Nov 17 2011
Law & Disorder: The Broken Window Theory
There is a theory about how a level of tolerance can creep into a neighborhood (or even a society) because people turn their backs on their little slice of paradise in America and then create a crime ridden, economically bankrupt mess. It is call The Broken Windows Theory:
The theory states that monitoring and maintaining urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism as well as an escalation into more serious crime.
It’s not rocket science. If you maintain your neighborhood (or society) crime will be less and value will go up. If you look the other way, crime will become the norm, people will give up on order and embrace chaos, and value goes down.
While we have all cringed in horror over the Penn State-Sandusky nightmare, one reaction has been consistent – why wasn’t this stopped when uncovered?
Simply because people looked the other way. It is simply another example of The Broken Window Theory. Instead of cleaning up their organization, Penn State let an animal run lose and terrorize little boys. They looked the other way. Now look at their little slice of paradise – it’s destroyed.
So, as a society, what are we doing about our Broken Windows? Let’s see:
In 2010, BrightSource was in deep trouble. It was $1.8 billion in debt and was losing money hand over fist–a $71.6 million loss on a mere $13.5 million in revenue. A company destined to go down the drain, one would think. But no! The Obama administration bailed out BrightSource to the tune of a cool $1.4 billion in loan guarantees.
How could that possibly have happened? Well, start with the fact that the principal investor in BrightSource is VantagePoint Partners. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a Venture Partner in VantagePoint. But BrightSource had an even more valuable contact than that:
Sanjay Wagle…was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. When Obama won the White House, Wagle was installed at the Department of Energy (DOE), advising on energy grants.
So Obama appointed a fundraiser with interests in BrightSource to oversee a $1.4 billion dollar loan guarantee to his investment group – dwarfing the Solyndra mess which has the same illegal and unethical stench to it. Note how the loan is much larger than the losses to date, meaning they will lose 100’s of millions more before this disaster finally crashes down.
This is how the company describes itself as an investment risk (H/T Powerline):
We expect that our net losses and our negative operating cash flows will continue for the foreseeable future, as we increase our development activities and construct solar thermal energy projects. …
Our proprietary technology has a limited history and may perform below expectations when implemented on utility-scale projects.
We use proprietary technology that has not been previously implemented on utility-scale projects of the size and complexity of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, or Ivanpah, and Ivanpah may experience technological problems that neither we nor any of the third-party independent engineers that have reviewed our projects are able to foresee.
In other words, don’t waste a dime on these folks. They have no idea if their ideas will work and so far they have only succeeded in (a) losing 100’s of millions of dollars and (b) robbing the US treasury for capitol.
This is a seriously broken window. It is the political elite raiding the taxes of hard working middle America to line their pockets, jet around the world, buy expensive toys and be completely irresponsible for their results. It is sick.
Average people in this country are struggling to pay for school, healthcare, repairs to the car, a cheap vacation, etc. And these white collar thieves are appointed by the community organizer/head thief to waste the money taxpayers earned but were not allowed to use for themselves. It is pathetic.
If there is no outrage, if we do not fix these broken windows, this generation will be known as the ones who destroyed a great nation with their greed and laziness. It is time to clean out the cesspool in DC. It is time to fix the windows, put the abusers behind bars (so they know there is a severe price to pay for this criminal behavior) and shrink government back down to its bare minimum.
I would rather see a family spend their money on a few expensive and unneeded items than see the corrupt scion of a once great American family waste that same money on dodgy green snake oil. This is what the 2012 election should be about. Dismantling Dept of Energy, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Obamacare and all these other lame ideas that throw away hard earned money that they did not earn. All the stupid ideas proposed by big-government poseurs -who really just want to raid taxpayers because their too lazy or incompetent to create a real solution, a real business, a real service – need to be shut down.
We need bold change in DC, not tinkering on the margins, or the opposing power’s people grabbing at the same treasury for their purposes. We need change.
Obama is behaving just like his predessors, Idi Amin, Robert Mgabwe and their ilk, who obtained control of third world countries’ governments and purse strings, and then looted them and left the inhabitants imired in debt and proverty for the foreseeable future. It must be in their genes. Has anyone checked to see how many of Obama’s inside cabal have Swiss bank accts?
