Richard Prebble writes: A Royal Commission is our nation’s highest form of inquiry, reserved for the most important issues. To ensure confidence in its findings, commissioners have the power to summon witnesses and take their evidence in public under oath. In my research, apart from health reasons, the only person to have ever refused to […]
Prebble on Covid unaccountability
Prebble on Covid unaccountability
06 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics
Ten questions we would have asked of Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson and Verrall
25 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, health economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: economics of pandemics
Ananish Chaudhuri and John Gibson write – It is a pity that the Ministers who were central to formulating our Covid response have refused to show up to public hearings. We understand that in the past, private interviews of Ministers may have been the norm. But according to this same group, Covid was a once […]
Ten questions we would have asked of Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson and Verrall
Maori life expectancy rising the fastest
20 Aug 2025 1 Comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: life expectancies
Stats NZ have published the latest life expectancy at birth data. Here’s the increase for each ethnic and gender group from 2006 to 2023. This is what TPM presumably calls genocide!
Maori life expectancy rising the fastest
Treasury states what we all knew
14 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, health economics, income redistribution, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: economics of pandemics
The Herald reports: A new Treasury paper has criticised the last Government for overspending during the pandemic, leaving the country with a high level of public debt that makes it vulnerable to future shocks. The paper calculated the total cost of the pandemic at about $66 billion. It put the total fiscal contribution to the […]
Treasury states what we all knew
Tenth Circuit: Parents Do Not Have Right to Override Ban on Gender Transitioning of Minors
12 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of regulation, gender, health economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
The Tenth Circuit handed down a notable opinion this week in Poe v. Drummond, upholding Oklahoma’s law prohibiting gender transition procedures for anyone under eighteen. The opinion by Judge Joel Carson (joined by Judges Harris Hartz and Gregory Phillips) concluded that parental rights do not trump a state’s determination of what are safe treatments for […]
Tenth Circuit: Parents Do Not Have Right to Override Ban on Gender Transitioning of Minors
Planned Parenthood going the way of the ACLU and the SPLC?
23 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Luana called my attention to an article on wokeness, in this case describing the ideological erosion of Planned Parenthood (henceforth “PP). Click the headline below to read the WSJ “Saturday essay”, or or find it archived free here. Notice that the author is Pamela Paul, formerly the Sunday book-review editor and then a columnist for […]
Planned Parenthood going the way of the ACLU and the SPLC?
Hipkins’ role as Covid czar thrust into spotlight
16 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: anti-vaccination movement, economics of pandemics
Labour leader can no longer pretend to be the Man Who Wasn’t There Graham Adams writes – When Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister in January 2023, the legacy media preposterously promoted him as a new broom. By promising a “policy bonfire” of some of the issues that had led to Labour’s plunging […]
Hipkins’ role as Covid czar thrust into spotlight
ORIGINAL SIN: PRESIDENT BIDEN’S DECLINE, ITS COVERUP, AND HIS DISASTROUS DECISION TO RUN AGAIN by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
14 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - USA
(Biden family photos sat behind President Joe Biden as he delivered his address to the nation) Ever since the Anita Hill hearings in October 1991 I have had little respect for Joseph Biden. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was responsible for her receiving a fair and respectful hearing – a task that […]
ORIGINAL SIN: PRESIDENT BIDEN’S DECLINE, ITS COVERUP, AND HIS DISASTROUS DECISION TO RUN AGAIN by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
Technology Transfer and Development Economics
14 Jul 2025 1 Comment
in development economics, health economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: technology diffusion
Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning around 1904 but technological innovations often take a long time to travel to less developed regions of the world. FT.
Technology Transfer and Development Economics
#TheGreatEscape
11 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: India, Pakistan
Why do Māori have to rely on deceased kidney donors?
08 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand
Systemic racism or an inconveniently multifaceted set of problems requiring uncomfortable conversations Ani O’Brien writes – It is a fact that the life expectancy of Māori is lower than New Zealanders of European descent. It is also a fact that the life expectancy of New Zealanders of European descent is lower than that of Asian […]
Why do Māori have to rely on deceased kidney donors?
Ouch
06 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics
Sir Ian Taylor starts his open letter to Jacinda Ardern with praise for the initial Covid response but then he gets critical: . . . People put politics aside and tried to help. Offering real solutions, safe, proven ways to save both lives and livelihoods. Business-led initiatives, technology-enabled tracking, controlled pilot programs. These were not […]
Ouch
US Health Care Expenditures: An Ominous Trend Returns?
04 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - USA Tags: health insurance
In the 2010s, it appeared that US health care expenditures as a share of GDP had peaked. But there group at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that continually carries out and updates these estimates and forecasts. Their most recent projections suggest that US health spending is about to start rising again as a…
US Health Care Expenditures: An Ominous Trend Returns?
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