Utopia, you are standing in it!

Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore joined Mike Huckabee to discuss the Green New Deal. Moore did not mince words with how he felt about the plan and its proponents.

Version 1.0 (April 24, 2019)

A couple of weeks ago, I got ensnarled in one of these debates on Facebook that do not go anywhere; it was triggered by the Australian Labor Party’s recent Living Wage policy proposal and the related discussion about the merits of minimum wages, and there specifically whether increases in minimum wages have negative employment effects and even more specifically whether such detrimental employment effects hit those at the low end of the wage distribution. These debates tie into other current debates like the one about lacking wages growth about which even the RBA is now concerned; see also Fig 17.17 here, or the one about wage theft which even the current government — not known for its charitable inclinations — says it wants to address, or the one about growing inequality which, as it affects aggregate demand, has to be a growing concern…

The  Ardern   government  wants to  lead the world  in implementing  measures  to  combat  climate  change.  Prime Minister  Jacinda Ardern put her personal stamp on this by saying it will be  her  government”s  “nuclear-free”  moment.

The science  on  global  warming  is clear,  say  both   Labour and  the Greens.   So  shouldn’t every   kind of  science   be  used  to  combat it?

Well,  no,  says  the  Green  Party.  It  refuses   to  contemplate  genetic  modification  as an instrument   for  example   in the  campaign  to  make  NZ-predator   free.

Predator Free 2050 is forbidden from carrying out any research which could lead to the use of genetic modification or gene editing, a letter written by Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage shows.

Contexts magazine recently published an article by Northwestern law professor Professor Steven Lubet where he argued that ethnographers should seriously be interested in verifying claims reported in ethnographies. This is part of his bigger effort to critique ethnographic practices, not only in terms of truth making but also in terms of research ethics. Here are the links, some critics of Lubet, and then I’ll give you my brief opinion:

• His book –Interrogating Ethnography.
• His article in Contexts.
• A response by Michael Burawoy in Contexts.
• Lubet’s rejoinder on the Contexts blog.
• A blog response by Mikalia Arthur on Scatterplot.
• Lubet’s response on Scatterplot.

My take: Overall, I am on “Team Lubet.” I won’t relitigate earlier issues, but I will say that ethnographies are not exempt from the ethical principles that govern human behavior in general and social research in particular.

In terms of his specific…

Just a quick post today, as submissions close soon on the Reserve Bank Governor’s plans to require banks to fund much more of their balance sheets with equity capital, and I still need to write mine.  The Governor stated last week that the Bank has already received 50 or so submissions.  I hope that, in the spirit of open government and genuine consultation, the Bank will put those submissions up on their website pretty promptly –  and not, as is more usually the case with them (but not, say, with parliamentary select committees), only when the Governor has made his final decision.

I’ve seen a few submissions, none of which seemed very positive on what the Governor was proposing.   It remains striking that, five months on from the release of the initial consultative document there has still been no serious attempt at a cost-benefit analysis, and only the promise…

Given that one of the most important roots of the civil rights movement was in the black churches, and given the importance of gospel music to those churches, it’s hardly surprising that music provided a vibrant and very important sound track to that struggle. So, time for some civil rights songs: here, from the time itself, in the years leading up to the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

On that famous day, in 1963, when Martin Luther King spoke to the crowd in Washington, it was the gospel singer and civil rights campaigner, Mahalia Jackson, who shouted to to King to ‘tell them about the dream’. King listened, and so did the world.

Music played a major role that  day, as this New Yorker article explains: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dream-songs-the-music-of-the-march-on-washington

Here she is, in the later ’60s, singing the civil rights anthem:

Among the star turns was…

Milton Friedman’s FREE TO CHOOSE “How to cure inflation” Transcript and Video (60 Minutes)

In 1980 I read the book FREE TO CHOOSE by Milton Friedman and it really enlightened me a tremendous amount.  I suggest checking out these episodes and transcripts of Milton Friedman’s film series FREE TO CHOOSE: “The Failure of Socialism” and “What is wrong with our schools?”  and “Created Equal”  and  From Cradle to Grave, and – Power of the Market.“If we could just stop the printing presses, we would stop inflation,” Milton Friedman says in “How to Cure Inflation” from the Free To Choose series. Now as then, there is only one cause of inflation, and that is when governments print too much money. Milton explains why it is that politicians like inflation, and why wage and price controls are not solutions to the problem.

Last week, we complained to the Daily Mirror over an article in their May 7th print edition on the recent violence between Israel and terrorists in Gaza.  The piece provided an estimated number of Gaza civilians killed during the short conflict, but omitted the fact that all four Israelis killed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets were civilians.

DEADLY violence on the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip has petered out after Egypt and the United Nations reportedly mediated a ceasefire yesterday. Twenty-one Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and four Israelis have been killed in three days of clashes.  

Shortly after contacting editors, our complaint was upheld, and the following correction appeared in the May 8th print edition.

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