Utopia, you are standing in it!

I wanted to touch on three largely-unrelated points, two on the controversy, and one of what Don Brash was apparently going to say in his speech:

First, very briefly, much of the story has been written in terms of Massey’s Vice-Chancellor denying Don Brash the right to speak on campus.   As far as I can see, Don Brash doesn’t have any particular “right” to speak on campus, any more than you (assuming “you” aren’t a Massey student) or I do.  In that sense, the issue shouldn’t be about Don Brash –  although that is what Professor Thomas tried to make it about –  but about a Massey student society’s own freedom; the freedom to invite anyone they wish (operating within the law) to speak on campus.  That should probably be where the focus is, including  adding the question of whether Professor Thomas thinks she should also have the right…

by Roger Koppl

One of our all-time greats, Paul Samuelson, has passed.  We should mourn the passing of a great mind and fellow human being.  He influenced so many economists so deeply that it easy to underestimate his influence.  Barkley Rosser makes the key point at Econospeak.  “His influence is so great in so many areas that the key papers by him that lie behind the standard textbook accounts in many areas do not even bother to cite them.”  Barkley adds the interesting comment that Samuelson “himself was generally personally aware of the flaws and limits of many of his own ideas” whereas the “sons of Samuelson” have been “more simplistic.”

A Financial Times article (Rabbi’s arrest sparks identity debate in Israel, Aug. 3) by Mehul Srivastava, their Jerusalem correspondent, included a paragraph contextualising the new Jewish Nation-State law as part of a pattern of ‘discriminatory’ measures.

We contacted Mr. Srivastava to express our concern that his characterisation of the change to Palestinian access to the Supreme Court is extremely misleading.

The change he’s referring to does stipulate that Israeli “district courts will now have jurisdiction to discuss West Bank Palestinian petitions regarding “planning and construction” disputes.  However, Palestinians will still be able to appeal district court rulings to the Supreme Court.  So, whilst district courts will now hear such Palestinian cases first, instead of going directly to the Supreme Court, it’s not accurate to claim that the new measure “blocks” Palestinians from approaching the Supreme Court.

A few hours later, we received a reply from the journalist thanking us for the…

Prof Nicholas Barberis of Yale Univ pays tribute to Prof Richard Thaler’s work in this paper. It is also one of the best summaries of both Thaler’s work and behavioral economics.

In the end Prof Barberis concludes hoping beh eco becomes a more integrated discipline and not a seperate subject as it is today:

In his talks and writings, Thaler has often noted his wish for “the end” of behavioral
economics. His hope is that economics will reach a point where there is no need for separate
courses or conferences in behavioral economics. Rather, the ideas of behavioral economics
will be fully integrated into existing courses on financial economics, labor economics, macroeconomics,
and so on; moreover, all research economists will be familiar with these ideas and
will apply them as appropriate in their work. While there is some way to go before this goal
is reached, the underlying vision…

Late last month we noted that a small propaganda ‘flotilla’ bound for the Gaza Strip was expected to arrive in the region around the end of July.

The first boat was intercepted on July 29^th.

“The Israeli Navy on Sunday stopped a boat that was trying to break the maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip and started to tow the vessel to the port in Ashdod.

The “Freedom Flotilla” group said that the boat had been “seized” and that the ship had received a warning from the navy prior to the interception. […]

“The forces made it clear to the boat that it was violating the blockade and that any humanitarian supplies [it is carrying] can be delivered to Gaza through the port of Ashdod,” the military said in a statement. “The activity ended without any unusual incidents. The boat is being towed to the port of Ashdod…

James Shaw, co-leader of the Green Party and Minister for Climate Change (surely Minister against it?), tells us he is working his way through 15000 submissions on the recent climate change consultation document.  I’ve done a couple of posts here on the document, and on the NZIER modelling used extensively in it, and I’ve chided both the Minister and his department, NZIER, and the Productivity Commission for simply ignoring the fact that our large-scale non-citizen immigration policy is a discretionary policy measure that drives up New Zealand’s carbon emissions, further increasing the economic cost of any variant of a “net-zero” target the government might choose to adopt.   But I didn’t make a submission: there are only so many hours in the week, and it seems pretty clear from some recent broadcast remarks from the Minister that he thinks his own Ministry (for the Environment) is altogether too pessimistic.  …

It took several days of communication between UK Media Watch and editors at the Irish Examiner, but we finally secured a correction to a sentence in a July 23rd op-ed which bizarrely suggested that there were still Israeli settlements in Gaza.

Here’s the original sentence.

Here’s the revised sentence:

Editors added an addendum at the bottom of the piece noting the change.

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