The Daily Plunge » Carpe Diem

All of the Lights: Celebrate Earth Hour the Daily Plunge Way

Henshaw — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:35:09 +0000

Here at the The Daily Plunge we’re celebrating Earth Hour on Saturday 26 March at 8:30 p.m. (local time). However, we’ll be doing something a lot different than the poor schmucks who are turning off their lights for no other reason that phantom guilt.

There already is an Earth Day, but there isn’t an Electricity Day. Shouldn’t we celebrate the amazing progress we’ve made since the dawn of the electrical age? Mark J Perry has more over at Carpe Diem…

Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water. Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases.

When 8:30 rolls around Saturday night I’m going to turn all the lights on in my house, turn up the air conditioning, start my car, watch a movie on Netflix, and play Angry Birds on my phone. I’ll go to my desktop computer and pull up Kanye West’s video for “All of the Lights” on YouTube. I’ll play it continuously for the entire hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAfFfqiYLp0

This is progress and I’m not going to feel a twinge of guilt for being alive in 2011. Everyone should join in and celebrate electricity. If you feel guilty for no apparent reason, it has nothing to do with the Earth.

Land Regulation and Housing Affordability

Henshaw — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 03:30:46 +0000

One of my biggest pet peeves is when city planners discuss Smart Growth. Time and time again politicians and concerned citizens clamor for land regulations, regulations which ultimately lead to expensive real estate. I’ve written about this subject a few times, but Mark J. Perry has an awesome graph that displays the problem very well. His article has some other interesting statistics as well.

Are zoning laws and city regulation the only contributors to unaffordable housing? No, but they are a major part of the problem and unfortunately no one seems to understand.

The V-Shaped Recovery

Henshaw — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 15:36:38 +0000

Here’s a hat tip to Mark J. Perry who has one of my favorite economics blogs. He’s been beating the “economic boom” drum for a few month and I believe he’s correct. Here’s a video from Larry Kudlow’s The Kudlow Report.

The short term looks good, but the long run is very very bleak unless we change our fiscal problems. It’s good news for President Obama and bad news for whoever replaces him in the future.

The Cost of Goverment

Henshaw — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:34:23 +0000

Government work is good if you can get it. Carpe Diem has a nice looking graph that shows that government employees makes 45% more on average than private sector employees.

As I was saying a few days ago. There’s a lot of fat in government than can be cut but no one in Washington is serious about it. I’m not exactly sure what the President is doing. I’m starting to fear that Obama is just completely in over his head. Presidents can either lead or they can’t. For all their faults Bush and Clinton were able to get things done. Americans are growing weary of Obama’s long speeches and inability to accomplish anything popular.

Obama’s biggest problem is that his ideas are not popular. The President must realize that he was elected because people were fed up with Bush, not because we were ready for big government solutions. Many on the left haven’t learned this lesson. Have the Republicans learned anything after being tossed out? I won’t hold my breath.

economic progress: standard of living

Henshaw — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:13:05 +0000

Here’s a question. Would you rather be living in 1969 or 2009? By almost any economic measure people in the U.S. are richer than they were forty years ago. This applies to all levels of income. Carpe Diem has all the boring details.

I should add that cell phones, computers, microwaves, the internet, air conditioning, HD TV, and every other device Americans can’t seem to live without are products of our free market. The government didn’t create these devices or make them cheaper. Government intervention only leads to stagnation which kills innovation and progress.

florida home sales

Henshaw — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:57:13 +0000

Carpe Diem has done a wonderful job showing home sales trends. Home sales are up in California, Florida, and Arizona, but the median price has fallen. This is most evident in the state of California. Here is the data for Florida.

This is the market at work. The government isn’t causing this to happen. Home prices were inflated above the market price. Now that the price has fallen the market is taking care of itself. He also has an eye opening graphic that displays supply and demand in action.