Absolutely right about the need for radical change! We are so far past the broken window theory now…
As you say, that theory holds that everything gets worse as windows are broken by thugs and other petty criminals, and no one responds, no one does anything about it. This guarantees that things continue getting worse.
Sadly, that’s what where we’ve been the last 20 years, at least. NOW we are in a new, much much worse position!!! The police who are supposed to protect us – the DOJ, the Department of Energy, the ATF – have now turned into armed gangs who are prowling our metaphorical streets and breaking all the windows they can themselves!
We don’t have a government that is doing nothing about this, which would be bad – we have a government that is currently doing everything it can to destroy as much as it can!
This current government has become a blight on the land, and the greatest threat to the America we love. It must be overturned, if we are to survive.
Kristallnacht!
This link: http://mises.org/daily/5651 – To Serve and Protect you? The State
Excerpted and snippet:
What, Then, Is the Purpose of the Police?
The American legal system is rooted in English common law, and the modern American policeman harkens back to English sheriffs, who were paid by and accountable to the government, not to the community. The main purpose of the sheriff was to enforcement what were called “government decisions.” Maintaining public order was also a concern, but “order” was defined by the government.
In short, the roots of the modern police force in England, as in Ireland, came from a perceived need for social control.
As in England, so too in America. Peel’s model was largely adopted by American cities during the 19th century. As Carl Watner pointed out,
One of the dominant themes in the history of police in the United States has been the struggle over which political faction would control the police. Under the U.S. Constitution, police power was not a federal responsibility, but rather an obligation of either the state, county, or local governments. Since control over the police was a local responsibility, it had to vacillate “between city or state elective authorities. Thus, nowhere was the embrace of police and politics tighter than in the United States.”
Thus, the United States Supreme Court decision in Castle Rock should have surprised no one. If the court had found that restraining orders were constitutional entitlements to protection, then the fundamental purpose of American law enforcement would have shifted away from service to law toward service to individuals. Moreover, such a court precedent would have released a paralyzing flood of lawsuits against police departments. This, too, might have changed the “job description” of law enforcement in America.
Conclusion
And so, the real message of the Gonzales tragedy is this: Protect yourself, because the police are not paid to care.
luckily comments are only closed on the “comments closed” thread.
administrative suggestion:
Anthony Watts’ site has what seems an effective solution to similar situations – he and Charles the Moderator simply delete the language of posts that go beyond what they view as civil discourse and leave an editor’s note in it’s place, such “comment deleted due to offensive nature”. Also, I think they build some site loyalty by not banning posters unless there are multiple similar occurrences. For instance, I have occasionally had posts snipped there, but generally it was because I didn’t quite grasp how something I wrote would be taken. (They also edit for getting too far off topic) It gives posters the chance to learn and conform, while reserving the right to eliminate truly bad actors.
having watched it in practice for several years now (and WUWT has become one of the most popular blogs on the web, with hundreds of responses posted daily) this appears to me (and many others) to be the most effective and balanced way to deal with a situation that occurs on every comment allowing blog.
Note that Spain is set to throw the Socialists out with gusto on Sunday. Looks like a landslide win for the right.
14,000 abandoned wind turbines
November 19, 2011 by Don Surber
As Jimi Hendrix may have put it: “And the wind cries bankrupt…”
Minnesotans for Global Warming report that in the last 30 years, the United States has had 14,000 wind turbines abandoned. Apparently, once the subsidies and the wind run out, these 20-story high Cuisinarts are de-bladed and retired. This means more bats and migratory birds will live.
Back during Lyndon Johnson’s great society days, the governmnet was handing out grants to every screwball with a cockamanny idea related to alternative engery. I attended a meeting in charleston SC shortly after Reagan was elected in which Sec. of Energy James Edwards explained why Reagan was cutting out most of those grants. There were over 1,000 people there who stood to lose their government money. To my knowledge none of them ever came up with a viable alternative to coal and gas. I visited several of these fed. funded projects and most of them were laughable. Solar didn’t work on a big scale because the sun was so hot it melted the generators, wind was not predictible. It was then, as it is now, one giant boondoggle. A totaql waste of money.