Is @HillaryClinton a Reformer or Hypocrite?
07 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, labour economics, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Left-wing hypocrisy, sexual harassment
Why Robert Hanson leans Libertarian
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism
@OwenJones84 @K_Niemietz Venezuelan, Chilean and Chinese index of economic freedom rankings 2016
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights, public economics Tags: capitalism and freedom, Chile, China, The Great Escape, Venezuela
A bizarre Finnish amateur racing car practice for redistributing winning
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, fiscal policy, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, poverty and inequality, property rights, public economics, rentseeking Tags: basic income, car racing, Finland, guaranteed minimum income, negative income tax
@NewStatesman Q&A: Why the UN’s Julian Assange ruling is meaningless
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: conspiracy theories, extradition, Leftover Left, renegade Left, Twitter left
Much more than a high minimum wage – Puerto Rican, Mexican and U.S. Doing Business rankings 2015
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: doing business, Mexico, Puerto Rico
Having a high minimum wage is the least of the problems that the US territory of Porto Rico has when you consider reasons from its recent sovereign default. It owes about US$70 billion. It is a terrible place to do do business – worse than Mexico! Mexicans find it easier to export to the USA!
@OwenJones84 @K_Niemietz Ease of Doing Business in Latin America and the Caribbean – World Bank rankings
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, property rights Tags: doing business, Venezuela
Source: World Bank Doing Business Database 2015.
@GreenpeaceUK thinks these wind turbines are a pretty sight
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, law and economics, property rights Tags: Big Wind, land use conflicts, visual pollution, wind power
#TPPANoWay sovereignty objections apply equally to @ILO conventions
04 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economics of regulation, international economic law, international economics, International law, labour economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, unions Tags: employment law, employment protection, employment regulation, ILO, labour market regulation, social clauses, TPPA
New Zealand has signed and ratified dozens of International Labour Organisation Conventions dating back to 1921. They all fetter the sovereignty of New Zealand. As a member of the ILO, New Zealand is required to report on its application of ILO Conventions.
That limitation on the sovereignty of New Zealand is no more and no less than in an international trade agreement. New Zealand can renounce an international trade agreement and has renounced nine International Labour Organisation conventions.
Jane Kelsey makes the following points about the legal implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement:
The 30 chapter Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) constrains domestic law and policy at central government level, and in places by local government and SOEs, in diverse areas beyond traditional aspects of international trade.
…The TPP provides cumulative opportunities for foreign states and corporations to influence domestic decisions which may be burdensome and intrusive.
The exact same objections apply to the ILO conventions. The union movement does not hesitate to argue that the democratic process in New Zealand should be overridden because the proposal at hand purportedly conflicts with an ILO convention.
For example, when the government was choosing to deregulate collective bargaining, the sovereignty of Parliament was questioned because of an ILO convention. Helen Kelly, CTU President said:
in Parliament on 4 June, the Minister was asked if he agreed with advice from officials that the ability for employers to opt out of multi-employer bargaining may breach our obligations under ILO Convention 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining.
…There is no point attending such an important UN ILO conference at the time your Government is being advised it is breaching its undertakings to that very organisation…
The CTU President also referred to the regulatory impact statement prepared for that collective bargaining legislation:
The paper also points out that these changes open NZ up to international examination by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for non-compliance with Convention 98 – on the Right to Organise and Collectively Bargain, which New Zealand has signed up to.
Helen Kelly says “at least four of the proposals are deemed to be inconsistent with our international obligations, and two of them are classified as uncertain. Why the Government wants law changes that damage our international obligations is unclear.”
Council of Trade Unions submissions to minimum wage reviews have at least a dozen references to ILO conventions and the requirement to honour their provisions.
Posner and Goldsmith rightly argue that international law is a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not induce states to comply contrary to their interests. The possibilities for what it can achieve are limited.
Government sign-up to various international agreements depending on their political priorities. You cannot complain that governments that you did not vote do what government you voted for also did, which was sign up to international agreements that suited their political agendas. The solution is to work harder to win the next general election.
As for opposing trade agreements on sovereignty grounds, it is rank hypocrisy for the union movement to do so given the number of times it cites international labour agreements when it suits them and seeks their inclusion in trade agreements to raise labour costs in developing countries.
