Utopia, you are standing in it!

There are several reasons why I’m glad that there are Europeans.

From a serious perspective, the decentralized and competitive states of Europe gave us great gifts such as the rule of law, the enlightenment, and the industrial revolution.

From a policy perspective, today’s Europe gives us examples of policies to emulate and policies to avoid (and also confusing mish-mashes of good and bad policies).

And from a comedic perspective, it’s generally still okay to make fun of Europeans – even if it (gasp!) involves stereotypes.

• Such as this cartoon involving Greece.
• And this terrorism-alert humor from the U.K.
• The French get mocked in this cartoon.
• Here’s a video showing that Der Fuehrer is unhappy about the downgrade.
• We have some very funny maps showing how various countries view their European counterparts.
• And, for those who like dark humor, this list of European leaders denying that the fiscal crisis…

Nothing invokes rage and fury in rural communities like a wind farm comprising dozens and sometimes hundreds of 300 tonne, 200m high monsters.

In Germany, locals have expressed their opposition in no uncertain terms by voting 25 to 1 against a giant wind project proposed for their patch of paradise:

And elsewhere, grassroots opposition to the subsidy-sucking wind industry has never been healthier and more active., New York State, is no exception.

20 years into the 21^st century, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’d left fascist dictators in the 20^th century. Then along comes Andrew Cuomo, New York’s wind power obsessed Governor. Instead of listening to his constituents, he’s determined to gag them and ride roughshod over them.

Sherri Lange reports in with the latest from the battle front in New York State.

New York’s Cuomo vs. the Grassroots on Wind & Solar
Master Resource
Sherri Lange

Hobson’s Choice spokesman Don Brash (a former leader of the National and ACT Parties) is not alone in challenging the justification for tribes claiming to have closed roads to protect their people against Covid.

Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters – his remarks apparently ignored by other media – told Waatea News unofficial tribal militia throwing up checkpoints were more likely to hinder than help the Covid-19 response.

He was interviewed at a time when hapu and iwi on the East Coast were organising such road-blocks and Hone Harawira was arranging checkpoints on roads into the far north.

Peters said the government didn’t need Harawira to ring-fence Kaitaia.

“That’s what the Government is seeking to do now. That’s why there’s a lockdown. That’s why they’re saying don’t travel. That’s why the Government is saying stay at home, look after each other.

“If you ring-fence Kaitaia, it…

In Flanders, we have the expression “calculating yourself rich”. It means presenting one’s case in a too optimistic way that doesn’t accord with reality. This can for example be done by only counting the positives or by making overly optimistic assumptions. Both can result in an end result that is far too optimistic. Therefor “calculate” yourself rich instead of “being” rich. It is not real wealth, it is fully dependent on the tricks used in the calculation.

This expression popped up in my mind when I read an article about the blessings of grid sized battery storage (see previous post). To recap: two advocates for solar and wind claimed that batteries could replace natural gas power plants for peaking and gap-filling. Reading the linked article, it became clear that it had nothing to do with the claims made by the two advocates. The subject of the linked article described how…

I’ve pretty much written off Republicans, but among us Democrats there’s one annoying snake in the grass, a snake who goes by the monicker of AOC. Truly, I am amazed at the number of people who admire her, and even suggest she’d make a good president. I see her as having some good positions. and is generally on the right side of issues (even though her solutions are often ludicrous), but someone who’s not that bright, and is following a script laid out by the Justice Democrats, who recruited her to run for Congress. I also believe she’s an anti-Semite and somewhat of a narcissist—as well as a social-media “influencer” along the lines of Trump. And now she (along with a Republican in the House) is threatening passage of the stimulus bill (see also here).

Passage of largest ever American relief bill could be delayed. 

For my last-but-one Women’s History Month post, I’m so excited to share my review of Erin Lawless’ book Forgotten Royal Women: The King and I, which Pen & Sword Books kindly sent me a copy of to review. A positive in the craziness that the world is going through right now (and I sincerely hope that you, your families and friends are all safe and well at this uncertain time) is that isolation has meant for me lots of reading time. The month of March became, more than I expected when I set myself a Women’s History Month theme of Reading Women, a month of reading women: about women’s history, female authors I hadn’t read before and women’s studies. And this included this lovely, entertaining book about the royal women you might not have heard of before, and a window into their stories.

Lawless opens with Catherine…

Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649)[a] was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from March 27, 1625 until his execution in 1649.

Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603 (as James I), he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1612 on the death of his elder brother Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Anna culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiations. Two years later he married the Bourbon princess Henrietta Maria of France, the youngest daughter of Henri IV…

As  New Zealand   faces the  most brutal   recession in  living memory,  the  battle  to preserve   the core  of the  economy deepens.  Companies  are  cancelling  dividends  to protect what cash they have, others  are  reaching  for  financial  aid  from  their banks or  the government.

Yet for   some   businesses, notably  the  big  supermarket  chains,  the crisis  is accelerating    their  cash   flows.

Point of Order   has surveyed an array of   companies listed on  NZX, particularly in  several sectors—food  production, health and pharmaceutical  supplies, transport, agriculture  services—   which  have issued  updates. These should provide   comfort  to  their shareholders, and the market generally.

Latest  to  do so  is   King  Salmon,  the world’s largest aquaculture producer of the premium King salmon species.   Employing 500 people,  it operates  within the primary industry food producer category which has been included in the government’s list of essential services.

In its update to the  NZX, it  says :

The proposition that our Police are paving the way for a partnership in which former MP Hone Harawira and other iwi leaders police communities within the borders they define went unchallenged when put to press officers working for the Prime Minister and the Police.

The picture painted in the preceding paragraph was drawn from Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha’s statement on road blocks Harawira set up in Northland to check tourists’ health.  He declared:

” … we want to model what it looks like when iwi, police, councils and other agencies work in partnership”. 

But nether the Police nor the Prime Minister’s Office directly answered questions put to them by Point of Order about the legality of Harawira’s blocking public roads while policing the a border which he presumably established.

At the Trust, yet verify blog, Michel has written a couple of posts about the Hornsdale Power Reserve.  I had intended to do a post on this energy storage facility for a while and commented that I was planning to do a post but hadn’t gotten around to it.  When I said would not have to produce a post Michel said his was only one way to look at it and there are other possible views.  After reading the second post I decided to make a point about this system as it relates to New York State energy policy.

Background

According to the Hornsdale Power Reserve website “At 100MW/129MWh, the Hornsdale Power Reserve is the largest lithium-ion battery in the world, and provides network security services to South Australian electricity consumers in concert with the South Australian Government and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).  The Hornsdale Power Reserve is…

This piece is the result of a collaboration between the Economic History Review, the Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History and the European Review of Economic History. More details and special thanks below.

Exhibit depicting a miniature from a 14th century Belgium manuscript at the Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv. Available at Wikimedia Commons.

As the world grapples with a pandemic, informed views based on facts and evidence have become all the more important. Economic history is a uniquely well-suited discipline to provide insights into the costs and consequences of rare events, such as pandemics, as it combines the tools of an economist with the long perspective and attention to context of historians. The editors of the main journals in economic history have thus gathered a selection of the recently-published articles on epidemics, disease and public health, generously made available by publishers to the public, free of access, so…