Grammar pedants don’t know when to stop
04 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, health economics, law and economics Tags: economics of language
The Great Escape in England 1930 – 2001
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: British economy, capitalism and freedom, child mortality, infant mortality, life expectancies, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape
The kidney donation gap widening
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: organ donation
Since 2004, the waiting list for kidneys increased by 41,500 patients, while transplant operations increased by 1,000 http://t.co/pOSMiajbIh—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) June 11, 2015
The Great Escape – vaccine preventable deaths
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, The Great Escape, vaccinations, vaccines
Death rates from the two leading causes of death in the USA since 1950
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: life expectancies, The Great Escape
Figure 1: age-adjusted death rates from heart and cerebrovascular diseases, USA, 1950 – 2013
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
RT Sorry, vegans: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
02 Aug 2015 1 Comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: economics of physiology, PEETA, The Great Escape, vegans, vegetarianism
Eating meat and cooking food made us human, the studies suggest, enabling the brains of our prehuman ancestors to grow dramatically over a few million years.
Although this isn’t the first such assertion from archaeologists and evolutionary biologists, the new studies demonstrate that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet and that meat-eating was a crucial element of human evolution at least a million years before the dawn of humankind.
via Sorry, vegans: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains – The Washington Post.
The alternative to orchestrating a vast conspiracy
02 Aug 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, economic history, health economics Tags: conspiracy theories, GMOs, moon landing
Only the richest countries have safe drinking water
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: safe drinking water, water pollution
The CDC essentially argues that only the richest countries have safe drinking water. vox.com/2014/8/13/5998… http://t.co/7iBfYjj6cC—
Vox Maps (@VoxMaps) May 20, 2015
Life expectancies at age 65 by sex and race, USA, 1950 – 2010
31 Jul 2015 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: life expectancies, The Great Escape
There was quite a jump in life expectancy in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, followed by slow progress for white females and black females. In the case of men of both races, the situation appears to be steady progress in post retirement life expectancy since 1950. Black male life expectancy actually fell in the 1960s for those aged 65.
Figure 1: life expectancies at age 65 by sex and race, USA, 1950 – 2010
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Harm caused by drugs
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics Tags: alcohol regulation, economics of smoking, marijuana decriminalisation economics of prohibition, meddlesome preferences, tobacco regulation
Harm caused by drugs http://t.co/4gTLCm3hqS—
Charts and Maps (@ChartsandMaps) June 06, 2015
Alcohol consumption per adult across countries
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: alcohol regulation, meddlesome preferences, nanny state
Jane Kelsey opposes handcuffs on the democratic choices of future governments! Does she oppose labour and environmental standards in trade agreements too?
30 Jul 2015 6 Comments
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of regulation, environmental economics, health economics, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, International law, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice Tags: climate treaties, copyrights, customs unions, environmental standards, free trade agreements, free trade zones, intellectual property law, ISDS, Jane Kelsey, Labour standards, Left-wing hypocrisy, neocolonialism, patents, preferential trading agreeents, regional trade agreements, regulatory harmonisation, TPA, TPPA, WTO
Jane Kelsey in a television interview said she opposes the reductions in sovereignty in trade agreements that result from investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions because they limit the democratic choices of future governments.
If so, she must oppose environmental and labour standards in trade agreements and, more importantly, binding the hands of future governments with climate treaties. All international treaties are about restrictions on sovereignty.
Environmental and labour clauses in trade agreements and climate treaties all limit the powers of governments to legislate on environmental and employment law in accordance with the will of the people as expressed in the most recent election and change of government. Power to the people.
https://twitter.com/rorymccourt/status/625540621457960960
Jane Kelsey would do better focusing on those parts of the TPPA deal that lowers the net value of the deal such as those extending the term of patents over the drugs. All international treaties are about trade-offs.
The most important reason for focusing on intellectual property law in trade agreements is Kelsey is likely to actually win people over that are not on the far left, including many on the right of politics over to her cause. Kelsey is too busy rounding up the usual suspects.
Ranting about big corporate conspiracies and the investor state dispute settlement clauses puts people off.
As copyright duration's at play in #TPPA, a reminder of the costs when copyright's too long.
offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.co.nz/2014/03/orphan… http://t.co/tOtihpDmSU—
Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) July 29, 2015
These gusts of paranoia lose support on issues where there is common ground to be suspicious about the growing scope of trade agreements and their reach behind borders.
Regulatory harmonisation is advisable only when there are compelling reasons such as the prevention of hazards or technical compatibility of products – do the plugs fit into each other? As Sykes argues:
as a normative matter, harmonization is inferior to a legal system that tolerates regulatory differences subject to legal constraints, and that relies on mutual recognition where appropriate (the exception to this claim being matters of technical compatibility between products).
Related, as a positive manner, harmonization will often lack any political constituency and thus instances of true harmonization will be rare.
The Great Escape in infant mortality is still on-going
30 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: capitalism and freedom, child mortality, infant mortality, life expectancies, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
New Blog: "MDG4: A dramatic decline in child mortality over the last 20 years" blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/mdg4-… #opendata http://t.co/lSAS8SU5Od—
World Bank Data (@worldbankdata) July 16, 2015
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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