Utopia, you are standing in it!

Posted by Krista J. Kesselring, 10 October 2021.

A new collection of essays on the Court of Star Chamber and its records is out now, freely available online thanks to the Open Access provisions of its publishers. Many historians and literary scholars draw upon Star Chamber’s records as sources or texts, as shown to good effect by contributors to the new book. Some of the essays in the volume suggest, too, that we should look not just through our archives but at them.[1] This post briefly follows up on this suggestion and expands upon the Introduction’s observation that ‘the record’ meant something quite particular for the people who produced the legal documents we use.

Anyone who works with the documentary relics of the past has had occasion to bemoan the fires, floods, wars, and other such ravages…

Earth and climate – an ongoing controversy

Many of Earth’s complex systems ‘may be more resilient than currently thought’, in the words of the study. Makes a change from claims that various climate nasties lurk just round the corner if this or that is allowed to happen.
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We regularly hear warnings that climate change may lead to ‘tipping points’: irreversible situations where savanna can quickly change into desert, or the warm gulf stream current can simply stop flowing, says Phys.org.

These cautions often refer to spatial patterns as early-warning signals of tipping points. An international team of ecologists and mathematicians has studied these patterns and come to a surprising conclusion.

“Yes, we need to do everything we can to stop climate change,” the authors said in full agreement with the recent IPCC report. “But the Earth is much more resilient than previously thought. The concept of…

With the recently concluded recall election in California that resulted in a thumping win by Governor Newsom, I was intrigued to find an old book review that covered the aftermath of a previous recall election in the state in 2003 against Governor Gray Davis.

That election resulted in a loss for Davis and more importantly a win for the former actor and Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would go on to win election in his own right and was Governor for two consecutive terms (eight years), the maximum mandated. In 2012 he published a memoir of that time, Total Recall (the title of one his hit movies). In the same way, he titled himself The Governator, after his most famous movie role as The Terminator.

I’m less interested in the review itself or the book than some of the tidbits that fell out of it (and some that did not) regarding…

Even when accepting the flawed calculations of Ronald Brakels, it provided only a fragile win for the battery scenario. This prompted him to start a new calculation in order to justify the battery/solar setup. It involves a battery system that is currently being built: the Victorian Big Battery. His reasoning is that battery prices drop rapidly and he also proposes a way to set aside some the initial investment in order to replace the battery at the end of its economical life.

Let’s just jump right in. This is the information he gathered about the Victorian Big Battery:

• Capacity: 300 MW
• Storage capacity: 450 MWh
• Price: AU$180,000,000
  (again no justification for this price tag, just his hunch)

Then he repeats the flawed calculation by calculate the price:

There are many reasons to reject Joe Biden’s proposal for higher corporate tax rates, and I listed many of them when I narrated this nine-minute video.

This two-minute video from the Tax Foundation has a similar message.

The main message is that workers, consumers, and shareholders are the ones who actually pay when suffer when politicians impose higher taxes on business.

And the damage grows over time because higher corporate tax rates reduce investment, which inevitably leads to lower wages.

By the way, while a low tax rate is very important, there are many other policy choices that determine the overall damage of business taxation.

• Is there double taxation of dividends?
• Is there worldwide taxation?
• Is there deprecation or expensing?
• Is there equal treatment of debt and equity?

This is just a partial list. There are other policies – such as alternative minimum taxation,