Is there any better – or should that be worse? – example of how the consenting process sabotages productivity than the current hearings on McDonalds’ application to open in Wanaka? Public submissions were sought, and of the 366 made, 339 were opposed, 21 in support and six wanted changes to the plan. Among the submissions […]
Sabotaging productivity
Sabotaging productivity
03 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: land supply, nanny state, zoning
The Government didn’t move with the science around Covid
03 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics
The Royal Commission concluded: The case for vaccine requirements of all kinds weakened in early 2022 with the arrival of the Omicron variant since vaccination was now much less effective in preventing COVID-19 transmission and immunity waned over time. While beneficial to the individual concerned, vaccination now offered less protection to others and the public […]
The Government didn’t move with the science around Covid
A sensible move by Ministry of Health
01 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: regressive left
The Ministry of Health announced: The Ministry of Health is today releasing an evidence brief and position statement on the use of puberty blockers for gender identity issues and outlining a more cautious approach to their use. The evidence brief shows a lack of good quality evidence to back the effectiveness and safety of puberty […]
A sensible move by Ministry of Health
Appalling behaviour by Public Health Te Waipounamu
01 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: nanny state, regressive left
It is no surprise that the Government is reducing the number of public health staff members, when they are spending their time on opposing resource consent applications for a McDonalds in Wanaka, rather than oh preventing the current whooping cough epidemic. Around half the public health staff (those who deal with infectious diseases) do amazing […]
Appalling behaviour by Public Health Te Waipounamu
So that’s what gets Reti riled – a National Public Health Service submission against McDonald’s setting up shop in Wanaka
30 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: nanny state, zoning
Buzz from the Beehive There’s plenty to raise a Health Minister’s blood pressure. Take – for example – news that Health New Zealand spent $72 million on contractors and consultants for a single IT project, in the lead-up to moving to get rid of over 1000 positions for IT employees. One recruitment company alone, Robert […]
So that’s what gets Reti riled – a National Public Health Service submission against McDonald’s setting up shop in Wanaka
Vaccines
30 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, cranks, vaccines
Jay Bhattacharya at the NIH
29 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election, economics of pandemics
Trump has announced the appointment, so it is worth thinking through a few matters. While much of the chatter is about the Great Barrington Declaration, I would note that Bhattacharya has a history of focusing on the costs of obesity. So perhaps we can expect more research funding for better weight loss drugs, in addition […]
Jay Bhattacharya at the NIH
The Great Escape
29 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: child mortality, infant mortality, life expectancies, The Great Escape
The Royal Commission on Covid-19 Report is a Repugnant, Unstructured Mishmash of Disinformation, Dressed up as a Single Source of Truth.
28 Nov 2024 1 Comment
in applied price theory, health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics
How can Professor Blakely, who is co-author of NZ’s Royal Commission Report into Covid, write a report critiquing our government’s approach to Covid when he was the intellectual architect of that approach? He co-authored the 2020 British Medical Journal article with Professor Michael Baker called, “Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19”. That…
The Royal Commission on Covid-19 Report is a Repugnant, Unstructured Mishmash of Disinformation, Dressed up as a Single Source of Truth.
A defense of the sex binary against Steven Novella’s “multidimensional” definition of sex
27 Nov 2024 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
At the CSICon meetings in Las Vegas this November, I gave a half-hour talk on the two aspects of evolutionary biology that have been most deeply misrepresented by ideologues: sex and race. “Progressives” maintain that sex is not binary but a spectrum, and also that “race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological […]
A defense of the sex binary against Steven Novella’s “multidimensional” definition of sex
New MIT course to indoctrinate students in all aspects of woke ideology that colonize medicine
26 Nov 2024 1 Comment
in economics of education, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left
This new course, to be offered next spring at MIT, was first singled out on The Babbling Beaver site, which calls attention to “fake news” at the university that usually turns out, as in this case, to be real news. The Beaver said this about the course. Feminist theory, disability justice, critical race theory, queer […]
New MIT course to indoctrinate students in all aspects of woke ideology that colonize medicine
Bob Ekelund Remembered
23 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, economics of information, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, health economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, market efficiency, Milton Friedman, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, regulation, theory of the firm Tags: competition law, Product safety
TweetHere’s my just-published remembrance, in Public Choice, of my late teacher, dissertation advisor, co-author, and friend, Bob Ekelund. Three slices: The only textbook assigned for the course was Milton Friedman’s Price Theory. From some younger members of Auburn’s economics faculty, I heard a few cocktail-lubricated complaints that core theory courses in a modern economics Ph.D.…
Bob Ekelund Remembered
Mum jailed for letting a 10 year old go for a walk
17 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: nanny state
Reason reports: It was dinnertime on October 30, 2024, when police handcuffed Brittany Patterson in front of three of her four children and drove her to the station in Fannin County, Georgia. She was then fingerprinted, photographed, and dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Her crime? Hours earlier, around noon, Patterson had driven her eldest son […]
Mum jailed for letting a 10 year old go for a walk
Move over, modern medicine: it’s time to collaborate with Rongoā Māori
13 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: cranks
Rongoā Māori is the “indigenous way of healing”: a combination of herbal and spiritual medicine used by the Māori of New Zealand. As The Encyclopedia of New Zealand notes, there were both supernatural and human illnesses, with the former treated through spiritual means (e.g., prayers, dunking in water, and other treatments described below), and the […]
Move over, modern medicine: it’s time to collaborate with Rongoā Māori
Biden administration lets Medicaid pay for Native American “traditional medicines”
06 Nov 2024 1 Comment
in economics of regulation, health economics Tags: cranks
Just yesterday I wrote about the drive in New Zealand to integrate indigenous medicine (Rongoā Māori, or RM) with modern (often called “Western”) medicine. The problem is that RM not only uses spiritual treatments (prayer, singing, dunking the sufferer in water) but also herbal remedies, and neither of these have been tested for efficacy using […]
Biden administration lets Medicaid pay for Native American “traditional medicines”
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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