applied price theory | Utopia, you are standing in it!

UK media outlets have largely attributed the death in Gaza of eight-month-old Layla al-Ghandour on May 15 to tear gas used by the IDF to quell violent border riots. Though serious questions were raised about the Palestinian girl’s death from out outset, most reporters appeared to accept the family’s claim that the girl accidentally ended up at the border clashes and died of asphyxiation as a result of inhaling the commonly used riot control agent.

Most reports included heart breaking photos of the mourning Palestinian mother, like this at The Telegraph.

The Independent even seemed to evoke, in an official editorial, some sort of moral equivalence between Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians and Israel’s use of tear gas (which they actually referred to as the “gassing” of a baby) in Gaza. Though most reports didn’t go as far as the Indy in attempting to demonise Israel, the…

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Freedom of Expression vs Blasphemy: Islam vs Human Rights

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Michael A. Sherlock (Author)

Free speech must include the right to offend. Granted, there are limitations upon free speech which do serve valuable and necessary functions – such as the prohibition against incitement to violence, or the prohibition concerning the deliberate causing of a panic that would likely result in imminent injury, etc – yet such limitations are not a valid basis for arguments that seek to increase restrictions on free speech. Put simply, the existence of common-sense limitations on free speech in no way testify to the alleged benefits of restricting speech that offends or hurts people’s feelings. Feelings should never be placed above fundamental human rights, particularly when the human right in question is the primary mechanism by which societies and cultures progress. George Bernard Shaw penned upon the lips of one of his fictional characters, “All great truths begin as blasphemies”. The validity of this noble and enlightened sentiment has been…

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French Butchers Terrorized by Vegans and Animal “Rights” Groups

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Green Jihad

French butchers are coming under physical, verbal and moral attacks by vegans and animal rights groups and have pleaded with police and the French government for protection against their campaign of terror.

According to The Telegraph, butchers allege the increased media exposure of the anti-meat cause has fueled a campaign of violence and intimidation against them. One butcher shop was recently vandalized while a fishmonger and restaurant that served meat dishes were attacked in the city of Lille. Seven butchers and charcuteries were attacked and sprayed with false blood in April in Hauts-de-France. Butchers organizations also say similar incidents occurred in the Occitanie region.

While animal rights groups have been making headlines with videos alleging terrible conditions animals are kept in meat production facilties, The Telegraph also points out a butcher group revealed that a vegan activist cheered the murder of a butcher named Christian Medvès by a Muslim…

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Judge throws out climate change lawsuit against ‘Big Oil’

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Tallbloke's Talkshop

An ambitious attempt to extort vast sums of money from the oil industry, by using the US legal system to bypass normal democratic political process on the pretext of supposed climate problems, has drawn an expensive blank in court.
H/T The GWPF.

San Francisco (AP) — A U.S. judge who held a hearing about climate change that received widespread attention ruled Monday that Congress and the president were best suited to address the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming, throwing out lawsuits that sought to hold big oil companies liable for the Earth’s changing environment.

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Jobs exposed to Chinese tariffs are more than twice as likely to fall in counties that voted Trump in 2016

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, international economic law, International law, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: trade wars

Jobs exposed to Chinese tariffs are more than twice as likely to fall in counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 than in counties won by Hillary Clinton, an analysis shows https://t.co/gMdoHEdSFu pic.twitter.com/XcPuHzb2C9

— Post Graphics (@PostGraphics) June 25, 2018

Stigler on one of the two political advising roles of economists

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, George Stigler, industrial organisation, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: deregulation, special interests

Harvard tries to reduce the number of Asian-American students by systematically downgrading the ratings of their personalities on applications

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Why Evolution Is True

The U.S. Supreme court has ruled, and sustained, the use of race as an admissions criterion for colleges and universities as a tool for increasing ethnic diversity. The stipulation, though, is that there cannot be racial quotas, and that there cannot be policies that “consciously aim at racial balancing.” This summary comes from today’s New York Times op-ed below (click on screenshot), and it confuses me. There’s also a related article in last August’s New Yorker by Jeannie Suk Gersen, an Asian-American professor at Harvard’s Law School (click on screenshot). Both take up the issue of Harvard’s historical discrimination against Asian-American applicants, which of course is related to racial balancing.