No asymmetric marriage premium in commuting: the family commuting gap for mothers and fathers travelling to and from work by school age of child in the UK, Germany, France and Italy
04 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of love and marriage, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, transport economics, urban economics Tags: asymmetric marriage premium, commuting times, gender wage gap, reversing gender gap
Few labour market statistics have any meaning unless broken down by gender. The compensating differentials that explain much of the family pay gap extend strongly to commuting times.
Source: OECD Family Database – OECD, Table LMF2.6.A.
Mothers commute a good 15 to 20 minutes less than fathers in the UK, Italy, Germany and France. Single women commute 5 to 10 minutes further than mothers. Single men and fathers commute much the same distance.
Why @NZLabour @Maori_Party should be tough on crime
01 Feb 2016 1 Comment
in economics of crime, politics - New Zealand
A good mate at University was a democratic socialist. After graduating in law, he joined the Director of Public Prosecutions. He is still there as a senior counsel. That is the new name for a Queens Counsel in Tasmania.
The reason he gave for his career choice, he was a top-notch graduate with a great career ahead of him, was the poor were mostly the victims of crime. The best he could do for them was to put those that victimised them in prison by being a public prosecutor. As William Julius Wilson explains:
As Leon Neyfakh points out, some people are reluctant to talk about the high murder rate in cities like Milwaukee because
(1) it might distract attention from the vital discussions about police violence against blacks, and
(2) it runs the risk of providing ammunition to those who resist criminal justice reform efforts regarding policing and sentencing policy.These are legitimate concerns, of course. On the other hand, it is vital to draw more attention to the low priority placed on solving the high murder rates in poor inner-city neighbourhoods, reflected in the woefully inadequate resources provided to homicide detectives struggling to solve killings in those areas. As Jill Leovy, a writer at Los Angeles Times asserts in her 2014 book Ghettoside, this represents one of the great moral failings of our criminal justice system and indeed of our whole society. The thousands of poor grieving African American families whose loved ones have been killed tend to be disregarded or ignored, including by the media.
The nation’s consciousness has been raised by the repeated acts of police brutality against blacks. But the problem of public space violence—seen in the extraordinary distress, trauma and pain many poor inner-city families experience following the killing of a family member or close relative—also deserves our special attention. These losses represent another social and political imperative, described to me by sociologist Loïc Wacquant in the following terms: “The Other Side of Black Lives Matter.” They do indeed.
U.S. police shootings by threat level, January 2016
01 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: law and order, police shootings
@TrevorMallard what next for #TPPANoWay? Repeal CER?
31 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, television, TV shows Tags: CER, closer economic relations, Hollywood economics, ISDS, preferential trading agreements, rational irrationality, single market, TPPA, Twitter left
New Zealand filmmakers have used trade treaties to pry open access to foreign markets by challenging failures to honour promises of nondiscrimination in trade and investment in the Federal Court of Australia.
This should please the Twitter Left because they are also a film going left as are most members of the educated middle class as a point of identity and snobbery.
Back in the day, New Zealand television programming was sold cheaply into the Australian market. Many cultural and other products are exported into foreign markets and sold for whatever they can get above the price of shipping or digital transmission. What else explains all that rubbish on cable TV?
Under the Closer Economic Relations agreement that creates a single market between Australia and New Zealand, New Zealand made television programming content must be treated the same way as Australian content so it was included in their 50% local content rules for commercial television back from whenever I remember this story from.
There was a Federal Court of Australia case that ruled that New Zealand television programming was Australian content programming for the purposes of the relevant media regulations because of Closer Economic Relations.
From the late 1990s, with revival of the New Zealand film and television industry, New Zealand content was starting to flood the Australian market, especially in the off-season in the summer when stations were looking for cheap content to fill a low ratings period.
Naturally, this Kiwi invasion did not please the rent seeking Australian television programme production industry and many a mendicant actor, writer and producer
Where there is a will, where there is a way: minimum quality standards are introduced into the Australian content rules defined by price – a price that happen to be above what the television stations used to pay for New Zealand made programming in the off-season.
This court victory in favour of various New Zealand film industry in enforcing a trade and investment treaty puts the Twitter left in a bit of a conundrum. Which is more important? The New Zealand film industry or their hatred of globalisation and the rule of law.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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