
David Levine on homo economicus
28 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, behavioural economics, economics of information, history of economic thought Tags: methodology of economics

Why Climate Change Wasn’t Behind Paris’s Record-High Temperature
28 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
Fine summer weather [image credit: BBC]
Heatwaves happen. But if one dares to exceed a previously recorded temperature for the time of year, it must somehow be your fault. Natural variation isn’t even considered, because it would weaken the warmist narrative.
It’s summer, temperatures are hot - sometimes record hot - and as usual, climate alarmism reaches record highs as climate activists have a field day with fearmongering rather than with facts and data, writes Chris Martz @ Climate Change Dispatch.
Every week, various weather events end up getting caught in the spokes of the wheel of climate; it’s an endless cycle. Rinse, wash, repeat.
This time, it’s the [second] European heatwave this summer.
A Bit of Historical Perspective
While countries like the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium have recorded their hottest temperatures on record this week, Paris’s record high of 108.7°F (42.6°C) on Thursday, July 25, made international headlines…
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Climate Communism On The Rise In Germany
28 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
Iowa Climate Science Education
Bernd Riexinger, the leader of Germany’s radical left party (Die Linke) has called for the nationalisation of all airlines to fight global warming.

“Anyone who has such a dramatic societal impact must not be allowed to remain market-based and unregulated. Airlines need to be state-owned – as well as the energy or rail industry,” he told reporters of the Funke Media Group.
Climate-damaging air travel had become irresponsibly cheap was also due to the fact that air traffic control had been privatised. “Flying was better when it was regulated and mostly in public hands. A wild competition in the aviation market was allowed – to the detriment of employees and at the expense of the climate.”
According to Riexinger, new climate policies are needed that set clear climate targets for all companies.
Full story (in German)
The post Climate Communism On The Rise In Germany appeared first on The Global…
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Oberlin pleads poverty in Gibson’s Bakery case, judge requires the College to post $36.4 million bond
28 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
Could Oberlin College, like The Evergreen State College, now be in financial difficulties because of ill-advised wokeness? If you’ve been following the story, Gibson’s Bakery sued the College after three students were caught shoplifting or beating up the shop owner (they pleaded guilty). The College and its students then tried to exact revenge, defaming the bakery, accusing it of racism (a charge that proved palpably ridiculous), and even cutting off college business with the store. A local local jury found the College guilty and fined it $11.2 million in compensatory damages and then $33 million in punitive damages, making a total of over $44 million. That was reduced to $25 million (the punitive damages were higher than allowed by Ohio law), but then the judge slapped another $6.5 million on Oberlin to cover the Gibsons’ expenses and lawyer fees. Ergo, the college is in the hole for over $31…
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Origins of Agricultural Crops
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
“The recovery of the people is tied to recovery of food, since food itself is medicine—not only for the body but also for the soul and the spiritual connection to history, ancestors, and the land.” —Winona LaDuke
This map highlights regions where crops were initially domesticated and evolved over long periods of time, and where the diversity of traditional crop varieties and related wild plants is especially high.
Decolonizing our diets is a process of healing our bodies through reclaiming our indigenous foodways. We must recover our ancestors’ wisdom before it’s gone forever. What foods did they eat? How was food prepared? What herbs and plants did they use for medicine? How did they conduct their ceremonies? Despite colonial suppression, indigenous foodways have survived in the daily acts of resistance that include story telling, recipe sharing, ceremony, and the planting and preserving of heirloom seeds.
Why No Extinction Rebellion Against Wind Turbines’ Wholesale Bird, Bat & Bug Slaughter?
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
You know you’re down the rabbit hole when breathless teenagers, dictating world economic policy are actually taken seriously. That vacuous ninnies like Greta Thunberg get any air time at all, speaks volumes about the witless, gullible and naïve that permeate the mainstream press.
As they lose their grip on public attention, climate alarmists are now ramping up the rhetoric with ridiculous claims that an increase of few degrees C is all set to wipe out whole species, leaving the planet a barren wasteland. [Note to Ed: what was that story about a boy who kept crying ‘wolf’?].
Bullying and berating the proletariat about how our current lifestyle (not theirs, mind you) – and the energy systems that critically support it – is destroying life before our very eyes, Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg & Co are only the latest in a long line of deranged zealots, fixated on wrecking jobs, wealth…
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Armen Alchian and Kenneth Arrow on labour market shortages or when the nouveau riche priced the old rich out of household servants
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Armen Alchian, labour economics, labour supply
From https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM2190.html
An Economic Analysis of the Market for Scientists and Engineers by Armen Albert Alchian, Kenneth Arrow, William M. Capron
The Victims of Cuban Socialism
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
Cuba was a relatively rich country in the 1950s. So much so that it attracted migrants from Spain and Italy and the rest of Latin America
Cuba has a very sad history.
It traded a regular dictatorship for a communist dictatorship six decades ago,
and the results have been predictably awful.
Oppression, persecution, rationing, spying, deprivation, and suffering are facts of life in that socialist hellhole.
For a while, it was subsidized by the Soviet Union, but that communist system eventually collapsed. More recently, it’s been subsidized by Venezuela, but now that socialist system also is collapsing.
