Utopia, you are standing in it!

From nobody and hence it needs a chief economist urgently.

Amanda Glassman has a post on how WHO messes up on basic health economics. She also links to this more detailed letter by health economics expert citing many mistakes made by WHO.

by David Carey and Andrew Barker, New Zealand Desk, OECD Economics Department

In real terms, house prices in New Zealand increased more than in any other OECD country between 2010 and 2016 (Figure 1). While house price increases have supported economic growth through wealth-induced consumption growth, they have also created a number of social and economic problems. Housing affordability has been undermined, particularly for those with low incomes: housing costs for the bottom fifth of households reached 54% of income in 2015, up from under 30% in 1990. Driven by mortgage growth, the ratio of household debt to disposable income now exceeds the level recorded prior to the global financial crisis and is high compared with other OECD countries (Figure 2). This raises financial stability risks. House price increases also undermine productivity growth by inhibiting people from moving into economically successful, highly productive urban areas.

Price increases have been most…

by Andrew Barker, New Zealand Desk, OECD Economics Department

Productivity growth will be the main driver of global economic growth and prosperity over the coming decades. For New Zealand, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity, as NZ productivity is below that of leading OECD countries (Figure 1). This problem is not new, and previous OECD work has shown that distance from markets is a substantial part of the explanation. The key question, considered in the 2017 OECD Economic Survey of New Zealand, is what can be done to improve generally sound policy settings in New Zealand so as to boost productivity, in spite of the economic challenges posed by its remote location.

Overcoming distance barriers means that New Zealand needs to do everything possible to increase benefits from international connections. As a small country, it is reliant on foreign direct investment to provide access to global supply…

Reader John W. sent me the photo below, showing women in Kabul in 1970 and the present, clearly meant to underscore the religously-induced difference in dress.

But of course those photos could be cherry-picked.  Then I remembered that, at her talk in Vancouver, Maryam Namazie, discussing the burqa, also said that since her youth, women in her Iranian homeland have been increasingly swathed and covered according to the dictates of Islam.

So I simply did a few Google Image searches, and show in each case the first four rows of photos. I make no claim that these photos are a random sample of women (that’s not the way Google Image works), but I think they’re still telling.  Click on the links to go to the full search. You can enlarge all photos by clicking on them (twice, with a few moments in between each click, to eliminate the book icons).

Tehran, women, 1970 (there…

From PuffHo (click screenshot to see a necessity made into a virtue):

There’s Feminist Sarsour at lower left

Saying “I am a hijabi feminist” is like saying “I’m a Confederate-flag-waving anti-racist” or “I’m a ball-and-chain toting, striped-suit-wearing free man.”

Three quotes from Sidra Binte Islam’s piece:

24:30:

“Tell the believing men that they should reduce/lower (يغضوا) their gaze/vision and guard their private parts…”

24:31: