@johanknorberg in “Power to the People”, a must see documentary on energy

Yesterday I came across a very good link to the “Free To Choose TV” website, which I had never heard before. And what a great positive surprise this was!

This website hosts many different documentaries on topics I like such as economics and economic inequality, energy, freedom and history.

The documentaries are all free to watch, and in fact the website links to the YouTube videos which are free to be linked directly to, for easier consumption of the content on any device.

This evening I had some spare time, and I decided to watch the energy documentary “Power to the People” written and conducted by Johan Norberg, who currently works at The Cato Institute.

Norberg is the author of the book “Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future” which was also featured in a very interesting book presentation event at Cato.

What I did not know is that Norberg had also worked in the energy field by creating the documentary “Power to the People”, which is a must-see for anyone who is interested in understanding more about energy, not only on the technical domain, but also for the economics involved with energy harnessing, production and distribution, and the impact of energy poverty on the communities which to this day still do not have access to electricity.

The documentary has a very negative view of the infamous German “Energiewende” and its damaged imposed to the society, including the loss of private and historic property due to increasing need to rely on lignite coal in Germany, after the inexplicable decision to shut down perfectly healthy nuclear power plants there due to a tsunami on the eastern coast of Japan.

Do yourself a favour. Watch it. You will understand energy a whole lot more than what you do today.

@yaronbrook on poverty and @PovertyINC #PovertyINC

One of the podcasts I keep listening to regularly is “The Yaron Brook Show”, with subtitle “Radical for Capitalism”, a view that I very much share with the Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

In the latest episode of his show, he tackles the issue of poverty, and he does so by using the documentary “Poverty, Inc.” as a common thread throughout the whole 1-hour long show, very much worth listening to.

I have already watched “Poverty, Inc.” as I had discovered it thanks to an event at the Cato Institute in early April, and I immediately ordered the DVD which I received in May.

I really liked the movie, and the harsh critiques against the business of charities and NGOs worldwide, which today are a huge industry, in a lot cases fueled by a lot of taxpayers money. It is clear that in a lot of cases the political decisions taken by the states and companies active in charity are doing more harm than good in the longer term, and the movie does an excellent job at providing hard facts to support this view.

In fact, in most cases what charities and NGOs do, after an initial benefit provided following the event which causes the intervention (earthquake, famine, civil war, flooding), is to simply damage the local economy to a point where there is no way out other than keeping the leash with those who now provide the “welfare”.

Of course no charity or NGO will work against their own interest, and so their aim is NOT to solve the poverty issue, but rather to keep it the way it is, so their existence can be further justified moving forward in time, and thus many years after the earthquake in Haiti, you still have hundreds of NGOs active there, because the local economy has been destroyed precisely by the handouts given by charities and NGOs!

Talk about a conflict of interests there…

The movie is a must-see in my opinion, as it will open your eyes on one more bad thing caused by the action of those who just want to feel less guilt and keep writing checks and donating huge amounts of money, rather than really solving the poverty issue.

Poverty which, without anyone’s intervention, has already been decreasing rapidly in many parts of the world, thanks to Capitalism, as Yaron Brook reminded us all some time ago.

And this is why we should all be strongly push in favour of Capitalism, and not against it. Because it’s thru Capitalism that we can get rid of poverty.

Here is the movie trailer:

The continuous growth of @humanprogress in the world @CatoInstitute

The Cato Institute hosted a briefing from the Human Progress project last week, and has published the video of the event online.

The event title is quite clear on what has been going on in this world: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy: The Cato Institute’s HumanProgress Project”.

There are in fact many reasons for being very upbeat and happy of the developments we are witnessing on this planet, especially in the last 50 years. This image tells it all:

The event video will open your eyes on many truths which the catastrophists do not want you to know about. Enjoy the view!

http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/dont-worry-be-happy-cato-institutes-humanprogress-project

After the video, proceed to the HumanProgress.org website and browse the data, and create the views you prefer. I am convinced you will be surprised by how good things are in today’s world.

And the good news is, there is always room for improvement!