Straight talk and otherwise on energy policy

Harvard professor Greg Mankiw liked Barack Obama's answer on energy policy at last night's debate. Hillary, not so much: "Instead, she offers some typical vacuous blather about requiring utility companies to help us all become more energy efficient. I think of this as "magic-wand economics." Like your fairy godmother, the President can wave a magic wand and make your problems disappear."

I'm having a deja vu moment from when I criticized John Kerry on this magic wand policy back in 2003: "I can't suppress a cringe whenever I hear this "invent" line. We can't build an energy policy on the hope that some engineer will invent a way out of our dependence on foreign oil. That is no policy at all."