Since I share my home with a couple of dogs, I tend to wear out a pair of shoes each year. I usually notice I need new shoes in the rainy season (which is most of the year in Oregon) when I come home with wet feet. But, according to Allison Schrager of the Manhattan Institute, I should just suck it up and learn to live with less.
Apparently, it’s a bad thing that Americans can buy “whatever they want whenever they want.” Schrager finds it alarming that 40 percent of American households have three or more televisions, “including 30 percent of households earning less than $40,000 a year!” Similarly worrisome, to her, is that 30 percent of Americans have 2 or more refrigerators. Just think of how horrifying it must have been for her to discover that some low-income people probably have both three televisions and two refrigerators!
The Manhattan Institute claims to be a “free-market think tank” that supports “greater economic choice.” But you wouldn’t know it to read Schrager’s article, which states that we need to live more like Europeans, meaning consuming less and living with lower economic growth. This is because, she claims, “An economy based on consumption is not sustainable.”
Say what? What else are you going to base an economy on if not consumer consumption? Military spending? Government construction of subway and light-rail lines? Construction of high-cost government-subsidized housing (that naturally will be too small to allow room for two refrigerators) for low-income people?
Apparently so, as the Manhattan Institute favors subsidies to urban transit, including the construction of new subway lines that will cost tens of billions of dollars. Manhattan Institute experts are also on the record supporting government-subsidized high-density housing projects.
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Schrager also argues that consuming less is somehow “protecting the planet.” But much of what we consume doesn’t use that many resources because most of the cost is value-added, not the cost of raw materials.
If Europeans seem to consume less, it’s mainly because their governments tax them so much more. Schrager’s message seems to be that government knows best. Maybe I’m a little biased, as I happen to be a consumer, but I think that consumers know best what is good for them. They may not always be right — once I bought a pair of shoes that didn’t fit — but they are more likely to get it right than some government bureaucrat (or, given Schrager’s love for Europeans, should I say eurocrat?) telling them what to buy.
Schrager may be willing to live with lower economic growth, but it is economic growth that has allowed billions of people to emerge from poverty in recent decades. It is economic growth that has allowed people who Schrager thinks of as being poor to own three televisions and two refrigerators.
I admit that, as a pragmatic libertarian, I don’t believe in pure free markets as much as some of my colleagues at the Cato Institute. But some of the opinions expressed by representatives of the Manhattan Institute sound more like the out-and-out socialists found in the left wing of the Democratic Party than any free-market group.
Affordability is a relative term…..I cant afford a bugatti, but efforts and specialty put the price set aside.
A Bugatti Chiron costs 3.5 million dollars, does 300 mph in the track, 11,666 dollars per mph
A C8 corvette costs 59,999 and does 194 mph or 309 dollars per mph.
price is relative…….and debateable.
Because Politics and religion are so intertwined… Non-believers remain few and far between in American politics because the idea of a person with no faith can lead a group of people to prosperity. THE TWO biggest geopolitical nightmares, China and the Soviet Union were state run atheist blocs. Even without religion they must function like one and promise the people…
– Bountiful Harvests: Lysenko genetics, miserable failure
– Miracles: China’s Great leap forward
– Garden of Eden: Soviet decades long Afforestation and agricultural; plan which drained the Aral sea. Or China’s “Green Wall” which is actually Exacerbating desertification and droughts.
– Persecution of non-believers: Look at China’s history of ethnic and religious persecution
– Gold/milk and honey: Look at their economies now
I don’t believe in pure free markets either….without governance, there’s no
– quality control
– safety check
– protection of intellectual property
That means the two factors of Laissez-faire and government cant cooperate to deliver. US is the only country where every year 500,000 people declare bankruptcy over medical expenses.
Congress could fix healthcare in a day; they simply don’t want to because they’re under the thumb of the doctor/nurse/pharmaceutical lobby. THEY Spend more money lobbying than defense contractors. People think Big Pharma is the biggest concern, they’re nothing. The biggest political donors in the medical related industry are doctor/nurse organizations.
But Congress could fix healthcare with four basic laws
1: To participate in medicaid/medicare/Veterans Administration/Tri-Care or any healthcare program that allocates or contracts services paid for out of taxpayer money; Congress shall authorize ALL healthcare providers shall publish the prices of ALL services they offer; treatments/drugs/procedures/surgeries, etc.
2: It shall be unlawful to charge any third party or individual patient more than the posted amount or to discount said posted amount upon installation into a hospital.
3: To facilitate a competitive market where by patients/individuals can compare prices, Congress shall require that all healthcare providers publish said prices in an industry standard format.
4: No individual shall be forced to purchase a healthcare plan without their consent.
If you have supply chain problems, you would want more refrigerators, not less. It enables one to store more food & be less dependent on just in time delivery of the supply chain.
