There has been fairly predictable outrage this week at the revelation by Judith Collins, the minister in charge of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and Security Intelligence Service (SIS), that China spied on our Parliament in 2021. China has denied the accusation, but knowing Judith Collins as I do – and have done for…
DON BRASH: SPYING: IT’S WHAT GREAT POWERS DO
DON BRASH: SPYING: IT’S WHAT GREAT POWERS DO
30 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: China
Say It Ain’t So, Joe: The House Formally Invites President Biden to Testify in Impeachment Inquiry
30 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: 2020 presidential election, 2024 presidential election

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer has sent a seven-page letter (below) to invite President Joe Biden to testify in the Republican impeachment inquiry. The letter is the latest, and best, reduction of the glaring contradictions in the President’s past statements on his family’s well-documented influence peddling operation. President Biden is not expected to testify. […]
Say It Ain’t So, Joe: The House Formally Invites President Biden to Testify in Impeachment Inquiry
Productivity Syndrome and the Investment Prescription
30 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics

Economic productivity is about growing the size of the pie. I sometimes point out that no matter what your goal–spending increases, tax cuts, greater support for the poor, environmental protection–that goal is easier when the economic pie is growing. When the economic pie isn’t growing, after all, then all priorities have to pit potential winners…
Productivity Syndrome and the Investment Prescription
How the Carbon Cult Subverts Political Discourse
30 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: Canada, climate alarmism

Trudeau Turns the Carbon Tax Screws on Canadians April 1 Ross Mckitrick explains the smoke and mirrors in Trudeau’s justifications for his racheting carbon tax in a National Post article Wanted: A leader who is honest about climate policy. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. Pierre Poilievre is leading anti-carbon tax rallies […]
How the Carbon Cult Subverts Political Discourse
Will strong AI raise or lower interest rates?
29 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, energy economics, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation Tags: artificial intelligence
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one excerpt: First, as a matter of practice, if there is a true AI boom, or the advent of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the demand for capital expenditures (capex) will be extremely high. Second, as a matter of theory, the productivity of capital is […]
Will strong AI raise or lower interest rates?
The Real Climate Crisis: Relying Upon Weather-Dependent Wind & Solar
29 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: solar power, wind power

Frozen wind turbines and solar panels buried under piles of snow and ice produce nothing at all, except photo opportunities. When the weather conspires against the ‘unreliables’, somewhere there will be a coal, or gas or diesel powered generator ready to swing into action and prevent you from freezing in the dark. However, if the […]
The Real Climate Crisis: Relying Upon Weather-Dependent Wind & Solar
Cheat sheet
29 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education, income redistribution, liberalism, Marxist economics, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick, rentseeking Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, regressive left

No holding back
29 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, liberalism Tags: Age of Enlightenment, Freedom of religion
The EU’s net zero retreat is gathering steam
28 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: electric cars, solar power, wind power

By Paul Homewood Building new gas power plants will, of course, “only make the transition to renewables-based power unnecessarily costly”. How do I know? Because I heard it from a bunch of climate activists calling themselves Beyond Fossil Fuels. What’s more, building new gas plants runs contrary to the “emerging consensus” that Europe […]
The EU’s net zero retreat is gathering steam

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