That’s what the Investor’s Business Daily editorial Cold, Hard Facts reports happened. Really.

The editorial is based on Steve McIntyre’s research, reported on his site Climate Audit in the post Did Napoleon Use Hansen’s Temperature Data?

The problem with this group, as alluded to above, is that they seek to accomplish their goal by using government. As reported in the Wichita Eagle (Group seeks support for train service through Wichita), “The director of a group seeking expanded passenger rail service through Wichita today asked City Council members to pass a resolution urging the state to include in its upcoming transportation plan a new Amtrak line stretching from Oklahoma City to Wichita and on to Kansas City.”

So this group is asking Wichita (and many other towns and cities) to apply pressure to the State of Kansas to subsidize this rail line. This group is another example of political entrepreneurship in action. Instead of practicing market entrepreneurship — that’s where you develop and deliver services and products that people actually want enough to pay for — this group seeks to accomplish its goals by influencing politicians and bureaucrats. They were successful in Oklahoma.

If we want passenger train service that is truly successful, this group should work to raise private capital rather than seeking government subsidy. This is the only way we’ll know whether this train service is something that truly adds value, or whether it is just another “amenity” the government provides by taxing one person to subsidize someone else.

His talk was based on the Knightfall book, which is to say it paints a somewhat grim picture of the present state of newspapers and newspaper journalism. It’s important to distinguish between the type of journalism that newspapers do, as compared to journalism from other sources such as television. Newspaper journalism doesn’t necessarily have to be delivered in the traditional newspaper printed on the fibers of dead trees, but it’s important to democracy that this form of journalism survives.

One point I learned last night is that not all of the operations of a newspaper have to be carried over to the Internet. Only 25% does, says Mr. Merritt. The remaining, I believe, is costs such as printing and distribution that won’t apply to an Internet-based delivery model.

Those costs of printing and distribution are large. In the late 1990s, when the Wichita Eagle needed to increase its profit contribution to its parent corporation from 20% to 22.5%, it accomplished that goal by canceling the distribution of 10,000 daily newspapers to western Kansas. This was a profitable business move, but hardly one that advanced journalism.

It’s well-known that young people don’t read newspapers very much, and that’s one source of newspapers’ problems. I asked if maybe young people don’t appreciate and value the type of journalism that newspapers practice. Mr. Merritt replied that he believes they do value it, if it affects them.

A few in the audience expressed how reading on the computer screen is not pleasant. I would suggest to these people to check their equipment and its adjustments. For CRT monitors (the old-fashioned tube-style monitors), there’s a setting usually known as “refresh rate” which if set incorrectly, causes flicker. That’s definitely annoying and can cause headaches. Many people also have old monitors that are simply too small, or are set to use such a low resolution, that not much material can be seen on the screen at one time. For LCD panel users, there are also adjustments that are critical for a good viewing experience. With good equipment, which doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, the experience of reading on the computer can be much improved.

What also happened is that the Johnson County party suspended 15 precinct leaders (committeeman and committeewomen, presumably) for supporting and donating money to Democratic candidates who were running against Republicans. Tough crowd up there! We had a similar situation in Sedgwick County, where nominally Republican groups spent some $19,000 in an effort to elect a Democrat over Republican Karl Peterjohn to the Sedgwick County Commission. So far there hasn’t been similar outrage expressed here.

(It’s revealing to learn that an accounting firm has someone with the title “regional leader of credits and incentives,” whose duty, evidently, it is to help companies figure out which state’s incentives are most valuable. Actually, since the title is “leader” there’s probably a whole department of people doing this.)

The problem with Kansas, according to this speaker, is that we grant tax credits to companies instead of outright cash. That puts our state at a competitive advantage compared to states that are willing to write checks upfront.

The subsidies offered can be staggering. It’s estimated that a Mercedez-Benz plant in Alabama cost that state over $150,000 per job created.

We should stop this competition among the states based on their willingness to spend taxpayer money to lure companies. As it is unlikely that any state will be willing to unilaterally stop this on their own, we need legislation at the federal level that will end this tremendous transfer of taxpayer funds to a few select companies.

Then, states can start competing on things that really matter, like a lower tax climate for everyone.

Here’s the first problem with Mr. Merritt’s argument: what we live in is anything but a free market society. George Reisman details just how far removed we are from anything resembling free markets in The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis.

Then, Mr. Merritt warns that free market theory is doomed to fail because “perfect theories require perfect people.” I don’t know precisely who he refers to as not perfect, but judging from the tone of the article, I think he’s condemning greedy businesspeople who are the cause of the present financial crisis. In particular, investment bankers. Demonizing these people on general grounds doesn’t help. Instead: Did they steal from their shareholders? Did they commit fraud when they issued sub-prime loans? These acts are illegal, and to the extent they were committed, let’s prosecute them.