And this means extra hardship for the people of Cuba.
Jose Nino explains one of the grim consequences of Cuba’s central planning.
Cuba is now implementing a rationing program to combat its very own shortages of basic goods. A CBC report indicates this program would cover basic items such as chicken, eggs, rice, beans, and soap. …When Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959, the Cuban state maintained an iron grip on the economy.
For decades…
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Law and order rules are being rewritten as Ardern bridles at accusations of leadership failure
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
It has been a momentous week for the country’s justice system and old-fashioned notions of “law and order”.
First, the Ardern government has said it is considering a report which recommends the abolition of prisons. A Maori-led review of the justice system is also urged by this report.
Second, the PM has intervened in a land dispute in Auckland and thereby over-ridden the role of the courts.
Getting rid of prisons is the remedy ingeniously proposed to reduce the high ratio of Maori inmates in our prisons.
The proposal is contained in the Ināia Tonu Nei: Māori Justice Hui report (here) released during the week.
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Less than half of women with PhDs in survey keep ‘maiden’ names
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
Marital Name Change Survey first results and open data release.
Over the last three days 3,400 ever-married U.S. residents took my Marital Name Change Survey. I distributed the survey link on this blog, Facebook and Twitter. I don’t know who took it, but based on the education and occupation data a very large share of the respondents were women (88%) with professional degrees (30%) or Phds (27%). It’s not a representative sample, but the results may still be interesting.
Here I’ll give a few topline numbers as of 8:00 this morning, and then link to a public version of the data and materials. These results reflect a little data checking and cleaning and of course are subject to change.
Respondents were asked about their most recent marriage. Half were married in the 2010s, but the sample includes more than 400 married in the 1990s and 200 earlier.
The vast…
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The Earth’s Temperatures Are Just Fine: It’s Summer!
27 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
You have surely heard the hype that claims the Earth’s temperatures are the highest in 2,000 years, and we have the current heat waves to prove it. Not to worry, it’s just summer. Happens every year. (From Climate Depot:)
Reality Check:
‘More than 700 scientists from 400 institutions in 40 countries have contributed peer-reviewed papers providing evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was real, global, & warmer than the present.
2019: Antarctica was warmer one thousand years ago — and life was OK
2012 Peer-Reviewed Study: Climate was HOTTER in Roman, medieval times than now — UN IPCC has got it all wrong, say, scientists – Published in hefty climate journal Nature Climate Change, the cooling effect of orbital shifting on the climate has been up to four times as powerful as anthropogenic (human-caused) warming pressures.
AOC (Always On Camera) has been promoting the “Green New Deal” but her Chief…
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Licenced to Kill: Government Endorses Wind Industry’s Rampant Eagle Slaughter
26 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
When it comes to killing majestic raptors, ‘green’ hypocrisy is the new black. Apex avian predators are top of the food chain for 60 m wind turbine blades with their outer tips travelling at over 350 Kph.
RE zealots seem untroubled by the carnage. The usual nonsense retort is that cats, motorcars or skyscrapers kill more birds than wind turbines. Except cats are not renowned for downing healthy Eagles, Hawks or Kites – and that group of raptors rarely succumb to motorcars or tall buildings, either. Oh, and if moral equivalence is your game, motorcars and tall buildings are objects of useful necessity. Whereas a wind turbine is a pointless energy source, abandoned centuries ago, for very obvious reasons.
The wind industry itself, has spent a fortune to try and cover up the inconvenient little problem: Not Content with Lying About its Bird Slaughter-Houses, Wind Industry Sues to Cover up…
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Hamas official contradicts BBC’s ‘permanent archive’ messaging
26 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
Among the many BBC reports concerning the second Intifada which remain online and accessible to this day is one dated May 8th 2002 and carrying the interestingly punctuated headline “Arafat orders end to ‘terrorist’ attacks” in which readers are told that:
“Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has ordered his security forces to prevent “all terrorist operations” against Israelis after a suicide bomber killed 15 people and himself in an attack near Tel Aviv.
Mr Arafat condemned the attack as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flew back to Israel for an emergency cabinet meeting after cutting short a visit to the United States. […]
Amid growing expectations of Israeli reprisals, the Palestinian leader said he was ordering “the security forces to confront and prevent all terrorist operations against Israeli civilians from any Palestinian group”.
He said he was committed to the US-led fight against terrorism and appealed to the…
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The Slow Winding Down of the Windpower Idea.
26 Jul 2019 Leave a comment
photo by Stuart McMahon
Next year will mark twenty years of tax credits for the wind energy industry. The federal renewable energy production tax credit which allows producers of wind energy a 30 percent investment tax-credit or a 2.2-cents-per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit has been in force since 1992. There are more than14,000 abandoned wind turbines in the United States. The picture above is of a very recent fire from hurricane-force gales in Scotland.
The 2.2¢ subsidy doesn’t sound like much, but it is on average 40 percent of the wholesale price of electricity. The tax cuts, according to the Treasury Dept. cost taxpayers $1.5 billion annually. A billion here, a billion there, and soon you’re talking about real money. The United States is facing $15 trillion of debt, but it has access to vast supplies of diverse sources of electricity perfectly capable of supplying our energy needs…
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