Utopia, you are standing in it!

Back in 2014, I compared the long-run economic performance of Cuba and Hong Kong.

Both jurisdictions were roughly equal about 60 years ago. But the data show a dramatic performance gap ever since the communists took power in Cuba, with Hong Kong (which was very pro-market back then) enjoying much bigger increases in prosperity.

Sadly, not much has changed in Cuba since I wrote that column.

The communist dictatorship is still there, and the economy is still socialist (notwithstanding even Castro admitting its failure).

And this means ongoing misery for ordinary people.

Here are some excerpts from a story published by Agence France-Presse.

Cubans are no strangers to queuing for everything from bread to toothpaste, often standing for hours under a blazing sun with no access to a toilet or drinking water, and always with the fear of leaving empty-handed. It is a daily ordeal Cubans have endured…

David Friedman recently got into an online debate with Walter Block that could be seen as a boxing match between “Austrian economics” and the “Chicago School of Economics”. In the wake of this debate, Friedman assembled his thoughts in this piece which is supposed (if I understand properly) to be published as a chapter in an edited volume. Upon reading this piece, I thought it worthy of providing my thoughts in part because I see myself as being both a member of both schools of thought and in part because I specialize in economic history. And here is the claim I want to make: I don’t see any meaningful difference between both and I don’t understand why there are perpetual attempts to create a distinction.

But before that, let’s do a simple summary of the two views according to Friedman (which is the first part of the essay). The “Chicago”…

Pin your energy needs on the weather, and prepare for disappointment, over and over and over again.

South Australians know it, Germans know it, Texans and Californians know it, all too well.

In the latter part of 2021, as the Big Calm descended across Western Europe, Brits learned all about it, too. Quietly firing up once-mothballed, but ever-reliable, coal-fired power plants and feverishly importing nuclear power from France.

All up, the ‘inevitable transition’ to an all wind and sun-powered future has amounted to little more than a well-orchestrated high farce.

On that score, Paul Homewood takes a look at what passes for research into the likelihood of total wind power output collapses in Britain.

While Paul reckons that no one is suggesting the wind will stop blowing completely around the postage stamp of territory that is the UK, we’ll set out a couple from the archives to prove that…

Europeans have squandered untold $billions on chaotically intermittent wind and solar. The only evident results being routine power rationing, blackouts and power prices doubling every 12 months, or so.

The article below from Bloomberg lays it out fairly clearly: those countries obsessed with wind and solar are literally reaping the whirlwind, as power prices spiral out of control.

Bloomberg is, of course, a propaganda outlet for renewable energy rent-seekers, so don’t expect to see it ever name the culprits for Europe’s self-inflicted renewable energy disaster. In the piece below, the closest Bloomberg gets is when it points out that the “crisis was also aggravated by lower than normal wind speeds”. No joke!

Because the likes of Germany, Spain and the UK heavily depend upon wind and solar, output collapses triggered by, you guessed it, sunset and/or calm weather are driving demand for power from reliable sources, such as coal, gas…

I’ve just updated my UK GDP forecasts with today’s data for November. Here are ten key points, including some international comparisons.

1. UK economic growth in 2021 is likely to be just shy of 7½%, 1% higher than assumed in the October Budget and 3% higher than the consensus in the Treasury survey at the start of last year.

2. This means that the UK was almost certainly the fastest growing G7 economy in 2021. Many like to dismiss this as a ‘dead cat bounce’ after the relatively large fall in UK GDP in 2020. But the UK still did much better than expected, even taking account of this favourable ‘base effect’.

3. To illustrate, the chart below compares different vintages of the OECD’s forecasts for last year. In December 2020 the OECD expected UK GDP to grow by 4.2% in 2021, and to be outpaced by France and Italy…

Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (January 8, 1864 – January 14, 1892) was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) and grandson of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of succession to the British throne, but never became king because he died before his father and grandmother.

Albert Victor was born two months prematurely on January 8, 1864 at Frogmore House, Windsor, Berkshire. He was the first child of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and his wife Alexandra of Denmark, daughter of was Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (King Christian IX of Denmark) and her mother was Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

Following his grandmother Queen Victoria’s wishes, he was named Albert Victor, after herself and her late husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. As a grandchild of the…