I agree with @D_Blanchflower – I wish newspapers didn't spin elections and played it straight, like they used to… http://t.co/5btL7PAFWe—
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) May 07, 2015
Good old left-wing hate speech at its best
12 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: British elections, expressive voting, free speech, hate speech, London newspapers, media bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Creative destruction in 1990s memories
11 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, good old days
Market segmentation in the London newspaper market
11 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Public Choice, survivor principle Tags: British elections, British politics, consumer sovereignty, creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, expressive voting, London newspapers, market selection, media bias, product differentiation, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, The meaning of competition
The truth about the press and power? Readers, not editors, decide elections. @RobertdgSmith specc.ie/1c58mAr http://t.co/Vhit9P9iM7—
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) May 06, 2015
Voter turnout among voting age people
11 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
Under the shy Labour voter theory, countries with low turnouts should have right-wing governments and countries with high turnouts should have left-wing governments. Do they?
Voter turnout among voting age people
Turkey 86%
Sweden 83
France 71
Mexico 65
UK 61
US 54pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015… http://t.co/lmMcqqM4JD—
Conrad Hackett (@conradhackett) June 01, 2015
Newspaper bias just ain’t what it used to be
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Public Choice Tags: British elections, creative destruction, expressive voting, London newspapers, media bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, red scares
Here's the Daily Mirror's polling day advice from days when it was more fair and balanced (h/t Guido) http://t.co/GJ5CNGMoRj—
Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) May 07, 2015
Has Bruce Ackerman just said the dumbest thing ever said?
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture Tags: Berlin wall, Cold War, collapse of communism, East Germany, fall of the Berlin wall, German unification, Germany, Greece, public intellectuals, West Germany
Traffic Jam near the Brandenburg Gate as East Germans move into West Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. http://t.co/hVWT9Mwh4L—
Vexy Vox (@Vexyvox) November 14, 2014
Satellite relay TV started this day, 1962
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, technological progress Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, innovation
10 July 1962: The 'Telstar' Communications satellite was launched. It was the beginning of satellite relayed TV. http://t.co/6kW3aAAEpF—
History (@HistoryTime_) July 10, 2015
Hopeless KiwiRail bailout reporting by Radio New Zealand
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of media and culture, politics - New Zealand, rentseeking, transport economics Tags: corporate welfare, KiwiRail, media bias, privatisation, public ownership, Radio New Zealand, state owned enterprises
This morning on 9 to noon on Radio New Zealand, Kathryn Ryan, the compere of the program, repeatedly claimed that the government pumped $1 billion into the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan between 2010 and 2014. I was so annoyed by this that I made a broadcasting standards complaint while the program was still being broadcast on my mobile as a one finger typist.
The report on 9 to Noon was in response to the government putting KiwiRail on notice, giving it two years to identify savings and reduce Crown funding required or risk the possibility of closure. Since KiwiRail was acquired in 2008 for $665 million as a commercial investment, Crown investments (taxpayers bailout) totalled $3.4 billion – see Figure 1.
Figure 1: State-owned enterprise welfare, Vote Transport and Vote Finance (KiwiRail), Budgets 08/09 to 15/16
Source: New Zealand budget papers, various years.
Table 1 shows that the KiwiRail Turnaround plan of $1.272 billion since the 2009-10 Budget is only a small part of the bailout of KiwiRail. 9 to Noon simply ignored the $210 million in the 2015 budget for KiwiRail for no explicable reason and instead talked about a $1 billion Turnaround plan rather than the $1.272 billion Turnaround plan.
Table 1: State-Owned Enterprise welfare, Vote Transport and Vote Finance (KiwiRail), Budgets 2008/09 to 2015/16, $million
| 08/09 |
09/10 |
10/11 |
11/12 |
12/13 |
13/14 |
14/15 |
15/16 |
|
|
New Zealand Railways Corporation Loans |
405 |
55 |
250 |
108 |
11 |
|||
|
KiwiRail Turnaround Plan |
20 |
250 |
250 |
250 |
94 |
198 |
210 |
|
|
KiwiRail Equity Injection |
323 |
25 |
29 |
|||||
|
Rail Network and Rolling Stock Upgrade |
105 |
71 |
10 |
|||||
|
New Zealand Railways Corporation Loans |
55 |
|||||||
|
New Zealand Railways Corporation Increase in Capital for the Purchase of Crown Rail |
376 |
|||||||
|
Crown Rail Operator Loans |
140 |
|||||||
|
Crown Rail Operator Equity Injection |
7 |
|||||||
|
Total |
578 |
530 |
376 |
510 |
680 |
119 |
209 |
239 |
Source: New Zealand budget papers, various years.
Other parts of the bailout of KiwiRail include $405 million in loans to the New Zealand Railways Corporation in the 2009-10 budge – see table 1. There was a $323 million equity injection in the 2012-13 Budget – see table 1. KiwiRail has also caused write-downs in the Crown balance sheet of an incredible $9.8 billion since it was repurchased in 2008.
9 to Noon ignored at least two thirds of the cost to the taxpayer of bailing out KiwiRail by only limiting its reporting to part of the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan. It ignored the contribution in the most recent budget to that plan. That does not meet broadcasting standards of accuracy or professional responsibility.
Any reasonable listener will infer, as I did when listening, that the entire cost of the bailout of KiwiRail is represented by the Turnaround Plan of about $1 billion. If listeners were left with that impression, they were misled by 9 to Noon and Radio New Zealand.
Creative destruction in Internet diffusion
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship Tags: cell phones, Digital poverty, entrepreneurial alertness, Internet, mobile phones, technology diffusion
Mobile broadband could reach saturation even faster than the mobile phone before it econ.st/1LJ3mhy http://t.co/2809LNCWwZ—
The Economist (@ECONdailycharts) May 27, 2015
It is Nikola Tesla’s birthday
09 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, Nikola Tesla
It is Nikola Tesla's birthday. His 1926 description of today's smartphone is truly remarkable http://t.co/AAkeSsWfpl—
paulkirby (@paul1kirby) July 10, 2015
Some people have quite ironic names
06 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture Tags: names
I don't want to alarm anybody, but at Los Alamos in 1944 there was actually a scientist named Doctor Doom. http://t.co/dmMh8D2VUO—
Alex Wellerstein (@wellerstein) January 11, 2015
I like behind-the-scenes shots
06 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, TV shows
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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