During my For a New Liberty Book Club, noted Austrian economist and Rothbard fan Bob Murphy invited me to have an in-depth conversation on this famed “libertarian manifesto.” Last week, we did it. Enjoy!
*For a New Liberty*: My Bob Murphy Interview
More academic censorship
14 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, law and economics, economics of regulation, property rights, health economics
The FSU released: A peer-reviewed paper by a Māori clinical psychologist has been removed from her profession’s journal on the grounds that keeping it accessible could harm Māori. It was not retracted for error, fraud or misconduct, which are ordinarily the only reasons for such an action. Censorship knows no bounds. How dare she have…
More academic censorship
Coyne is keeping an eye on the legislation to define women and men
10 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: sex discrimination
Bob Edlin writes – News has reached Professor Jerry Coyne of the New Zealand Parliament debating a bill (which passed on its first reading) that would legally define a “man” and a “woman” this way: 13A Meaning of woman or female In any legislation, regardless of gender identity,— (a) woman means an adult human biological […]
Coyne is keeping an eye on the legislation to define women and men
Prince Harry and the Hypocrisy of Privacy
08 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in law and economics, property rights Tags: British politics
Prince Harry has suffered a significant defeat in his privacy action against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail. The case was brought by Harry and several other well-known figures, who alleged that the newspaper group had obtained private information through unlawful methods including phone tapping, voicemail interception and deception. The High Court dismissed the […]
Prince Harry and the Hypocrisy of Privacy
China’s Spent Rockets Are Turning Low Earth Orbit Into a Debris Minefield
04 Jul 2026 1 Comment
in law and economics, property rights, transport economics Tags: space
China’s pattern of treating low Earth orbit like a dumping ground at the same time it is expanding potential military space capabilities should raise serious concerns for anyone relying on satellite infrastructure — which, at this point, is pretty much everyone. The post China’s Spent Rockets Are Turning Low Earth Orbit Into a Debris Minefield…
China’s Spent Rockets Are Turning Low Earth Orbit Into a Debris Minefield
One public servant we could survive without
03 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: economics of smoking
Stuff reports: A Government ministry has taken the time to threaten legal action against Stuff, all over a photo of a 45-year-old magazine used in a Stuff Quiz. On June 26, question five of the Stuff morning trivia quiz asked who appeared on the debut cover of Playboy magazine. To accompany the question, the quiz featured an archive image of a person…
One public servant we could survive without
Supreme Court upholds ban on trans-identified men participating in sports in public schools
03 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
In a decision split along ideological lines yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state bans on trans-identified boys and men competing in girl’s and women’s sports were Constitutionally legal. Although the judges were unanimous in arguing that those laws did not violate Civil Rights laws (Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education), they…
Supreme Court upholds ban on trans-identified men participating in sports in public schools
Rent Control: The Ceiling Trap
02 Jul 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, law and economics, property rights Tags: rent control
Rent control is in the news again. Check out my new website, Rent Control: The Ceiling Trap. Here is just one bit: Norway abolished its rent control in 1982, and the economist Are Oust realized the newspapers had been quietly recording the whole experiment. He collected housing classifieds from Oslo’s Aftenposten from 1970 to 2008 and watched…
Rent Control: The Ceiling Trap
Renationalising British utilities
29 Jun 2026 1 Comment
in industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice Tags: British politics
There is talk of this with the pending change in PM, but I would not do it. I am quite aware that a) not all of the privatisations went well, and b) American data indicate that state-owned utilities do not seem very economically different than, or less efficient than, privately-owned utilities. Especially for water, where…
Renationalising British utilities
Nine Tweets Ripping Mamdani’s Economically Illiterate Expansion of Rent Control
28 Jun 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, income redistribution, law and economics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, urban economics Tags: rent control
I’ve written several columns (here, here, here, here, and here) detailing the folly of rent control. And now that New York City’s dilettante socialist mayor has proposed to expand rent control, I thought about doing the same thing. But I noticed so many clever comments on Twitter/X that I decided on a different approach. Here […]
Nine Tweets Ripping Mamdani’s Economically Illiterate Expansion of Rent Control
Ancient Clay Tablets Show Markets Worked 4,000 Years Before Economists Explained Them
21 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic history, history of economic thought, international economics, law and economics, property rights
Clay tablets unearthed in Asia Minor reveal a sophisticated commercial order emerging spontaneously nearly four thousand years before economists explained how markets work. By Surse Pierpoint of The American Institute for Economic Research.”A clay tablet from Kanesh, in what is now central Turkey, contains the founding charter of a twelve-partner trading company. Twelve merchants pooled thirty-three…
Ancient Clay Tablets Show Markets Worked 4,000 Years Before Economists Explained Them
150 laws to go
20 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights
Chris Bishop announced: More than 150 outdated and obsolete laws are likely to be repealed as part of the Government’s statutory spring clean, Attorney-General Chris Bishop says. The legislative cleanup is being run in stages led by the Parliamentary Counsel Office, alongside the Department of Internal Affairs for local Acts. To date, 152 outdated Acts…
150 laws to go
The History of Greenpeace: The Evolution of Green Extremism
14 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of climate change, economics of crime, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, International law, law and economics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: climate activists, nuisance suits
The era of unchecked “activism” that masks itself as science while practicing inhumane sabotage is reaching its end. We are witnessing the slow, painful process of reality catching up to the Greenpeace propaganda. And frankly, it’s about time. The post The History of Greenpeace: The Evolution of Green Extremism appeared first on Watts Up With…
The History of Greenpeace: The Evolution of Green Extremism
A Quiet Rewrite That Could Shape a Thousand Climate Cases
14 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights
An under-the-radar legal switcheroo should concern every business leader, investor, and taxpayer in America. Now, 23 state attorneys general have taken notice and sent a letter to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts that bolsters the efforts of three eminent scientists who sounded the alarm. The post A Quiet Rewrite That Could Shape a Thousand…
A Quiet Rewrite That Could Shape a Thousand Climate Cases
SpaceX and the New Geography of Corporate Governance
07 Jun 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, managerial economics, organisational economics, property rights
SpaceX may soon ask public investors to buy a piece of the future. The fine print may ask them to buy something else, too: a theory of corporate governance. The company’s reported initial public offering (IPO) has already drawn significant concern from institutional investors and corporate-governance observers. That concern is understandable. SpaceX reportedly seeks to…
SpaceX and the New Geography of Corporate Governance
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments