The Economic History of the Last 2,000 Years in 1 Little Graph – The Atlantic
14 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, technological progress Tags: capitalism and freedom, The Great Fact
Global Warming Was Worth It – And if we had to, we’d do it again
13 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in climate change, development economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, liberalism, population economics, technological progress Tags: capitalism and freedom, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Now, my conception (read: European) of progress and a better standard of living would place many advances above composting, organic farming, or even urban chicken coops.
- Higher incomes that allow people to make livings that afford them more than merely survival or avoiding starvation.
- A low poverty rate.
- High quality and diversity of employment opportunities. Rather than the choice of being a farmer or being a blacksmith, the average citizen should have an array of careers to choose from, and the ability to be industrious and take risks for profit.
- The availability of housing. On an average night in the United States, a country with a population of somewhere around 350 million, fewer than one million people are homeless.
- Consistent GDP growth.
- Access to quality health care.
- The availability of quality education. (I suppose we could quibble over the word “quality,” but certainly there is widespread free education availability.)
- High life expectancy. Worldwide life expectancy has more than doubled from 1750 to 2007.
- Low frequency of deadly disease.
- Affordable goods and services.
- Infrastructure that bolsters economic growth.
- Political stability.
- Air conditioning.
- Freedom from slavery, torture and discrimination.
- Freedom of movement, religion and thought.
- The presumption of innocence under the law.
- Equality under the law regardless of gender or race.
- The right to have a family – as large as one can support. Maybe even larger.
- The right to enjoy the fruits of labor without government – or anyone else – stealing it.
There’s much more, of course. If the “sustainability movement” had its way, many of these advances would be degraded.
And since Caradonna offered a few charts highlighting climate change and population growth (a bad thing), I too was assembling a number of graphs that could offer visual examples of the rise of positive developments since the Industrial Revolution. I also soon noticed that all of them looked virtually identical.
So below is what a graph encompassing nearly every one of my bullet points looks like:
Bill Gates on The Great Fact
12 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, technological progress Tags: Bill Gates, capitalism and freedom, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
An Economic Explanation for Putin’s Recklessness
12 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
The World Bank underrates the sense of initiative and personal responsibility of the poor
12 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in behavioural economics, development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: World Bank
Politics and disaster aid in the Philippines – The Washington Post
11 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economics of natural disasters, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: corruption, natural disaster relief, Philippines, rent seeking, Tacloban
The good news is that we find that fund allocations do indeed respond to the location and intensity of typhoons and tropical storms.
However, political ties between members of Congress and local mayors, specifically party and clan ties, are also associated with greater funding for a given municipality.
One of the most devastated cities in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan is Tacloban City, with a population of 221,174 people.
Our research suggests that for a municipality of this size, a match in party affiliation between the member of Congress and the mayor increases the distribution of funds by PHP 1.74 million ($40,000), while a match in clan affiliation increases this distribution by PHP 6.23 million ($142,000).
The result that clan ties have a much larger effect than party ties on the distribution of per capita reconstruction funds underscores the relative importance of clan loyalty in decision-making by Philippine congressional representatives.
via Politics and disaster aid in the Philippines – The Washington Post.
The politics of the Philippines’ vulnerability to natural disasters – The Washington Post
11 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economics of natural disasters, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: corruption, disaster relief, Philippines, rent seeking
Regrettably, we find no evidence that poverty, vulnerability to disasters, or other objective measures of infrastructure needs are determinants of road construction and repair expenditures at the local level.
Instead, our evidence highlights the importance of political connections and electoral strategies.
Consistent with the story in many other countries in the developing world, we find that mayors divert construction funding to electorally contested areas where they need to win more votes, while congressmen use their discretionary funding to shore up political connections by allocating funding to localities where the mayor is an ally.
via The politics of the Philippines’ vulnerability to natural disasters – The Washington Post.
Why 2013 Was The Best Year In Human History | ThinkProgress
11 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics, liberalism Tags: The Great Fact
What would you spend $200 million on?
11 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: climate alarmism, green rent seeking, overseas development assistance
Clarifying the concept of envy & The Inevitability of Envy
09 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, growth disasters
Envy is an emotion that is essentially both selfish and malevolent.
It is aimed at persons, and implies dislike of one who possesses what the envious man himself covets or desires, and a wish to harm him [the envied]… There is in it also a consciousness of inferiority to the person envied…
He who has got what I envy is felt by me to have the advantage of me, and I resent it. Consequently, I rejoice if he finds that his envied possession does not give him entire satisfaction – much more, if it actually entails on him dissatisfaction and pain… (Schoeck, pg. 20-21)
via Cosmic Autonomy: Clarifying the concept of envy & The Inevitability of Envy.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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