The economics of trophy hunting
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, environmental economics, law and economics, property rights Tags: Africa, antimarket bias, conservation, economics of conservation, endangered species, expressive voting, offsetting behaviour, rational irrationality, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge, uninte
TPP – Trojan Horse in a global race to the bottom
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice Tags: free trade agreements, ISDS, regional trade agreements, TPPA
I can’t think of a single fact that this crank got right in this clip on the Trans-Pacific partnership agreement (TPPA).
Robert Reich, a Democratic party hack, referred to the TPPA as the biggest trade deal ever. He ignored a large number of multinational trade deals under the World Trade Organisation and the GATT such as the Uruguay round and the current Doha round.
http://www.cuts-international.org/brf-97-1.gif
Reich claims the deal is negotiated in secret and later talks about its submission to the Congress for fast track.
Robert Reich claims that investor state dispute settlement allows challenges to any regulation and compensation for unfair reductions in profits. It is a far narrow criteria than that involving discrimination against foreigners.
http://images.slideplayer.com/5/1585527/slides/slide_6.jpg
Currently, about 3000 international treaties give the ability to sue governments. Some 2700 of these are Bilateral Investment Treaties. The rest are trade treaties, including NAFTA. These treaties have spread rapidly around the world since the 1990s.
The TPP draft chapter says that the point of investment protection has long been “to encourage and promote the flow of investment…as a means to promote economic growth.”
At the same time, the TPP draft chapter specifically highlights “the inherent right to regulate…to protect legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health, safety, the environment, the conservation of living or non-living exhaustible natural resources, and public morals.”
Robert Reich talks about the Trans Pacific Partnership and its implications especially if it is signed. It would be the largest trade deal in history representing 792 million people and accounting for 40% of the world economy. Well worth a look.
Deirdre McCloskey’s speech on ‘Bourgeois Dignity’
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights, survivor principle Tags: Deirdre McCloskey, entrepreneurial alertness, industrial revolution, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
The fates of two islands under constant threat from a neighbouring military colossus
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, industrial organisation, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: anticapitalist mentality, antimarket bias, capitalism and freedom, China, Cuba, expressive voting, Hong Kong, Leftover Left, public intellectuals, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, Twitter left
Would the reckless maritime protests of @Greenpeace be tolerated on land?
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, environmental economics, environmentalism, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights, Rawls and Nozick, transport economics Tags: Greenpeace, John Rawls, peaceful protest
Were the Greenpeace runabouts observing maritime safety rules such as avoiding collisions and giving way? Any protester that behaved like that in a car would be immediately arrested and charged.
Why it is tolerated in the high seas is beyond me when it would never be tolerated on the road. No one would pretend reckless driving was peaceful protest. Is it okay to behave recklessly in a boat? No one would accept that in a car on land.
Central to the notion of peaceful protest is fidelity to democracy and the rule of law. The idea is not to impose your will upon others, but to persuade the majority to reconsider their position by showing the passionate extent to which you disagree with them and honestly believe they are mistaken.
The civil disobedient is attempting to appeal to the “sense of justice” of the majority and a willingness to accept arrest is proof of the integrity of the act says Rawls:
…any interference with the civil liberties of others tends to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one’s act.
Rawls argues that the use or threat of violence is incompatible with a reasoned appeal to fellow citizens to move them to change a law. The actions are not a means of coercing or frightening others into conforming to one’s wishes. That is a breach of the principles of a just society.
Turbine country versus fracking country
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, law and economics, property rights Tags: Big Wind, cracking, green hypocrisy, visual pollution, wind power
Cecil
30 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
Before #CecilTheLion, hunter Kendall Jones said hunting is crucial to conservation. False. bit.ly/1tvr5wj http://t.co/SV5FeANMsE—
(@PolitiFact) July 30, 2015PHOTO: #ZebraLivesMatter http://t.co/fUGjFKfJXP—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 03, 2015
| Peter Klein |
No doubt you’ve heard about Walter Palmer, the American dentist who shot the lion, “Cecil,” in Zimbabwe, pushing aside Sir Tim Hunt as the Internet’s Most Hated Person. (Aside from calling Palmer cruel and depraved — even wishing his death by bow and arrow — some are labeling him a sociopath, which makes me wonder, are lions now considered members of society? Orgheads?)
I don’t hunt and have no particular emotional attachment to lions, so I find the outrage level bewildering. However, I think this can be a teachable moment. Specifically, there are lessons here about trophy hunting and endangered species. Not surprisingly to anyone who has studied property-rights economics, there is evidence that allowing trophy hunting is a good means of protecting endangered species. This is a version of the general argument that defining and enforcing property rights in scarce resources, including wildlife, provides incentives…
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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.
Takings, property rights and democracy
25 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, property rights Tags: constitutional law, rule of law, takings
Is the socialist solution to the Greek economic crisis working?
25 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, currency unions, economic growth, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), international economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights Tags: capital controls, capital flight, Greece, labour exodus, sovereign defaults
For down and out Greeks, the U.K. is the promised land with jobs aplenty bloom.bg/1Lwcc55 http://t.co/XHHXxdTUiN—
Bloomberg Business (@business) July 24, 2015
What is Free Banking and Why Should I Care?
21 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in industrial organisation, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights Tags: free banking
Where not to invest in Europe
18 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: doing business, Eurosclerosis, Greece
Where not to invest in Europe: Greece econ.st/1TAd3CZ http://t.co/X9vtnz0uhQ—
The Economist (@EconBizFin) July 15, 2015
Registering property in the USA, UK, Germany and France – World Bank Doing Business rankings compared
13 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of religion, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: British economy, doing business, France, Germany
Figure 1: registering property rankings, USA, UK, Germany and France – World Bank Doing Business rankings, 2014
Source: Doing Business – Measuring Business Regulations – World Bank Group.
Why is Labour so staunch on its left-wing policies – the voters must come to them – but opportunistic on race?
11 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, international economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: antiforeign bias, antimarket bias, left-wing populists, New Zealand First, New Zealand Labour Party, political opportunism, racism, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, right-wing populists, traditional labour voter, working class Tory
Figure 1: who won the electorate vote of New Zealand First party voters, 2014 New Zealand election
Source: Electoral Commission.
New Zealand First vote splitting data in Figure 1 suggests many more Labour voters vote New Zealand First than for the National Party with their electorate votes.
1/3rd of voters who gave their party vote to New Zealand First voted Labour with their electorate vote. This compares to one in five New Zealand First voters who gave their electorate vote to the National Party.
The Labour Party can win back some traditional Labour voters by borrowing populist policies from New Zealand First and its ageing leader such as prohibiting foreigners from buying New Zealand land.
Who mentioned Shane Jones?
In politics we don't pull our punches, unless you've got one of the world's best in town! http://t.co/Xiz2l36btg—
Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) August 08, 2013
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