The Cycling Tour (The longest single storyline Monty Python wrote)
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in television Tags: Monty Python
#FreeAhedTamimi rewards violent political protests @AmnestyNZ; would encourage more violent confrontations with soldiers
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, International law
Proposed Reserve Bank Act changes – Stage 1
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in economics
My previous post concentrated mostly on the new Policy Targets Agreement, which will govern monetary policy, under the current Act, for the next year or so.
In this post, I want to concentrate on the announcements made by the Minister of Finance about the first stage of his planned legislative reforms. There is a summary graphic, and a set of questions and answers.
The proposed reforms represent a step forward. We’ve been in the peculiar position for almost 30 years in which one individual, not even appointed directly by the Minister of Finance, made all the monetary policy decisions. It made it easy to know who to fire – that was the argument made for the model in the late 1980s – but it was a model that was out of step with how almost every other public agency was run and (as became increasingly apparent) with…
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Down and out on the US welfare safety net
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: social insurance, welfare state
How the Ban on Lion Hunting Killed the Lions
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in economics
Soon after the Trump Administration announced lifting the ban on importing the heads, hides and tusks of elephants and other big game, environmentalist groups filed a lawsuit last week to stop the policy revision.
Opposition to trophy hunting results in making species, like elephants and lions, extinct. A trip to Africa in 2008 completely changed Danish wildlife activist’s Mikkel Legarth life. In this TED speech, after volunteering to care for the area’s big cats, Mikkel extended his stay to 10 months, where he saw first hand how trophy a ban on trophy hunting in Botswana resulted in lions in the country nearly being eradicated.
Identity Politics As “An Enemy of Reason and Enlightenment Values”
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in economics
One of the world’s greatest operatic Tenors, Jonas Kaufmann, is quoted as saying that half of Europe’s operas could face the axe due to the #MeToo movement and the antipathy toward perceived misogynistic stories. This is the latest shadow cast on Western Civilization thanks to the misandric, feminist hard-Left’s attack on high-profile men and an extension of the nihilistic Left’s identity politics.
It is refreshing that, despite his Leftism, that author and scientist Steve Pinker’s open transmission and defense of Enlightenment ideas and values coupled with his criticism of Left’s identity politics is revealed in a new book he authored. An interview with Dr. Pinker was printed in the latest edition of The Weekly Standard last week and he is even being defended by prominent conservatives like Benjamin Shapiro.
The environmentalist movement is a segment of the Left’s campaign against civilization along with its allies in #MeToo and other…
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On the new PTA
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in economics
The last ever Policy Targets Agreement was released this morning, signed by the incoming Governor and the Minister of Finance. With it came the decisions the government has made on reforms to the legislative framework governing monetary policy (decision makers, governance, transparency etc). We are now finally getting past the year in which first the outgoing Governor was a lame-duck, and then the period when there was no lawful “acting Governor” or lawful “Policy Targets Agreement” – and even if you did regard both as lawful, they were no better than caretakers. With the government’s planned reforms such an unfortunate hiatus should never happen again (as it doesn’t happen abroad).
The Policy Targets Agreement is the key document in short-term macroeconomic management in New Zealand: it is the mandate for the Governor in his role as single decisionmaker on monetary policy, and monetary policy is the active tool for…
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Why Do Tornadoes Hate America?
26 Mar 2018 Leave a comment
in economics of natural disasters Tags: tornadoes
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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