Utopia, you are standing in it!

The  Labour-led coalition’s  move  to place  a $2.3bn order  for new  Poseidon anti-submarine  hunters has opened  the biggest split so  far  among the parties supporting the coalition.

Green  Party  defence  spokesperson Golriz  Ghahraman says her party  opposes the purchase  because  it  is  a  continuation  of the  old  “war-style”  obsession with  weapons.

“They’re incredibly expensive because they’ve got that war-making capability that we feel New Zealand really needs to lead the way in moving away from.”

Two of the most prominent cabinet ministers, and those most heavily implicated in Brexit negotiations, have resigned from Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet, and her ministry could fall.

However, the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act complicates matters and could even offer the beleaguered May a reprieve, or at least keep the Conservative Party in government. This act has put the British Crown’s prerogative authority over dissolving parliament into abeyance. In other words, the Queen no longer dissolves Parliament on the advice of the Prime Minister. Instead, Parliament can now only be dissolved pursuant to the statutory authority contained within the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act itself.

On the morning news, I heard a report that a Muslim group has put up pro-hijab billboards for six weeks on Interstate 55 and the Tri-State Tollway outside Chicago. Here are the billboards.

Note that they also appeal to Christians by saying that “Blessed Mary wore the hijab”. How do they KNOW that?  Yes, Mary is often depicted wearing a head covering, but, as you see below, sometimes her hair is showing quite a bit. It’s not really a hijab, unless you call any woman wearing a headscarf a hijabi.

Mary exposing her hair:

This woman would get arrested by the modesty police in Iran.

The billboards are part of a campaign to defuse bigotry against Muslims (well, only the ones wearing hijabs), and good for them. Anybody who attacks or disses, or insults a woman who wears a Muslim headscarf, or any Muslim garb, is reprehensible. That is true…

Timothy Jackson and Laurence J. Kotlikoff in this paper:

Bank failures are generally liquidity as well as solvency events. Whether it is households running on banks or banks running on banks, defunding episodes are full of drama. This theater has, arguably, lured economists into placing liquidity at the epicenter of financial collapse. But loss of liquidity describes how banks fail. Bad news about banks explains why they fail. This paper models banking crises as triggered by news that the degree (share) of banking malfeasance is likely to be particularly high.

The malfeasance share follows a state-dependent Markov process. When this period’s share is high, agents rationally raise their probability that next period’s share will be high as well. Whether or not this proves true, agents invest less in banks, reducing intermediation and output.

Deposit insurance prevents such defunding and stabilizes the economy. But it sustains bad banking, lowering welfare.

Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on why the most creative and productive individuals are often disfavored in our modern confirmation system.  With the announcement of the new nominee this evening by President Donald Trump, we will have the state of a counterintuitive process that favors those who are the least forthcoming or open about their views.

Here is the column: 

Environmentalists and mainstream media finally got their wish. EPA head Scott Pruitt resigned Thursday as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. According to The New York Times, Pruitt cited unrelenting attacks on me personally in his resignation letter as the primary reason for his stepping down.

Despite the many scandals that clouded his leadership, the victory lap the political Left and media are performing for taking Scott Pruitt out, will be short lived. As it turns out, Scott Pruitt’s assistant, Andrew Wheeler, is now acting EPA Chief and he is more adept at navigating the EPA bureaucracy than his predecessor. Quoting The New York Times:

Washington insiders describe Mr. Wheeler as well positioned to pursue Mr. Trump’s agenda as effectively as Mr. Pruitt, or even more so, by moving more slowly but in ways likelier to withstand legal challenge.

“Andrew is one of the most well-known, well-respected policy…

Julie Anne Genter sounded a ministerial warning to the private sector over the numbers of women on boards.  If companies don’t raise the percentage from around 19%, she said on a Q+A interview, “then we might have to start thinking about ways government can incentivise them”.

She would consider using whatever tools would be most effective at motivating change while ensuring against any perverse consequences.

Blogger Ele Ludemann, at Homepaddock, expressed the concerns – if not dismay – that will be harboured by anyone bothered by the excessive intrusion of the state in what we do, what we say, what we think, and how we run our businesses.

Company directors are elected by shareholders in the private sector, she pointed out,

“ … and what she’s saying suggests that the government might come up with something that would interfere with their right to elect who they want.”

An article in The Times (Can Jared Kushner sell a peace deal without the Palestinians?, July 5th) by Anshel Pfeffer and Catherine Philp included, as a bit of historical context on the new US peace plan, a list of “Failed Peace Attempts” going back to 1919: