If you’d ever like to visit a physical embodiment of the argument that government should get out and stay out of just about everything, take Interstate 15 from Southern California toward Las Vegas and stop near the Nevada border to gawk at the Ivanpah solar power plant.

It looks like three alien amphitheatres, each sold-out with silver rectangular beings gazing at a spiky tower crowned with a glowing glass aquarium. On the ground, you may see the charred carcasses of birds that were sacrificed when they flew through the crowd’s hot gaze.

There’s nothing alien about the thing’s origins. It’s an accidental descendant of reckless subprime mortgages and the financial engineering that exploited them. When it all went wrong and threatened to take down the world financial system, the federal go

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