Richard Prebble writes: Claims standards of parliamentary behaviour have fallen are nonsense. Except for Te Pāti Māori, this is a well-behaved House. The Speaker’s referral of the floor protest to the Privileges Committee was not discretionary. It was required by Standing Orders. The Speaker was lenient. He could have ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to end the Māori Party […]
Prebble on Labour and TPM
Prebble on Labour and TPM
30 May 2025 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand Tags: constitutional law
Electric cars halve in value after just two years
30 May 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, transport economics Tags: electric cars
By Paul Homewood Second hand EV prices are going through the floor, as nobody wants to buy them. The Telegraph has the story: Electric vehicles (EVs) are losing more than half their value in the first two years of ownership amid a wave of heavy discounting by carmakers. A typical EV now retains […]
Electric cars halve in value after just two years
Carbon Capture Scam Does Not Even Offset Its Own Emissions
30 May 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: carbon capture
By Paul Homewood h/t Paul Weldon This is a remarkable story coming out of Iceland, and a warning for Net Zero zealots wanting us to go down the same route: Climeworks in Iceland has only captured just over 2,400 carbon units since it began operations in the country in 2021, out of […]
Carbon Capture Scam Does Not Even Offset Its Own Emissions
Liability for Climate Change: An Inequitable Economic Disaster
29 May 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: climate alarmism, nuisance suits
What is already clear are the serious and senseless economic consequences that will follow if states are allowed to punish fossil fuel companies for their lawful past production.
Liability for Climate Change: An Inequitable Economic Disaster
Life is full of tradeoffs: We can have more data centers and local tax revnue or less tourism and a dirtier environment
29 May 2025 1 Comment
in economics of regulation, politics - USA, public economics, urban economics Tags: NIMBY, zoning
See Small-Town Locals and Newcomers Unite Against a Common Foe: Data Centers: Residents in Appalachian tourist area band together to keep one of the largest data-center complexes in the world out of their no-stoplight community by Kris Maher of The WSJ. Excerpts:”residents [of DAVIS, W.Va.] are . . . determined to keep big tech out of…
Life is full of tradeoffs: We can have more data centers and local tax revnue or less tourism and a dirtier environment
Poison Ivy: Why Harvard Will Likely Lose a War of Attrition with the Trump Administration
29 May 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, politics - USA Tags: racial discrimination
Below is my column on Fox.com on the escalating fight between Harvard and the Trump Administration. For Harvard, this could prove a case of winning battles and losing a war of attrition. Here is the column:
Poison Ivy: Why Harvard Will Likely Lose a War of Attrition with the Trump Administration
Irrationality As the Fountainhead of Market Failure
28 May 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of information, history of economic thought
An excerpt from Chapter 4 of *Unbeatable*
Irrationality As the Fountainhead of Market Failure
The Import-So-That-They-Can-Export Firms
28 May 2025 Leave a comment
Much of the discussion about trade and imports is based on discussions of products and sectors of the economy. But among the researchers who study international trade, a major shift has been a focus on relatively small firms that are directly involved in international trade. It turns out that many of these firms are both…
The Import-So-That-They-Can-Export Firms
New medicine approvals plan an exercise in not solving the problem
28 May 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, health economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: drug lags
Eric Crampton writes – New medicines are slow to be authorised for the New Zealand market. Even if a medicine has already been approved by many other trustworthy overseas regulators like those in Canada, the UK, Australia, and the EU, Medsafe can take a very long time to evaluate a medicine.
New medicine approvals plan an exercise in not solving the problem
Spain Boosts Natural Gas Capacity After Renewable Energy’s Failure Led to Historic Blackout
28 May 2025 1 Comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: solar power, Spain, wind power
Now, in the aftermath of this blackout that could have been much worse, Spain has significantly increased its reliance on natural gas-fired power plants to stabilize its electricity grid. This strategic shift is the direct result of concerns about the grid’s ability to handle high levels of renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, which accounted for a substantial share of generation during the outage.
Spain Boosts Natural Gas Capacity After Renewable Energy’s Failure Led to Historic Blackout
One last post on Investment Boost
27 May 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, public economics Tags: taxation and investment
After the discussion in my post yesterday on the Investment Boost subsidy scheme announced in the Budget I thought a bit more about who was likely to benefit the most from it. The general answer of course is the purchasers of the longest-lived assets. Why? Because if you have an asset which IRD estimates to […]
One last post on Investment Boost
Some more post-Budget thoughts
27 May 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and investment
On two separate themes; aggregate fiscal policy, and the Investment Boost initiative. Aggregate fiscal policy Over the weekend for some reason I was prompted to look up the Budget Responsibility Rules that Labour and the Greens committed to in early 2017 (my commentary on them here). At the time, the intention seemed to be to […]
Some more post-Budget thoughts
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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