Greed — human self-interest — is a constant factor. It’s what drives people to expend tremendous effort to accomplish great things for the betterment of mankind. It can also drive people to accept a sub-prime mortgage loan that they can’t repay in order to buy a house they can’t afford — but, greedily, want nonetheless. It works both ways. So we need good rules that prevent people from using theft, force, and fraud to unjustly enrich themselves. These good rules are easier to create and enforce, and more reliable, than a false hope the people will start behaving “good.”

Besides, couldn’t we also say that good government requires good politicians, bureaucrats, and administrators? I’m surprised that an editor of a newspaper — someone who must have experienced the political process close-up — would have such confidence in government instead of people.

Mr. Merritt cites the “hands-off, no-regulation attitude of the current administration” as bad for people and economic welfare. If we had been experiencing a period of reductions in regulation, we might have evidence for this claim. The Heritage Foundation report Red Tape Rising: Regulatory Trends in the Bush Years debunks the myth that regulation has decreased during the presidency of George W. Bush: “Far from shrinking to dangerously low levels, regulation has actually grown substantially during the Bush years. By almost every measure, regulatory burdens are up.”

Mr. Merritt’s editorial, if its advice is taken, will lead us towards more regulation and reliance on government. That’s not what we need.

Perhaps it is my naivete that makes me believe that in order to have a truly “successful” election that there must first be more than one candidate on the ballot. Throughout history, a country in which leaders are selected in back rooms and then presented to the voting public as a slate was ultimately ruled as a dictatorship. Cuba, Lybia, Argentina, Venezuela, and many communistic countries have “elections” at which, not unlike ours of Thursday, the singular choice for a position was made by an elite few and any further nominations or candidates were strongly discouraged. Fortunately in America we do not discourage at gunpoint as of yet. But any discouragement of candidates interested in seeking out an office is still a gross manipulation of a supposedly free and honest nation.

As a political party our charter should be to encourage new leaders. To help those who have never sought any office feel like they have support and assistance in taking that nerve wrecking step into public life. It is not for a few to horde as many offices as possible nor to pass around the positions amongst a few. Those few who have successfully held positions should be encouraged to reach for higher positions, or at the least, be the mentors to those with the desires but maybe not the developed skills. To guide and aid them into their new positions but not to do the job for them.

Hand picking leadership is as old as ancient civilizations but we must forever be mindful that whenever we forego our voting privileges to a slate we are giving up some of the liberties our own forefather’s fought and died for. Remember that their sacrifice was so that we may each have the opportunities to hold office and have a say in our government, no matter what our socio-economic origins are.

I’ve heard stuff like this over and over the past few months: A politician says “I’m a big free-market guy, but …”

What’s sad to realize is that these people think that what we have in American is free markets and laissez-faire capitalism. We don’t have these. See my post The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis.

The sooner that we understand that it is largely government that is the cause of the present crisis, we can realize that relying on government for a cure is dangerous and predetermined to fail.

Resources: The Bailout Reader at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Global Financial Crisis at the Cato Institute.

Key points:

“The fallacy is the same in every case: Even if the program creates jobs building bridges or windmills, it necessarily prevents other jobs from being created. This is because government spending merely diverts money from private projects to government projects.” Stossel relies on Frederic Bastiat and his explanation of the broken window fallacy for support. This fallacy is expertfully explained by Henry Hazlitt, and I quote him extensively in my post Henry Hazlitt Explains Frederic Bastiat, or, A Broken Window Really Hurts No Matter What the New York Times Says. Hazlitt also has much to say about the folly of creating jobs through public works projects.

“Governments create no wealth. They only move it around while taking a cut for their trouble. So any jobs created over here come at the expense of jobs that would have been created over there.” Advocates of government allocation of jobs usually claim that this control is necessary because of market failure. In other words, left to their own, investors can’t figure out where investment is most valued. Government “wisdom” is required.

“Politicians have a lousy record trying to make ’strategic investments.’ President Jimmy Carter’s Synthetic Fuels Corporation cost taxpayers at least $19 billion but failed to give us alternative fuels.”

And this very important point:

One reason decentralized markets are preferable to government central planning is that human beings are fallible. Mistakes are inevitable. Some investments will be errors. Mistakes in the market tend to be on a comparatively small scale. If one company invests in plug-in hybrids and it goes bust, only a relatively few people suffer. The assets of the bankrupt firm pass into more capable hands.

But decisions by government, especially the federal government, affect all of us. When government makes a mistake, the bureaucracy can’t go bankrupt. Instead, it will use its failure to justify increased appropriations in the next budget.

This is perhaps the most important insight in this article. Government programs tend to be monolithic, and once started are difficult to modify in light of changing conditions or things learned. We need entrepreneurs with their dynamic discovery process rather than government bureaucrats and politicians to guide this process.