Zakaria's latest offering in Newsweek is advise to the US on who we can catch up with the rest of the world.
As with all these articles it starts out with the warning that we are falling behind the more enlightened powers of Europe, this time on energy policy. But fear not, there is hope.
You see we can do more with wind, geothermal and Solar power--with a little bit more nuclear power.
So far so good, but then he goes on to ignore that Bush and McCain have both come out heavily in favor of nuclear power. Why not mention that? Because Fareed is non-partisan, at least when the content of his policy proposals would force him to admit the Republicans have the better of the policy argument.
He then makes the classic 'rising above mere partisan politics' argument saying,
"...even though American research labs are rising to the challenge, government action remains vital. The idea that government should "stay out" is meaningless. It is in knee-deep already; energy is a highly regulated industry. In fact, it's notable that we have low productivity and runaway inflation in two crucial areas these days—food and fuel. Both have been nationalized, protected or subsidized by governments around the world for decades."
Now that is interesting. On the one hand he starts out by claiming that the old conservative saw of getting the government out of the way of the market is outmoded, government has to be involved and already is. But then, as evidence, he gives examples of two industries where government intervention has caused stagnation. That would seem an argument precisely for getting the government out, would it not?
Then there is this,
"In a recent ranking of countries for environmental performance, jointly
produced by Yale and Columbia universities, the United States came in
39th, well behind every other advanced industrial country. (Germany
ranked 13,
Britain 14 and Japan 21.)"
Now that is strange. The first thing to note about this list is that it is not about the environment people live in but what people do to the environment. On any reckoning of how the people of the US live and how the environment affects our health we come out near the top.
But even if you look at the dread carbon production index, how can Japan be behind anyone in environmental performance? Japan is the most reliant on Nuclear energy and mass transit of any industrialized country. They can only come out badly on a list like this if they are ranked on use of "renewables". Nuclear doesn't count because it is not renewable (at least not the way we use it). So Japan suffers because it doesn't use enough wind or solar.
Now that is nice. Use an index designed to rank you as deficient if you don't use wind and solar to argue that you should use wind and solar. Cute.
As with all these articles it starts out with the warning that we are falling behind the more enlightened powers of Europe, this time on energy policy. But fear not, there is hope.
You see we can do more with wind, geothermal and Solar power--with a little bit more nuclear power.
So far so good, but then he goes on to ignore that Bush and McCain have both come out heavily in favor of nuclear power. Why not mention that? Because Fareed is non-partisan, at least when the content of his policy proposals would force him to admit the Republicans have the better of the policy argument.
He then makes the classic 'rising above mere partisan politics' argument saying,
"...even though American research labs are rising to the challenge, government action remains vital. The idea that government should "stay out" is meaningless. It is in knee-deep already; energy is a highly regulated industry. In fact, it's notable that we have low productivity and runaway inflation in two crucial areas these days—food and fuel. Both have been nationalized, protected or subsidized by governments around the world for decades."
Now that is interesting. On the one hand he starts out by claiming that the old conservative saw of getting the government out of the way of the market is outmoded, government has to be involved and already is. But then, as evidence, he gives examples of two industries where government intervention has caused stagnation. That would seem an argument precisely for getting the government out, would it not?
Then there is this,
"In a recent ranking of countries for environmental performance, jointly
produced by Yale and Columbia universities, the United States came in
39th, well behind every other advanced industrial country. (Germany
ranked 13,
Britain 14 and Japan 21.)"
Now that is strange. The first thing to note about this list is that it is not about the environment people live in but what people do to the environment. On any reckoning of how the people of the US live and how the environment affects our health we come out near the top.
But even if you look at the dread carbon production index, how can Japan be behind anyone in environmental performance? Japan is the most reliant on Nuclear energy and mass transit of any industrialized country. They can only come out badly on a list like this if they are ranked on use of "renewables". Nuclear doesn't count because it is not renewable (at least not the way we use it). So Japan suffers because it doesn't use enough wind or solar.
Now that is nice. Use an index designed to rank you as deficient if you don't use wind and solar to argue that you should use wind and solar. Cute.
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