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- FCC Stalls on Internet Regulation; Asks for More Comments
- Why was the Volcker Commission Constrained by Obama’s Tax Pledge, but not the Simpson-Bowles?
- Daily Media Spotlight September 2, 2010
- Harry Reid Looks to Resurrect RES During Lame-Duck
- Calculating the Cost of Government (CFA Site »)
Thursday, September 2, 2010
- Daily Media Spotlight September 1, 2010
-
Obama Tax Commission Report:
Baby Step Toward IRS Tax Preparation - Dina Titus Launches False Attack Ad on Joe Heck and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge
- Indiana LaunchesTransparency Website (CFA Site »)
- Rally for Jobs Kicks Off Today in Texas
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
- Daily Media Spotlight August 31, 2010
- Let us All Join in on the NOT so “Green Cause”
- California Bag Ban Bill Up for Vote Today
- Norquist to Gov. Pat Quinn: Pick a Flawed Income Tax Hike and Stick With It
- Phil Moffett Signs Taxpayer Protection Pledge in Kentucky Gubernatorial Race
- New Mexico Sets Trends in Transparency Websites (CFA Site »)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
- Robert Gibbs’s Fuzzy Tax Hike Math
- Daily Media Spotlight August 30, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
- 2011 Could Be Ugly for Nevada Taxpayers
- Lame Duck Governor Ed Rendell Not Going Gently Into That Good Night – New Call for Higher Taxes
- Happy Cost of Government Day, California
- Bay Staters Spent 239 Days Paying for Government Burdens in 2010 (CFA Site »)
- Washington Welcomes Cost of Government Day (CFA Site »)
Friday, August 27, 2010
- Spill Commission Should Lift Moratorium Which Has Cost Gulf Residents 12,000 Jobs and $2.1 Billion
- Daily Media Spotlight August 26, 2010
- Why is Dan Onorato Knowingly Misleading Pennsylvania Voters?
- Unions plan on spending big this election cycle
- Utah Tobacco Sellers Feeling the Impact of Tax Hikes
Thursday, August 26, 2010
- Daily Media Spotlight August 25, 2010
- WI Democrats Launch “Blatantly False” Attack on Sean Duffy
- Unions plan on spending big this election cycle (AWF Site »)
- Philly's New Blog Tax May Foreshadow Other eTaxes
- BNA: For 14 States, Existing Tax Code Leaves Room for Etax (Stop eTaxes Site »)
- Philly's $300 Blogger Tax (Stop eTaxes Site »)
- Cost of Government Day Arrives in the Commonwealth
- Pennsylvania Finally Celebrates Cost of Government Day
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
- California Budget Proposal Advocates eTax (Stop eTaxes Site »)
- Daily Media Spotlight August 24, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
- Daily Media Spotlight August 23, 2010
- Government Workers' Pensions are Underfunded by $3 Trillion
Monday, August 23, 2010
- Fourteen Ways to Reduce Government Spending
- FCC Report on Broadband Performance: A Scare Tactic
- Sen. Al Franken Doesn’t Understand Wireless Networks...or the First Amendment
Friday, August 20, 2010
- Daily Media Spotlight August 19, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Cash For Clunkers: The Return
From Tim Andrews on Monday, November 30, 2009 11:27 AMFollowing the total, utter, and abysmal failure of the Administration's Case for Clunkers program, you would have thought some people would have learnt their lesson. But then, considering these were the same people whose 'stimulus' was based on the failed economic theories on spending yourself out of a recession that have failed ever, single, time that they have been tried in history, perhaps this isn't so surprising after all.
The Washington Post reports that "the federal government is expected to finalize details in the coming weeks of another tax-supported shopping extravaganza, known as "Cash for Appliances". Supported by $300 million from the economic stimulus, the program will offer rebates to consumers who buy energy-efficient refrigerators, dishwashers, air conditioners and other appliances to replace their older models." Destroying appliances, apparently, will 'stimulate' the economy.
In his 1850 essay That Which Is Seen & Unseen, renown economist Frederic Bastiat wrote of the parable of the 'broken window'. It is a shame that over 150 years later this message still hasn't sunk in.
Here is an more recent version of this parable, as told by Henry Hazlitt:
A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sun. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.
Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer. The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.














Comments
I've always had a problem with Cash4Clunkers. To me it seems to go against simple supply and demand economics. How can we push all of these new cars into a market already saturated with used and repossessed vehicles (see www.repofinder.com)? Now new cars are worth even less, we have more Americans in debt, and eventually more repossessions.
>> Mike Monday, November 30, 2009 12:36 PM Report Comment
You are soooo wrong. The C4C program saved my dealership. We would have had to let go of even more people than we did at the beginning of the year. We have seen a real positive impact on us and on the carbuyers' trust in us. Hey, from late 2008 until the program started, our showrooms were almost empty. (I thought I was back in the old used car lot in Tampa where I started, for a while. Except we don't allow decks of cards in the showroom now. Now it's computer solitaire.) What you refuse to see is that "confidence" is a major part of the economic equation. And confidence was missing until it got the big push the cash4clunkers program gave us. Please devote your time to better subjects. Like the elimination of the IRS. Thank you.
>> Car Salesman Wednesday, December 16, 2009 2:01 PM Report Comment