Schrager also avoids the 800 pound gorilla in the room when talking about consumption –> age.
The youngest European countries are older than Florida. If Florida is God’s Waiting Room, Europe is God’s mortuary.
”
The pandemic revealed vulnerabilities of this hyper-efficient global market. Ports are backed up causing shortages
” ~Shrager
If their are shortages, it is OPPOSITE of hyper efficient.
“Schrager finds it alarming that 40 percent of American households have three or more televisions, ‘including 30 percent of households earning less than $40,000 a year!'”
Problem solved! Ownership is going down.
The peak ownership percentage of households with at least one television set occurred during the 1996–97 season, with 98.4% ownership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_the_United_States
Wait ’til Schrager finds out about smart phones …
Speaking of Europe..
The EU just announced its 2020 road fatalities: 18,800, down 17% from 2019.
In the USA, 38,680 died last year, up 7% and the highest total since 2007. (Note, the EU pop. is 1/3 larger)
https://transport.ec.europa.eu/news/road-safety-european-commission-rewards-effective-initiatives-and-publishes-2020-figures-road-2021-11-18_en
The cross-sectional differences between the US and EU largely stem from higher income levels in the US, not to mention the fact that many EU members tax vehicles and fuels at levels that put private vehicles out of reach for many EU citizens.
As for the differences in the last year, the most “effective initiative” undertaken by the EU’s member states to reduce crashes was to impose lockdowns on their populations (more than once in some countries), restricting their freedom of movement to reduce the spread of COVID. Speaking of which, it looks like Austria may not be done in that regard.
“You will own nothing and you will be happy.”
—
Klaus SchwabAllison SchragerMJ, are you saying that the more people drive, the higher rate the amount of road death? If that’s the case, seems like driving cars is something that should be limited as much as possible.
If you’re advocating for policies that increase driving, you should explain your goal in doing so. It must be something very important to be worth sacrificing more, rather than less, innocent lives for.
As for the Covid lockdowns, EU road deaths have declined every year from 2010 to 2020 except one year, 2015, but there were no lockdowns until 2020.
https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/observatory/latest-key-figures_en
“MJ, are you saying that the more people drive, the higher rate the amount of road death? If that’s the case, seems like driving cars is something that should be limited as much as possible.”
Spoken like a true totalitarian. *You* are free to not drive and to stay in your home and never leave like a scared little bitch.
“The EU just announced its 2020 road fatalities: 18,800, down 17% from 2019.
In the USA, 38,680 died last year, up 7% and the highest total since 2007. (Note, the EU pop. is 1/3 larger)”
Why does Europe have such fewer vehicle related/pedestrian deaths…
Simple
1: Lower speed limits
2: Fewer tanks on the road, Lighter cars, many scooters, mopeds, etc…
3: Massive public effort to make cities liveable, places for residents first instead of piercing expressways. Europe segregrates high speed roads from lower speed roads and enforces traffic safety fascist-cally.
4: Since there’s less crime, Police devote their effort and tim to safety/enforcement and handling of social ills.
5: Most important: Europe didn’t heavily adopt bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure because they care for the environment; that’s side circumstance. They did it because of energy crisis that made gasoline twice as expensive. Even After World War II Europe went thru multiple energy crisis and Still is Today!
MJ, are you saying that the more people drive, the higher rate the amount of road death?
No, I’m saying quite the opposite. And I have decades
worth of evidence on my side.
If that’s the case, seems like driving cars is something that should be limited as much as possible..
No, not really. Because, like everything else, driving has benefits and costs. We would like more of the former and less of the latter. Tradeoffs, they’re everywhere.
And the kinds of policies that make driving prohibitively expensive tend to impose their costs disproportionately on the poor. We then like to complain about “social exclusion”, while ignoring the hash we’ve made of policy.
If you’re advocating for policies that increase driving, you should explain your goal in doing so. It must be something very important to be worth sacrificing more, rather than less, innocent lives for.
Well, specifically I’d like to offer lower-income households the option of vehicle ownership. Forcing them to be dependent on second-rate transportation services that deliver an inferior level of access is one of the best ways to ensure that they stay poor.
For everyone else, I’d like to ensure that their level of access is not compromised by congestion, as it is in many large cities. Not only does this reduce the scope of labor markets, but it also increases the price of land, making housing more expensive (as residents of many European cities surely can attest).
None of this has to compromise safety. Targeted policies that increase penalties for dangerous behavior like inattentive driving, DUI and excessive speeding would help a lot. Also, targeting policies toward groups with higher safety risk (especially younger drivers) would be preferable to the current approach, which treats all drivers as equally likely to cause crashes.
Volvo says evs worse
insideevs.com/news/549267/manufacturing-evs-70percent-more-emissions/amp/