@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!

@RubinReport on the interview with @Nero on campus at UCLA last week

I have discovered Dave Rubin and his “Rubin Report” not long ago, when Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute was his guest on the show, and the two had a great interaction. Truly a great interview, well worth watching!

After watching the show with Yaron Brook, I watched a few more interviews, and found the episodes with Milo Yannopoulos. He was a guest twice, once in October 2015 and more recently in March 2016.

Both interviews with Milo were a big eye opener for me. It is not common to see a left-leaning liberal like Dave Rubin entertain a pleasant and fruitful discussion with a classical liberal and libertarian like Milo Yannopoulos, and do it in a fun way, disagreeing when it’s time to disagree, and agreeing when both views are in sync.

What a breath of fresh air! No wonder Dave Rubin is very much at odds with the current “regressive left”, as he likes to call it, full of political correctness, which is another way to spell bullshit, and full of one-way lies. Because, let’s face it, today’s left does a lot of things which, had they been done by someone on the right, would make them cry bloody murder.

Basically, he is upset and sick of seeing the left apply double standards on everything they do, and is trying hard to make more people understand that this is very wrong, and is only playing in Donald Trump’s favor for the upcoming US Presidential elections this coming November.

Want more proof of the many wrong things the leftists do? Then just watch and listen to what Dave Rubin said regarding the event he and Milo had at UCLA a few days ago:

This comment from Dave Rubin clearly remarks the issue the left is facing, and not only in the US:

A group of these protesters created a human wall to stop people from getting inside. Apparently they’re opposed to Trump building a wall, but not opposed to building one themselves.

This is precisely why I will never be able to subscribe to the ideas of this kind of left. They are always in favor of double standards, what is valid for the others is never valid for them.

And when a left-leaning liberal like Dave Rubin highlights these things so clearly, maybe there is hope that something will finally change in this world.

@EIAgov Primary US Energy Source-To-Sector Chart 2015

EIA, the US Energy Information Administration, has just released a very interesting chart which demonstrates the flows between the primary energy sources and the sector which uses that specific source of energy.

This chart shows really well how petroleum products are fundamental for the transportation sector, how gas is playing a very major role in both industrial and residential and commercial uses, and how nuclear is 100% used to produce electricity in the US; there are some cases where heath from nuclear fission is used for industrial and residential environments here in Switzerland (Beznau and Gösgen NPP).

US_primary_energy_consumption_2015

The EIA newsletters are always a very nice source for information, though they are mostly focused on the USA. Still, they represent trends of the country with probably the most advanced technology in the energy space, so we can always learn a lot from this information.

Here is the full text of today’s “Monthly Energy Review” newsletter:

PRIMARY ENERGY SOURCE-TO-SECTOR CHART — May 31, 2016

U.S. Energy Information Administration releases 2015 U.S. primary energy consumption chart 

EIA’s newly updated source-to-sector chart shows the disposition of the 98 quadrillion Btu of energy consumed in the United States in 2015. The chart illustrates how much petroleum, natural gas, coal, renewable energy, and nuclear electric power is distributed to the electric power sector and the end-use sectors.

The chart shows that in 2015:

  • The electric power sector was the only consumer of nuclear electric power and the largest consumer of coal (91% of total coal consumption), renewable energy (53% of total renewable energy consumption), and natural gas (35% of total natural gas consumption.).
  • Seventy-two percent of all petroleum consumption was used by the transportation sector, where it supplied almost all (92%) of the sector’s energy needs.
  • Natural gas supplied 76% of the primary energy used by the residential and commercial sectors and 44% of the primary energy used by the industrial sector.

The primary energy source-to-sector chart is based on energy statistics from the Monthly Energy Review, which provides monthly and annual data on total energy production, consumption, and trade; energy prices; overviews of petroleum, natural gas, coal, electricity, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and international petroleum; carbon dioxide emissions; and data unit conversions.