Utopia, you are standing in it!

UK age discrimination laws prohibit age-based policies, including mandatory retirement ages, unless the treatment supports a ‘legitimate aim’ and is a ‘proportionate means’ of achieving that aim. Rather than risk facing legal action, most employers have abandoned mandatory retirement ages and sought other ways of planning the departure of staff. However, Oxford University continue to operate a mandatory retirement age for its academics. The has led to two Employment Tribunal (‘ET’) judgments: Pitcher v University of Oxford, which held that the policy was proportionate and therefore lawful age-based treatment; and Ewart v University of Oxford, which held that the policy was unjustified and therefore unlawful age discrimination. At the time the applicants in these cases were forced to retire, the mandatory retirement age was 67 but since 2017 the mandatory retirement age has increased to 68. Oxford University have indicated they will appeal the Ewart decision, and, in…

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 and the counterpart regulations in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, impose the most drastic restrictions on liberty ever seen in the United Kingdom.  On 16 April 2020 they reach their first review point and it is a clear that they will be continued, probably initially for a further period of three weeks and thereafter quite likely for a much longer period either in their current form or in modified form.

There can be no doubt that the core measures imposed remain justified. It is therefore imperative, especially given the length of time that they are likely to govern life in this country, that the measures meet certain minimum standards. It is helpful to identify three such standards. First, it is vital that the measures are clear so that people know what the law requires of them and so that enforcement…

IMF’s World Economic Outlook- Apr 2020 has named this crisis as Great Lockdown.

The world has changed dramatically in the three months since our last update of the World Economic Outlook in January. A rare disaster, a coronavirus pandemic, has resulted in a tragically large number of human lives being lost. 

How did we let this happen? Once the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis passes, we will need to make a serious reassessment of our risk management tools and capacities. This pandemic has shown how woefully ill-equipped the authorities of most Western democracies were in the art of managing risks and protecting the most vulnerable in society. This three-part series aims to establish a blueprint for a future risk management world equipped to handle the challenges of the 21st century. Part 1 looked at how the precautionary principle failed as a risk management policy tool. Part 2 will be divided into three parts: first looking at the docilian decline: how individuals and policymakers had become receptive and docile in their attitude toward risk. The second section looks at the four factors giving rise to this risk-averse “docilian mindset” over the last two decades and how it unravelled with the COVID-19 coronavirus. In the…

In  another  era,  it  would have  been the  lead story  on  every  news channel.  But in a  country  brainwashed  into believing  it’s  apocalypse now,  either  from  global warming or  Covid-19  (and possibly  both),   news  of   a  “significant”   oil and gas  discovery offshore  in Taranaki  barely  registered   in the   mainstream  media,  although the   New Zealand  Herald    did   record  it   in the  business  pages.

There  has not  been a  major energy   find  in NZ  since  2006, and given  New Zealand has  only 11  years  of  gas  reserves left,  the discovery could be an exciting  outcome     at a  crucial   phase for the  NZ  economy.

Austrian giant  OMV reported  the Toutouwai-1 wildcat, drilled to a total depth of 4,317m some 50 km off the Taranaki coast in 130m of water, encountered several hydrocarbon-charged reservoir zones during drilling.

But first an update of the chart showing numbers of new announced coronavirus cases for New Zealand and Australia (the latter divided by five to produce a comparable per capita number).

A few days on from the last time I ran the chart and New Zealand is still finding about twice as many new cases per capita as Australia.  At the margin, we seem to do be doing a few more tests per capita each day than Australia is –  in both countries the number of tests being done has fallen back from the peak.  But despite our more restrictive regime, we don’t seem to be producing better (lower new cases) results than Australia.    Who knows why, although those left-wing academics from Otago, professors Baker and Wilson, while lavishing praise on the Prime Minister in the Guardian

One critical success factor that is, unfortunately, harder to guarantee is high-quality…

Have an election today and the government would bolt in, primarily because of Jacinda’s star power induced by the media’s obsession with her. But the election is six months away and then, I’m picking a change of government.

Wind and large-scale solar are doomed, but the saviour is said to be pumped hydro; paid for, of course, with other people’s money.

Touted by ex-PM Malcom Turnbull and his hapless sidekick, Josh Frydenberg as the Nation’s mega-battery, the heavily-hyped Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme (shelved in the 1970s because it was uneconomic then) has been heralded as the saviour for the Australian wind industry.

The line goes something like this: if we use 3 MWh of wind power to pump water through 27 km of tunnels, over an elevation of 900m, later, when power consumers actually need it, Snowy Hydro could return 2 MWh to the grid.

Never mind squandering 1/4 to 1/3 of the electricity originally generated; never mind that with the inclusion of the $85 per MWh REC the cost of the wind power involved exceeds $110 per MWh; never mind that the owners of Snowy 2.0…

From the Emperor’s Desk: A few days ago I compared the joint rule of Mary I of England and Felipe II of Spain with that of William III and Mary II. Today I’d like to examine the reign of Mary II as co-sovereign with her husband.

Mary II (April 30, 1662 – December 28, 1694) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, co-reigning with her husband, King William III-II, from 1689 until her death. Popular histories usually refer to their joint reign as that of William and Mary.

Queen Mary II of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Although their father James, Duke of York, was Roman Catholic, Mary and her younger sister Anne were raised as Anglicans at the wishes of their uncle, King Charles II. Charles lacked legitimate children, making Mary second in the line of succession.

William and Mary were first cousins. Her father, James, Duke of York…

by Judith Curry

On the importance of expertise from other fields for COVD19 and climate change.

The tweet below came from Matthew, who may in fact be featured in this documentary. This tells us that Part 2 (the last part) of Ken Burns’s documentary “The Gene: An Intimate History” will be broadcast on PBS tonight. And it will probably be available for free on the show’s website for at least a short while. The broadcast is at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 7 p.m. Central; for other times, consult your local PBS station.

This part is called “Revolution in the Treatment of Disease,” and so will be more medically than historically oriented.  The summary is indented:

Part Two begins with the story of the signature scientific achievement of our time: the mapping of the human genome. As scientists learn to read the genetic code, they grapple with the dangers inherent in increasingly sophisticated and easily available methods of intervening in the very essence of what makes us…

Both Matthew and reader Leon alerted me this morning to a new two-part series (four hours total) by Ken Burns, based on Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book The Gene: An Intimate History. You can watch the first episode (aired on PBS last night) by clicking on the screenshot below. I just learned about it, and haven’t yet watched it, but Matthew—who’s featured in it seven times—has, and has provided a brief précis below the screenshot. I’d recommend watching this at any time, but certainly now that most of us are housebound, searching for videos and other stay-at-home activities, it’s a good substitute for more mindless stuff.

The first episode is called “Dawn of the Modern Age of Genetics”, and has this summary:

There has been a lot of discussion recently on “measures” of inflation. The popular debate usually revolves around the particular “index” which the Fed should target or use as an indicator of future inflation. Should the Fed look at “headline” inflation or at “core” inflation?

Just to give a few (of many available) examples, in a recent post Steve Williamson concludes:

I don’t see anything solid that justifies the Fed’s focus on core inflation measures. Indeed, one could, I think, make a better case for looking at headline inflation measures.

In a NYT op ed, Laurence Meyer, former Fed governor writes:

So in the ’70s, increases in food and gas prices affected both core and overall inflation. Some believe this is still the case today. But it isn’t. Since the inflationary era ended in the early ’80s, the Fed has earned a reputation for keeping inflation in check. For…