DISQUS

There is no alternative? Well a carbon tax instead of cap and trade is one alternative. Another alternative is accepting global warming is a reality and spending devoting resources to something that will actually have a positive impact somewhere instead of creating lots of room for political rent seeking.

I'm afraid you lack perspective.

In my clinical psych classes, we always learned that "external locus of control" is strongly (positively) correlated with depression. In other words, people who believe they are not in control of their own lives are much more likely to suffer depression. Of course, the left-wing generally sees things in terms of the broader community/society instead of as a result of individual actions. I read on Rasmussen Reports that one of the biggest predictors of political affiliation is whether you generally see America as generally fair and decent. People who think America is fair and decent are much more likely to vote Republican.

Interestingly, the same psych text that talks about internal locus of control as being a good thing notes a relationship between "attributional style" (whether one interprets events as being caused by the extenuating circumstances or the person in question) and conservative/right-wing ideas. The text (and my left-wing teacher) were very critical of conservatives for blaming the individuals instead of the circumstances.

Will Wilkinson is a notorious shill for Big Hole. The truth is Private Holes would be much more efficient at destroying our money.

I think a more brief way of saying this is: "Weisberg's beliefs have two ways to fail. If governments are by nature incapable of regulating an economy well, then Weisberg's system will fail. But even if they are capable of regulating well, then they will still fail when "the bad guys" (GOP) take power (which they do about 50% of the time)." In contrast, lassez-fairre capitalism will generally fail only if markets are incapable of regulating an economy well.

Last time I checked, socialism meant a centralized planned economy from which market forces have been banned and the state owns the means of production

Just goes to show that "socialism" gets stretched and pulled as much as "capitalism". The terms are so flexible now that the USA qualifies as socialist by some standards (like John Birchers), and dog-eat-dog capitalist according to the Kleins of the world.

great video

No! It is a widely accepted fact that things only ever get worse!!! The rich get richer, the poor get richer more slowly (and thus not at all), morality has been declining since Socrates' day, and plus my back hurts more than when i was a kid!!