Utopia, you are standing in it!

As far as I’m concerned, the huge reductions in global poverty in recent decades are the only evidence we need about the benefits of economic growth.

This chart I shared in 2014 shows that output doubles much faster when annual economic growth goes from low levels (1 percent or 2 percent) to high levels (4 percent or above).

I call this the miracle of compounding.

Needless to say, I also argue that nations experience high levels of growth with the right policies and the right perspective.

But not everyone thinks policy makers should focus on getting more economic growth. Some of them (the “Okunites“) are willing to sacrifice some prosperity to achieve more equality, while others dislike growth because of the environment.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Saul Zimet points out that the people who downplay growth are no friends of the…

The Renaissance in northern Italy was a period between roughly 1350 and 1550 (definitions vary) when a proto-modern outlook and culture and economy replaced feudal medieval society. We all know about the great artistic and literary and scientific advances made at this time and place. I got curious about the economics behind all this. It is clear that the cities of northern Italy, such as Florence, were extremely prosperous, otherwise they could not have funded all these artists and architects.

It has jokingly been said, “Ah, I don’t see what is so great about Shakespeare – – all he did was string together a bunch of famous quotes.” Well, since I know little about all this, what I will do here is mainly string together a bunch of relevant quotes. Let the citations begin….

This blurb from “helenlo-weebly” (?) gives a good overview, noting the importance of trade and the…

An obsession with carbon dioxide gas is responsible for an obsession with costly and unreliable wind and solar.

There is no hope of shaking the former among politicos and the MSM – that carbon dioxide gas is ‘pollution’ and the cause of all ills is mantra #1 of the climate cult’s catechism.

The latter, however, is up for debate.

The renewable energy calamity playing out in Europe has given rise to a new found appreciation for generation systems that can deliver power as and when we need it.

The Germans have backflipped on their plans to kill off their nuclear and coal-fired plants; the French are determined to maintain all 56 of their nuclear plants and build 14 more, besides.

In any country crazy enough to sign up to a net-zero carbon oxide gas emissions target, the only answer is the wholesale embrace of nuclear power to meet it.

Call…

This month marks the 190th anniversary of the passing of the 1832 Reform Act, one of the iconic milestones in modern British political history. ‘Was the 1832 Reform Act “Great”?’ may not be the standard exam question it once was, but ongoing research about the Act’s broader legacy and impact on political culture, based on new resources and analytical techniques, continues to reshape our understanding of its place in modern British political development.

Much attention used to be focussed on the number of voters enfranchised by the Act. The extent to which the overall increase of around 314,000 electors in the UK (from around 11 to 18% of adult males) amounted to some form of democratic advance, however, has always been complicated by the Act’s limitations as an enfranchising measure, especially given the huge expectations aroused by the popular outdoors campaign in its support. Not only were most working class…

Although the tide had already turned for the Nazis , June 6-1944 was to become the final push for the allied troops to free Europe from the Nazi regime.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of former US President Theodore Roosevelt,was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion,[29] and the only one whose son also landed that day; Captain Quentin Roosevelt II was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach.

At the time of the D-Day landings on June 6th 1944, Roosevelt was a frail man, not in the best of health; needing the aid of a walking stick. His health had suffered as a result of the first World War, he had arthritis …

David Farrar has drawn our attention to a splendid job opportunity at the Reserve Bank.

No, not to pitch in to meet the challenge set by The Governor and the Treasurer’s agreement that the appropriate target for monetary policy is to achieve an inflation rate of 2–3 per cent, on average, over time.

Rather, the RBNZ intends to appoint a Team Lead Brand and Design, to lead

“… a small but busy team of design specialists to work actively and collaboratively across the organisation to produce engaging brand and related content.”

Alongside this the appointee will:

• Develop and maintain the RBNZ’s brand and design strategy
• Work closely with others to plan and support the development of website content, social media content, initiatives and campaigns
• Ensure the design team has a clear programme of work and is efficiently managing daily production workflow
• Produce engaging collateral and digital content – this is…

Random 3,000 to 4,000 MW wind power output collapses at the heart of Australia’s power pricing and supply calamity. In a, don’t say we told you so moment, Australia’s self-inflicted renewable energy chickens are coming home to roost.

Power rationing is now routine and power prices soaring out of control.

What’s depicted above – courtesy of Aneroid Energy – is the output delivered by Australian wind power outfits to the Eastern Grid last month.

Spread from Far North Queensland, across the ranges of NSW, all over Victoria, Northern Tasmania and across South Australia its entire capacity routinely delivers just a trickle of its combined notional capacity of 8,587 MW.

Rapid and unpredictable surges and collapses in wind power output (sunset does precisely the same job with solar power output, although somewhat more predictable) are causing total chaos in Australia’s wholesale power markets, as the team from Jo Nova outline below (we’ll return…

I’ve already shared the “feel-good story” for 2022, so today I’m going to share this year’s feel-good map.

Courtesy of the Tax Foundation, here are the states that have lowered personal income tax rates and/or corporate income tax rates in 2021 and 2022. I’ve previously written about these reforms (both this year and last year), but more and more states and lowering tax burdens, giving us a new reason to write about this topic.

The map is actually even better than it looks because there are several states that don’t have any income taxes, so it’s impossible for them to lower rates. I’ve labelled them with a red zero.

And when you add together the states with no income tax with the states that are reducing income tax rates, more than half of them are either at the right destination (zero) or moving in that direction.

But the usual cherrypicking of weather events, which proves nothing, will no doubt continue in attempts to blame humans.
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A systematic review of climate trends and observational data by an eminent climate scientist has found no evidence to support the claim of a climate crisis, says The Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Ole Humlum: State of the Climate 2021 (pdf)

The State of the Climate 2021 – The Global Warming Policy Foundation

The notion that we’ll soon be exclusively powered by wind and solar is an appalling delusion, but one which comes with a staggering price tag.

Sure, the wind and sun are free, but attempting to rely upon chaotically generated wind and solar power is an altogether different prospect.

Adding wind turbines and solar panels to an integrated system that was perfectly capable of delivering power as and when power consumers need it, and at prices that all comers could afford, was always going to end in tears.

While subsidised wind and solar might interrupt the delivery of power from reliable sources, those reliable sources have to be maintained to compensate for the inherent unreliability of wind and solar.

The simple and unassailable fact is that for every MW of wind or solar there has to be a MW of coal or gas or nuclear or hydro ready, willing and able…

 The Ardern Government risks the emergence of what political commentator CHRIS TROTTER calls a “super-narrative” in which all the negatives of co-governance, media capture, and Neo-Tribal Capitalism are rolled into one big story about the deliberate corruption of New Zealand democracy. The guilty parties would be an unholy alliance of Pakeha and Māori elites determined to keep public money flowing upwards into protected private hands. Here’s what he posted on  his Bowalley Road blog ….  

WHETHER NANAIA MAHUTA followed the conflict-of-interest rules set out in The Cabinet Manual hardly matters. A dangerous political narrative is forming around the appointment of, and awarding of contracts to, Mahuta’s whanau in circumstances that, at the very least, raise serious questions about this Government’s political judgement. Enlarging this narrative is the growing public perception that the mainstream news media is refusing to cover a story that would, in other circumstances, have attracted…

Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; June 23, 1894 – May 28, 1972) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India from January 20, 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year.

Edward was born during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary.

Edward was created Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, seven weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, Edward served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father. While Prince of Wales, he engaged in a series of sexual affairs that worried both his father and then-British prime minister Stanley Baldwin.

Upon his father’s death in 1936, Edward became the…