Month: August 2012

Failed Predictions of Doom

I’m fascinated by failed predictions of the coming apocalypse. In Christian circles, Edgar C. Whisenant is legendary for his 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, and – serving as its own punchline – the sequel arguing for 1989.

I recently read Larry Burkett’s The Coming Economic Earthquake, an early 90’s warning against the huge increase in debt that was sure to cause another Great Depression by 2000. Burkett didn’t foresee the budget surplus under Clinton or the sharp drop in interest rates that would allow the debt to quadruple past the amount he considered alarming.

I also recently saw 25-year-old predictions from science fiction writers in 1987 about what life would be like in 2012; they expected technological advances, but also war, hunger, crime, disease, and too many people and not enough resources. Most of the pessimism turned out to be too pessimistic.

It’s easy to write off apocalyptic predictions by religious conservatives or science fiction authors. But the elites of society have been just as wrong. Matt Ridley has an article in Wired detailing decades of failed predictions of doom and destruction by scientists, international organizations, politicians, and more.

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Obama the Agriculture Speculator

Corn prices are surging to records, and farmers are slaughtering their animals earlier than usual to save on feeding them. Clearly this is a problem that calls for a government solution!

Now the government is already exacerbating corn prices with its un-environmental ethanol mandate, and there were rumors that Obama might actually suspend those requirements. After all, Bush started that one, so Obama could have blamed Bush and reduced the government’s intervention in agriculture in one fell swoop. But that would require admitting the government caused this problem in the first place, and as we all know, the only policies from the Bush administration that Obama likes are all the ones that have to do with government intervention. (See warrantless wiretapping. And indefinite detention. And that light bulb law.)

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So Many Job Openings, So Few Hires

Good news! The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the number of job openings in June was the highest since 2008.

job-openings-per-monthWoohoo! There are 500,000 more job openings than a year ago, and a million more than two years ago! This trend is going up and up and up!

But wait a minute. The number of actual net jobs added per month, while fluctuating quite a bit, looks pretty flat over the last couple of years.

jobs-added-per-monthIf there’s so many more jobs these days, why aren’t more people getting hired? Continue reading So Many Job Openings, So Few Hires

Reasons For Optimism 20-22

A few advances this week in the awesome technologies that will probably change this decade…

20. A little girl with a rare disease can now use her arms thanks to a 3D printer. This is the most powerful single piece of evidence I have yet seen for my belief that 3D printing will change the world. It clearly demonstrates how someone’s life can be dramatically altered by the ability to cheaply print completely customized physical parts. It’s not clear to me whether the girl will need the exoskeleton for the rest of her life or if the assistance will enable her to developer her muscles to the point where she eventually will not need them.

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Should Libertarians Be Excited About Paul Ryan?

Well, it’s official. Mitt Romney has chosen rising Congressional star Paul Ryan to be his vice-presidential running mate. Team Red is stoked that the young articulate conservative will absolutely smoke Biden in the VP debate, and Team Blue is stoked that Obama is now guaranteed to win because Ryan is obviously too extreme for most Americans. But does this mean anything for us independent fans of small-government?

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Why So Obsessed With Presidential Budget Plans?

Ezra Klein is obsessed with Mitt Romney’s proposed budget policies, or lack thereof. Klein convincingly argues that Romney’s plans are far vaguer than many previous presidential candidates and also very dishonest and mathematically impossible. The only problem with all of this analysis is that it assumes that presidential budget proposals actually matter, an assumption Sonic Charmer ridicules with his trademark snark:

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Thank Government For Something: NASA

Sunday night, NASA’s Curiosity rover completed a ridiculously complicated landing sequence to safely grace the surface of Mars, where it is now beaming back exciting images and other data. I feel like this is a good time to thank our federal government for one of its few entities that I really enjoy – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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