Dear America,
As any of you whom I could rightfully call my readers know, I am fixated, if not obsessed with people thinking for themselves as opposed to subscribing to the thoughts of others. As you have read in these letters before, I habitually adjure you to think with your own heads, not someone else's. This past weekend I came across evidence that it is easy to get lulled into false credence...even if you are dead set against it. I saw a piece in the New York Times "Week in Review" that was an outing of various purveyors of canards around the world, and I was particularly struck by one that related to toasters. The European Union, or EU, has embarked upon a systematic evaluation of the energy efficiency of appliances in the midst of a broader course of study on increasing energy efficiency and reducing green house gas emissions within its regulatory ambit, and among the appliances studied was toasters. The British publications The Daily Express and The Daily Mail, which I assume to be tabloids based on the following, decried the purported intention of the EU to ban toasters among other appliances. So I went on the internet looking for an original account of what the EU is actually doing vis-à-vis toasters and I discovered that, while the EU may issue legislation or regulations regarding toaster efficiency, it is still under study, and initial indications are that toasters having two slots will be required to offer operation of a single slot at a time in order to eliminate the wasteful heating of elements in the unused slot when the user wants only a single slice of toast. As some of you may be aware because you own them, such toasters are available in this country, though I would wager that most households (and I include this one) don't have them. In my wife's and my defense, the only things we toast are bagels, and since they only get toasted after being sliced in two, we always need two slots when we use the toaster, but now that I think about it, a toaster that can be operated one slot or two slots at a time at my option makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, that feature on toasters is apparently proprietary, so only a few manufacturers make them, but the idea still makes sense, and making such features available universally on new toasters is a thing to be pursued in my opinion, whether with new technology or licenses for the old, but either way, the claim by The Daily's that the EU was threatening to ban toasters was an exaggeration at the very least if not an absurd misrepresentation that swept the nation and became emblematic of the British movement to withdraw from the EU.
In the course of researching the toaster thing, I came across a commentary on the Glass-Steagall Act, which you may recall me writing to you about in the past...many times...and it was written by David Stockman. Stockman was Ronald Reagan's budget expert, and over the past few years I have seen him interviewed on television by some very credible people regarding deficit spending and the like, and he is surprisingly rational about such things. So, when I read his thinking on the big banks and the need to re-enact Glass-Steagall in lieu of the watered down, politically kneaded Dodd-Frank Act, I once again credited him with sagacity. First of all, he agrees with me. But in the end, I felt affirmed only until I read more on the website on which it appeared: David Stockman's "Contra Corner." As it turned out, there were articles on that site advocating auditing The Fed, which is one of Rand Paul's libertarian fixations, and various diatribes against "crony capitalism" (a pet peeve of mine too), not just the toaster thing. But there also appeared articles by a guy named Pater Tenenbrarum, who it turns out is one of those Hayek/von Mises economics guys, all of whom fall under the rubric "lunatic fringe" in my opinion. I don't subscribe to the notion that a belief is valid just because someone propounded it a hundred years ago, although guys like Glen Beck seem to. The corollary to that principle is that I don't subscribe to the views of people who rely on such antique ideas just because they have some kind of intellectual "cred" by virtue of their reliance on them today. Thus, I viewed Tenenbrarum's views on everything, including toasters, with a uniform tendency to dismiss them, but many people aren't as skeptical as I am. The consequence is that the Libertarian camp gets credence for all its ideas in the form of votes for candidates like Rand Paul, which opens the door for the crackpot aspects of their political platform. That's why this issue is important.
In Britain, there has always been ambivalence about the EU, and I can understand that. But a canard about banning toasters shouldn't be among the considerations of the British when they decide, and perhaps vote, on whether to stay in it. Likewise, auditing the Federal Reserve, as Rand Paul suggests, might have a glitzy appeal to those who view monetary policy with suspicion as an artificial manipulation of free market principles...that's the Hayek/von Mises school of thought...and there might even be some merit to doing so, but whether you believe that there is a need for such an audit, it is not the case that government mandates about low-flow toilets and more efficient light bulbs are tyranny, again, as Rand Paul suggests. Paul justifies his campaign against low-flow toilets with the claim that the pipes in his house clog because the toilets don't flush with the force needed to clear them: a pure canard, though you can find confirmation of the myth on the internet easily...unless you look to a reliable source. The EPA has a program called "Watersense" that certifies new toilets for performance and efficiency. Meeting the new standards by which Watersense goes is confirmed by independent testing of individual products, and while the original high-efficiency toilets of the early 1990's had problems, modified designs have rectified them, and new toilets perform just as well as old style, high flow toilets. That doesn't mean that new toilets never clog, but old toilets clogged too...just no more than new ones. As to light bulbs, they are flawed to some extent, but we are still importing millions of barrels of oil every day, so we have to do something in the way of common efforts to address the common problem of reliance on the resources of others who may not themselves be too reliable over time. And as to LED bulbs, I replaced all the bulbs in my house and my electric bill for consumption is down 25%, so they have paid for themselves. So Paul voiced his subscription to a myth in the case of toilets, and he ignored what has been a national goal for decades, energy independence, because he doesn't like being told what to do...even when it is everybody's best interest, even his. Now he is running for president. What would he do if he were elected, and more importantly, what would he base his decisions on. That's the crux of it, and that is why I always say, think with your own head, not someone else's, and make sure you do it before you vote.
Your friend,
Mike
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