The recipe for economic growth is not complicated. You can put it in very simple terms, as Adam Smith did a few hundred years ago. Or you can develop and utilize data-heavy indexes like the ones published by the Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation. In either case, the result will be the same. If you […]
Last week, I observed that “Transit’s failure to recover from the pandemic is due largely to its downtown-centric orientation in most urban areas.” An op-ed in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun makes a similar point about the planned Red Line light-rail project for that city. “The problem with Baltimore transit is not … Continue reading →
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has introduced the “No Kings Act” with great fanfare and the support of most of his Democratic colleagues. Liberal groups have heralded the measure to legislatively reverse the ruling in Trump v. United States. It is obviously popular with the press and pundits. It is also entirely unconstitutional in […]
Roger Pielke Jr. explains at his blog Why Climate Misinformation Persists. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. H/T John Ray Noble Lies, Conventional Wisdom, and Luxury Beliefs In 2001, I participated in a roundtable discussion hosted at the headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with a group of U.S. Senators, […]
I met Yale Law’s David Schleicher when he was still a law professor at GMU. Back then, we argued about the best model of non-rigged one-party democracy, often seen in major cities… and Singapore. Since then, David’s become a powerful academic voice for YIMBY. Last month, David joined me for another Fast Take on Build,…
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealand’s government sacked the entire board of Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) last week, replacing it with a sole commissioner. The move marked more than just another shake-up in the country’s beleaguered health system. It signalled the spectacular failure of a grand experiment that has turned New Zealand into […]
The Miami Herald reports: A stunning 10% of Cuba’s population — more than a million people — left the island between 2022 and 2023, the head of the country’s national statistics office said during a National Assembly session Friday, the largest migration wave in Cuban history. Isn’t it such a weird coincidence that the queue […]
Here’s a lively AIER podcast on Build, Baby, Build with the one and only Veronique de Rugy. Best French libertarian since Bastiat? Décider vous-même!P.S. Capla-Con 2024 starts two weeks from tomorrow in Fairfax, Virginia. You’re all invited! Feel free to coordinate ride-sharing in the comments.
Texas won a big victory in the United States Court of Appeals in the long struggle over floating buoy barriers in the Rio Grande River to help block unlawful migration. In United States v. Abbott, the court ruled 11-7 in an en banc decision against the Biden Administration over the barrier. It is an interesting decision […]
See Socialists, Knowledge of History and Agency. These are letters to the editor of The WSJ in response to an article about socialism by Joseph Epstein. The one below reminded me of a 1992 article by Robert Samuelson in Newsweek. “Joseph Epstein’s “Socialists Don’t Know History” (op-ed, May 30, 2019) on the abysmal historical knowledge…
In an interesting new paper Federal Reserve economists Marianna Kudlyak, Murat Tasci and Didem Tüzemen look at what happens to job vacancy postings when the minimum wage increases. The vacancy data in our analysis come from the job openings data from the Conference Board as a part of its Help Wanted OnLine (HWOL) data series. […]
The minimum wage will tend to increase unemployment among low-skill workers, often minorities. To many people that’s an argument against the minimum wage. But to progressives at the opening of the 20th century that was an argument for the minimum wage–progressive’s demanded minimum wages to get women and racial minorities out of the work force. […]
Justice Joe Williams in his 2013 paper Lex Aoteoroa made a case for Māori tikanga being recognized as New Zealand’s “first law”. Tikanga existed prior to New Zealand’s development of a legal system based on the British model. Without written language pre-European Māori tikanga is not well documented. However, its customs and norms governed, for […]
The Reserve Bank’s latest round of consultation on a possible central bank digital currency (CBDC) closes today. The thick and probably expensive (at least one of the documents was produced jointly with the consultancy firm Accenture) set of consultation documents came up a few months ago. I thought I had run out of time to […]
Anyone watching and trying to understand last Sunday’s Q&A where Jack Tame interviewed Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will realise that she seems to be beyond reason. Tame tried to examine bits of her blather and her obvious misuse of words, but she immediately slithered like an eel under a rock and made louder assertions about how Maori “korero”…
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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