Utopia, you are standing in it!

Elinor Ostrom (“for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”) and Oliver E. Williamson (“for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm”) are the 2009 winners of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

“Economic governance: the organization of cooperation

Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution. Over the last three decades these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention.

Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies. Whereas economic theory has comprehensively illuminated the virtues and limitations of markets, it has traditionally paid less attention to other institutional arrangements. The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on…

(Ellis Island, NY)

Recently I learned that the Trump administration finally concluded a tariff deal with Mexico which had a number of components related to illegal immigration into the United States.  Apart from Trump’s stupefying rhetoric surrounding his “wall” and other asinine comments like, “why are we having so many people from these shithole countries come here,” immigration and race have become litmus tests for certain politicians.  This political atmosphere in the United States makes Daniel Okrent’s new book, THE GUARDED GATE: BIGOTRY, EUGENICS, AND THE LAW THAT KEPT TWO GENERATIONS OF JEWS, ITALIANS, AND OTHER EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS OUT OF AMERICA an important contribution to the background history of our current views of people who are trying to escape tyranny and poverty and come to the United States.  Okrent focuses on what he describes as the “perverse form of ‘science’ [that] gave respectability to the drastic limits Imposed on the…

I have been reading the ideas of Steven N. S. Cheung for many years and have even written a few blog entries about him and his ideas. So it is my pleasure to repost my professional economist friend Zhaofeng Xue‘s English comment here in my blog. If you read Chinese, also read Zhaofeng’s longer posting “今年诺奖忽视了张五常的原创贡献” (evidences are the same).

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Repost from Zhaofeng Xue‘s English comment (Oct 13th, 1:56pm)

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I think Steven N. S. Cheung’s original insight on common property rights is unfortunately overlooked. The idea Nobel committee awarded on the basis of Ostrom’s 1990 publication can be clearly seen in Cheung’s earlier publication in 1974 and 1987. See the following four piece of evidence. (Zhaofeng Xue, Ph.D. from Mason)

Evidence 1:
Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ecoadv09.pdf

Elinor Ostrom (1990) has challenged the…

June 20, 2008 Update: Here are my initial random thoughts of the first two installments of Prof. Cheung’s “The Economic System of China”.

July 22, 2008 Update: Here is a link to various coverage of the 2008 Chicago Conference on China’s Economic Transformation including an indirect link to Prof. Ronald Coase’s Introduction at the conference. Enjoy.

Oct 7th, 2008 Update: I have blogged and referenced extensively about The Economic System of China, you can search for these blog entries by clicking here.

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Economics Nobel Prize winner Professor Ronald Coase (the Coase in Coase Theorem) is 96 years old and Professor Steven N S Cheung is younger at 71 years old. Both are well passed the retirement age but still are hard at work!

Coase is organizing a 2008 Chinese Economics Reform Symposium (my translation from “中 國 經 改 研 討 會 議”) and has personally…

Being a bit early for an appointment yesterday, I ducked into a secondhand bookshop and emerged with a history of Countrywide Bank (by Tony Farrington, published in 1997), to add to my pile of histories of New Zealand financial institutions and major corporates.   For younger readers, perhaps unfamiliar with the name, Countrywide grew up from the building society movement, became a bank in the late 1980s after deregulation, and was taken over by the National Bank (itself later taken over by ANZ) in the late 1990s.

As I idly flicked through the book, I came across the account of one of those little episodes in financial history that (as far as I know) are not that well documented: the run on the building society, in April 1985.  Literal physical retail bank runs –  people queuing in bank branches and out onto the street – just aren’t that common.  …

In four months’ time, the extension to the Article 50 period agreed in April will expire. The UK will have a new Prime Minister by then, although it remains unclear what position they will take if the Commons continues to refuse to approve the Withdrawal Agreement. Jack Simson Caird analyses the legal and political mechanisms available should parliament seek to prevent the next Prime Minister taking the UK out of the EU without a deal.

Boris Johnson has said that if he is the next Prime Minister the UK will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal. Theresa May, made the same pledge before the original Article 50 deadline on 29 March. However, after coming under significant pressure from MPs, she did not follow through and sought two extensions from the EU (resulting in the current exit day of 31 October).

Since Theresa May said that…

“REMEMBER when we paved the world with electronic waste
that chopped eagles and condors and made bats extinct
because we thought wind was natural and uranium evil?
– man that was a dark age!”
– Michael Shellenberger

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ONE of the great falsehoods and dangerous myths pushed by reckless global warming climate change zealots and the mainstream media is that ‘renewable energy’ – wind and solar – is “clean, green and renewable”.

‘RENEWABLES’ are neither “clean, green, or renewable”. In fact, they are pure embodiments of fossil fuel technology, with oil and “dirty” coal derivatives required for :

• Mining
• Manufacturing
• Transportation
• Installation
• Maintenance
• 24/7/365 Backup

SEE :

• WHAT I See When I See a Wind Turbine | Climatism
• IF CO2’s Your Poison, Renewable Energy Is No Antidote | Climatism

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ANOTHER excellent article of reason and sanity written by man-made “global warming” believer and environmentalist, Michael Shellenberger.

POLITICIANS, please take note…

By Andy Jehring 15 Jun 2019 The Sun

A FRACKING protester clambered on equipment and shackled herself down – while illegally claiming thousands on one of the highest level of disability benefit.

Catherine Jackson, 51, said she could barely stand due to arthritis and rarely left the house due to panic attacks despite attending the rally against the Cuadrilla plant.

She was photographed at the Little Plumpton site in Lancashire shackled to equipment during a protest against fracking and police were forced to use angle grinders to release her.

The protester pocketed £5,392 of Personal Independence Payments between June 2017 and May 2018.

She told authorities she slept most of the days, was in constant agony and had to be woken for meals by her daughter.

The mum said she had arthritis and claimed the extreme pain in her shoulder meant she couldn’t hold anything so couldn’t cook for herself.

With the death of King William IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover, on June 20, 1837, his 18 year old niece ascends the throne as Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria was christened as Alexandrina Victoria and for a while was known as “Drina” in her youth. The first official documents prepared for her on her first day as queen named her Queen Alexandrina Victoria. However the queen requested it to be changed and stated she wanted to be known as Victoria.

Queen Victoria was the only daughter of HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and   Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Her father was the fourth son of King George III and he died in 1820. With both George IV and William IV leaving no legitimate offspring Victoria was heir to the throne. Her accession to the throne also witnessed the separation of the personal union between the United Kingdom…