Caado la gooyaa car alle ayey leedahay (‘The abandonment of tradition calls forth the wrath of Allah’, Somali proverb, quoted in The World’s Most Dangerous Place, page 398) James Fergusson worked on this book with help from a grant from the Airey Neave Trust, a charity whose objective is to promote research ‘designed to make […]
The World’s Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia by James Fergusson (2013)
The World’s Most Dangerous Place: Inside the Outlaw State of Somalia by James Fergusson (2013)
30 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, development economics, economic history, economics of crime, growth disasters, law and economics Tags: Somalia
What Was Gary Becker’s Biggest Mistake?
15 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in behavioural economics, economics of crime, Gary Becker, history of economic thought, law and economics
The econometrician Henri Theil once said “models are to be used but not to be believed.” I use the rational actor model for thinking about marginal changes but Gary Becker really believed the model. Once, at a dinner with Becker, I remarked that extreme punishment could lead to so much poverty and hatred that it could create blowback. Becker […]
What Was Gary Becker’s Biggest Mistake?
Some questions for those protesting for Palestine
15 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, International law, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, war and peace
I’m frankly astonished at the scale, frequency and anger of protests held in solidarity for Palestinians in Gaza, which variously call for a ceasefire, call for “freedom” for Palestine and which variously accuse Israel of atrocities, using the language and statistics issued by the Gazan totalitarian theocrats. It is driven by a coalition of communists,…
Some questions for those protesting for Palestine
Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture [NLC 2023]
15 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: constitution law, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
What Did the German Public Know About the Holocaust During WWII?
15 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
Police versus Prisons
13 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of crime, Gary Becker, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, occupational choice
Here’s a remarkable graph from the Council of Economic Advisers report on incarceration and the criminal justice system. The graph shows that the United States employs many more prison guards per-capita than does the rest of the world. Given our prison population that isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that on a per-capita basis we employ 35% […]
Police versus Prisons
International Law in War
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, International law, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics
A follow-up to my post on Bombing Your Way To Proportionality as one Natasha Hausdorff discusses more than just that aspect of waging war. She’s a barrister who got a law degree at Oxford University and an LL.M. specialising in public international law. She then clerked for the President of the Supreme Court of Israel […]
International Law in War
The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips (revised edition, 2020)
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, economics of crime, energy economics, International law, law and economics, Public Choice, war and peace Tags: Iran, Israel, Middle-East politics, Syria, war against terror
There are quite a few book-length studies of the Syrian Civil War. The distinctive thing about this one is that academic and author Christopher Phillips insists that other regional countries weren’t ‘drawn into’ the conflict once it had got going but, on the contrary, were involved right from the start, helped to exacerbate the initial […]
The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips (revised edition, 2020)
Still under-policed and over-imprisoned
07 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of crime, Gary Becker, labour economics, law and economics, occupational choice, Public Choice Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law and order
A new paper, The Injustice of Under-Policing, makes a point that I have been emphasizing for many years, namely, relative to other developed countries the United States is under-policed and over-imprisoned. …the American criminal legal system is characterized by an exceptional kind of under-policing, and a heavy reliance on long prison sentences, compared to other […]
Still under-policed and over-imprisoned
South Africa’s Slow, Inevitable March Towards Collapse
04 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, economics of crime, energy economics, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, human capital, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics, urban economics Tags: South Africa
CUNY Adjunct Professor Shown Tearing Down Hamas Hostage Flyers
04 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA
Yesterday, I posted the account of one of my children who followed another student at George Washington University as she tore down flyers of the Hamas hostages from poles around campus. The vandalism near our law school is occurring across the country as activists seek to prevent others from expressing their views on the war. […]
CUNY Adjunct Professor Shown Tearing Down Hamas Hostage Flyers
The Democrats’ Anti-Semitism Problem | Wonder Land: WSJ Opinion
03 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of education, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Middle-East politics, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left, war against terror
Is the NYT buying and publishing information that helps Hamas?
02 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Middle-East politics, war against terror
This accusation comes from the “Elder of Ziyon” site, which is pro-Israel. But remember that much of the the information you get about the war comes from sites that take one side or the other (or, in the case of papers like the NYT, directly from the mouth of Hamas), so be judicious. In this […]
Is the NYT buying and publishing information that helps Hamas?
ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger (2015)
02 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, energy economics, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Iraq, Middle-East politics, war against terror
Asymmetrical warfare is defined by asymmetry. Any terrorist ideology that can attract five recruits and the contents of their bank accounts can make headlines for months. A terrorist group with twenty recruits and half a million dollars can make headlines for years. (ISIS: State of Terror, page 191) ISIS is the crack cocaine of violent […]
ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger (2015)
My conversation with Richard Dawkins
31 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, economics of education, economics of religion, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: free speech, Israel, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
About ten days ago I had an hourlong conversation with Richard Dawkins for his Substack site, “The Poetry of Reality“. The video, from YouTube, is embedded below. As Richard says in his written introduction: We covered a myriad of controversial topics plaguing our world today: from the religious conflict in Gaza to modern-day struggles with […]
My conversation with Richard Dawkins
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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