Do not think about, write about or deal with human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.
Quotes from: George Jonas: Ruining America — coolly, calmly and collectedly. An article in the National Post on March 24, 2010.
“Does Obama want to drive America into the ground? I doubt it. Obama wants to be the president of a successful nation, not a failed one. Unfortunately, he seems to believe that the yellow brick road to success for America leads through a happy valley shrouded in what Tom Wolfe once described as a “quasi-Marxist fog.” He isn’t the only American (or Canadian) to be mired in this bizarre meteorological condition — obviously, for if he were alone, he couldn’t get elected. A lot of people wander about in a clammy, quasi-Marxist mist, aggravated by patches of Maoist or Marcusian miasma, dispensed by great academic obscurator-machines installed at most Western institutions of higher learning from Harvard to the Sorbonne. Occasionally these infected souls emerge from the haze, step into a polling booth and vote for one another. I’d describe them as dangerous, even deadly, but without malice. They mean well.” Intentions are good–results in the crapper. And that’s politics for you.
The problem of Marxism, European-style collectivism, any-style collectivism or socialism of any brand is the perversion of incentives. Incentives work within the collective where members scramble for position within it. This scramble, often unseemly, has nothing to do with producing anything useful. Useful production is left to free enterprise, where incentives result in productivity, not position.
For decades, Canada has subsidized, Ballard Power Systems, in the quest for hydrogen technologies in order to be “a world leader” in this phantom technology. This was dropped in 2007 as uneconomical. Carbon taxes would have to rise very high indeed to make hydrogen a viable fuel. It’s that pesky, “It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than is produced by hydrogen.” thing. Much like ethanol. Ballard once traded at $200, but is now down to about $3. Hundreds of millions of government money was wasted and Ballard spent energy on getting subsidies to fund a losing bet. Perversion of incentives.
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies
