High profile US Economist Paul Krugman has written a New York Times article in which he shows in one graph the incredible resilience and performance of the American Economy. The dark blue line below tracks the pre-pandemic long-run trend in Real GDP. Meanwhile the orange line is actual real GDP. Krugman remarks that now, in…
The case is straightforward: Google pays firms like Apple billions of dollars to make its search engine the default. (N.B. I would rephrase this as Apple charges Google billions of dollars to make its search engine the default–a phrasing which matters if you want to understand what is really going on. But set that aside […]
Most plastic simply cannot be recycled – Greenpeace, October 24, 2022 I posted about this matter a couple of years ago, based mainly on 1996 article in, of all places, the NYT, that trashed the whole concept. The writer of that original article, John Tierney, says he got more hate mail for it than any […]
The just resigned Chair of the NZ Green Investment Fund (NZGIF) and Chancellor of Auckland University, Cecilia Tarrant, previously worked at Morgan Stanley Bank in New York, starting in 1997 and finishing in 2009. She’s a very nice person, a lawyer by training, and Structured Products expert, in particular on Mortgage Backed Securities. The collapse of…
First of all, insurance companies just don’t make that much profit. UnitedHealth Group, the company of which Brian Thompson’s UnitedHealthcare is a subsidiary, is the most valuable private health insurer in the country in terms of market capitalization, and the one with the largest market share. Its net profit margin is just 6.11%… That’s only about half of […]
The principle of proportionality in war, which suggests that the use of force should be commensurate with the objectives sought and the harm avoided, is rooted in humanitarian concerns. However, in the brutal realities of war, this concept is often impractical and can even prolong conflict, resulting in greater suffering. History and military strategy suggest […]
This graphic from Nate Silver is fascinating. Up until 2010, Democrats were mainly seen as representing the working class, but now they are mainly seen as standing for marginalised groups and only 11% now identify them as representing the working class. This partially led to Trump winning white working class voters in 2016, and a…
30 years ago #Today, Netscape Navigator 1.0 browser was released. It was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s. pic.twitter.com/ffIphRCxa6
By Paul Homewood h/t Paul Kolk Why does Miliband think he has the right to spend our money as he sees fit? Ministers have been forced to step in and rescue a wind turbine factory after collapsing demand for blades pushed it to near collapse. Wind turbine maker Vestas on Wednesday said […]
For a civil society to work smoothly and effectively certain ‘social contracts’ need to have broad acceptance and be honoured by all individuals and groups. They are unwritten rules we tacitly observe. They provide a framework of understandings that allow us to live harmoniously. Some of these ‘rules’ or social contracts get defined or backed…
Bryce Edwards writes – For the governing coalition of National, Act and New Zealand First, its first year in power can be divided into three distinct periods. During the first phase, spanning from its formation in late November 2023 until early March, the coalition increased in popularity. This was the era of “the great rollback”, […]
Cost-benefit analyses affirm it would be better to abandon Net Zero policy initiatives and instead “do nothing” about greenhouse gas emissions. New research finds CO2’s largest possible climate impact is “negligible.” The cumulative expected temperature change in doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm is only 0.81°C at most, and this is “certainly not cause…
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
Recent Comments