I am in favor of affirmative action to rectify the historical discrimination against underrepresented and oppressed minorities, though the ultimate goal should be to eliminate affirmative action, accepting people solely on the basis of their achievements, interests, and other…

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The Cuban Revolution and Infant Mortality, 1959-1974

26 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Vincent Geloso

I have a new working paper available. This time, it concerns Cuba (again) and I joined efforts with my friend Jamie Bologna Pavlik of Texas Tech University to write up that paper. We used a synthetic control method to assess the effect of the 1959 revolution on Cuba’s infant mortality rate. As health outcomes are often presented as the Castro regime’s best accomplishment (and yet there exists no attempt to disentangle the true effects of the revolution), we decided that this was a paper whose time had come. We find that infant mortality went up relative to the counterfactual between 1959 and 1970 but then reverted back to the counterfactual (a reversal which we attribute to the ramping-up of Soviet subsidies to Cuba). Overall, somewhere between 33,000 and 41,000 extra infant deaths occurred between 1959 and 1974. The paper is available here on SSRN and the abstract is below:

The…

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Lecture on economic history by Deirdre McCloskey

25 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Mostly Economics

Here is video of Prof McCloskey’s recent lecture given on 30 May 2018.

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History: The Great War – BBC- E15/26 – We Are Betrayed,Sold,Lost

25 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

The Inquiring Mind

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“It Is A Terrorist Organization”: Leading Democrats Call For The Abolishing Of ICE

25 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

Trump believes that immigration is the ultimate wedge issue for voters and polls would seem to support that view.

JONATHAN TURLEY

It was in vogue in past years for Republicans to call for the elimination of the IRS, a ridiculous and demagogic call. Now Democrats appear to have their own demagogic rallying cry in suggesting the elimination of ICE. Various Democrats went to the airways in the last week to suggest that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished, including Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) who wrote in a Medium pos that ICE had to be abolished “to protect our families.” Sen. Kamala Harris (D. Cal.) also said that the elimination of ICE might have to be occur to protect innocent people. New York Democratic candidate and former “Sex in the City” star Cynthia Nixon went as far to call ICE a “terrorist organization” and demanded its abolishment.

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Trump Calls For Deportations Without Hearings Or Judges

25 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

JONATHAN TURLEY

donald_trump_president-elect_portrait_cropped President Donald Trump escalated the debate over immigration this weekend in calling for the deportation of people who “invade our Country”, without hearings or judges. The call would raise serious questions under both U.S. and international law. It would be a denial of the most basic protections of due process for those with credible claims for asylum. The position is both extreme and untenable. It also undermines otherwise strong arguments being asserted for expedited procedures for dealing with the influx of undocumented persons.

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Thoughts on Scarcity: A Discussion on Keynsian Recessionary Spending (Wonky)

25 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory

A Force for Good

Last week I guest-taught a class for my friend and colleague at GMU Dr. Colin Doran. The course was Introductory Macroeconomics and the lecture was on fiscal policy. The textbook is Paul Krugman and Robin Wells’ popular book Macroeconomics (5th ed). In the chapter on fiscal policy, after explaining its goals and implementation, Krugman & Wells discuss several common objections. They write (Page 386):

In practice, the use of fiscal policy—in particular, the use of expansionary fiscal
policy in the face of a recessionary gap—is often controversial….But for now, let’s quickly summarize the major points of the debate over expansionary fiscal policy, so we can understand when the critiques are justified and when they are not.
There are three main arguments against the use of expansionary fiscal policy.
• Government spending always crowds out private spending
• Government borrowing always crowds out private investment spending
• Government budget deficits…

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Utopia, you are standing in it!

Nice summary

History: The Great War – BBC – E16/26 – Right Is More Precious Than Peace

UK media outlets ignore allegation that Hamas paid Gaza family to blame Israel for baby’s death

Freedom of Expression vs Blasphemy: Islam vs Human Rights

French Butchers Terrorized by Vegans and Animal “Rights” Groups

Judge throws out climate change lawsuit against ‘Big Oil’

Jobs exposed to Chinese tariffs are more than twice as likely to fall in counties that voted Trump in 2016

Stigler on one of the two political advising roles of economists

Harvard tries to reduce the number of Asian-American students by systematically downgrading the ratings of their personalities on applications

The Cuban Revolution and Infant Mortality, 1959-1974

Lecture on economic history by Deirdre McCloskey

History: The Great War – BBC- E15/26 – We Are Betrayed,Sold,Lost

“It Is A Terrorist Organization”: Leading Democrats Call For The Abolishing Of ICE

Trump Calls For Deportations Without Hearings Or Judges

Thoughts on Scarcity: A Discussion on Keynsian Recessionary Spending (Wonky)

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