When the Ruling Class is Wrong

The thing about the market is that every day it is commenting on who is right and who is wrong. Mostly it is right; sometimes it is wrong.

But politics is different. In politics the ruling class, right or wrong, gets its way almost all the time. That's because of the natural human instinct to trust its rulers and suspect that the opposition is close to being traitors.

And, given that the one job of the ruling class is to defend the people against enemies, and lead the nation in wars to defend itself, it makes sense that its view dominates the public square and that objectors don't get much air time. It is only when the ruling class has been defeated in war that it loses its warrant to set the agenda. The Chinese have a phrase for this: losing the Mandate of Heaven.

The most obvious case where this is a problem is the question of climate change and green energy. Right or wrong, the ruling class has bought into the idea of dangerous warming due to emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. If the rulers are right then they will be saving us from a fate worse than death. But if they are wrong they will be causing enormous misery and suffering, all for nothing.

Now I believe that the whole climate change and green energy thing is a grift, a chance for the entire global ruling class to use its political power and go to war against a dreadful existential peril and also do what comes naturally, which is to hand out loot and plunder to supporters, such as subsidies for billionaires to build wind farms and subsidies to nice liberal ladies to buy hybrid cars and for lesbians to buy electric cars.

Suppose they are wrong and we are right? How do we effect "change?" The answer is: we don't; we can't. Not until things start to break. 

Here's a developing possibility: "NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio urges residents to reduce electric use during heat emergency." If you read the article it mentions power outages and voltage reductions, all on a day when the temperature at La Guardia Airport reached a mere 98 degrees F. What is not mentioned in the article is that Indian Point Nuclear Power Station, just up the Hudson River, with over 1 GW capacity, was shut down on April 30, 2021. Total demand right now is about 12 GW.

Obviously, it will take blackouts, big blackouts, blackouts that shut down whole states, before the ruling class will reverse its aversion to nuclear power and fossil fuel as demanded over the last generation by lefty activist groups. Oh, and also, it will require blackouts in locations where our ruling class lives and works.

Meanwhile,the energy contribution from "renewables," despite government subsidies and compulsion, is still minuscule. My guess is that it is physically impossible to power the whole economy from "green" energy.

So, in my view, a magnificent crash is coming. And really, the sooner the better. Because the sooner the crash comes the less expensive it will be, and the less suffering it will cause.

Of course, this applies not just to energy but every other foolish thing that our ruling class has done over the last century, whether it is government pensions, government health care, government education, government welfare, all the programs that amount to loot and plunder and which cannot be reduced because of the risk of insurrection by the folks presently in receipt of loot and plunder.

It is said that young people today approve of socialism, particularly if it gives them free health care and free college. I sympathize. They are entering the adult world after a century of loot-and-plunder politics and all the good ones are taken. So the kids are saying: we want some too!

Sorry kids. If you were smart you would start a comprehensive and mandatory movement to "end privilege now." You would want to end the taxes that go to pay for boomer entitlements, taxes that go to support dysfunctional schools and universities, "free" health care that is provided by a huge expensive corporative and credentialed blob, home mortgage subsidies and low-down payments. Because all that stuff is what is making it impossible for you guys to get a start in life.

But you don't get it. You've been carefully taught by the monopoly government education system that the solution to all problems is another loot-and-plunder operation.

People who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Because, as Margaret Thatcher said: at some point you run out of other people's money.

I should say: the ruling class runs out of other people's money.