open immigration, ceasing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cutting the military budget, or any other libertarian cause." She is no libertarian either.
The next day an astute letter writer in the Post pointed out that the "issue is simple (to Him) - if big government was the solution to our problems they all would have been solved already. The idea that we are just one more social program away from utopia, one more regulation from all being safe and one more coerced tax dollar away from social justice is either naive or fascist. I'm not sure which." Neither am I.
      

Enforcing Competition!

Sounds like an oxymoron? It is. Do yourself a favour and get hold of a copy of the July 9th, 2011 Financial Post. Terence Corcoran's column alone is worth it. The column itself is written in the style of an advertisement, so it doesn't display very well online if you click the link.
Mr. Corcoran introduces Melanie Aitken, Commisioner of the Competition Bureau of Canada. Ms. Aitken was in the news lately because of a $10 million monetary penalty imposed on Bell Canada for misleading ads. Actually they weren't entirely misleading, the "exceptions" were posted in the price disclaimers under the ad, common practice in business ads. Apparently the Bureau doesn't think people are smart enough to check the price disclaimers and so the Bureau has indicated with this, that they should not be used again, ever!
That is Corcoran's column, he writes the column with footnotes after each cogent point in the "ad," forcing the reader to the fine print underneath. The whole thing is riotous, but I found the first "note" the funniest.
He writes about the purpose of the Competition Bureau to keep the Canadian economy competitive.(1) The footnote disclaimer is:
"1. Competition Bureau promises and commitments are limited to certain sectors of the economy and may not apply to you as a consumer or corporation. The Bureau's claims to be fearless champion of competition are invalid for regulated industries, government monopolies, liquor boards, electricity pricing, industries under foreign and national ownership limits and restrictions, farm marketing boards, chickens, eggs, milk, ethanol, advertising by political parties, governments and political institutions, subsidies that create uncompetitive advantages for individual companies or industry sectors. All of the above, and many sectors and behaviours, are technically exempt from Bureau rules and enforcement. Competition is not subject to definition and should not be seen a synonymous with free markets. Many restrictions apply. All statements and policies are subject to situational adjustment, reversals, and arbitrariness. But the pay is good."
No doubt!