This blog provides a structured psychological overview of Mark David Chapman, the individual responsible for the 1980 murder of musician John Lennon. Drawing upon documented interviews, legal testimony, and secondary analyses from criminology and psychology scholars, the essay examines key psychological themes associated with Chapman, including identity instability, obsessive ideation, parasocial attachment, and the role […]
Using transaction-level data on US congressional stock trades, we find that lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension. Leaders’ superior performance arises through two mechanisms. The political influence channel is reflected in higher returns when their party controls the…
Eric Crampton writes – StatsNZ has put up its year-end accounts for the government, split out across functional areas. Their data goes back to 2009 in the main table; I’m sure earlier data’s available somewhere in Infoshare. But sticking with the Excel sheet they’ve provided, we can lob in June-year population statistics and June quarter […]
It is interesting to look at the list of Maori MPs who have won general electorates in NZ. The list is: So the breakdown by party is: Of Labour’s nine Maori MPs who won an electorate seat, five of them were in the 2020 landslide. Prior to that there had been only four. Just four…
In a post last week I included this chart of the latest annual OECD data on labour productivity, expressed in PPP terms. It was grim, in a familiar sort of way. New Zealand’s overall economic performance has long been poor (the halcyon days when New Zealand was in the top 3 in the world relegated […]
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has announced that it is selling its major assets to Netflix, including Warner Bros. Pictures (home of Harry Potter), DC Studios, and HBO Max. Netflix was chosen among a group of bidders that also included Paramount and Comcast. This post explores some of the antitrust issues and hurdles that a combined…
The memorandum and order in FTC v. Meta Platforms Inc. that U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg filed Nov. 18, ruling in favor of Meta, has now been followed by a Dec. 2 revised order that contained fewer redactions. The memorandum doesn’t exactly provide the law & economics analysis I would have produced, had…
A Kiwi who wishes to remain anonymous (of course) sent me this link to an announcement of a meeting of three Royal (Scientific) Societies: those of New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. The screenshot below also links to two other short documents, a communiqué and a statement by the Presidents of all three Societies. The object…
Tweet… is from page 223 of Art Carden’s and GMU Econ alum Caleb Fuller’s superb book, Mere Economics [original emphasis; footnotes deleted; link added]: The “finite resources” argument also begs the question because it assumes we know which materials are “resources” and which are not. Something is only a resource insofar as we can use…
A lot has happened if you look at the past 100 years of German economic policy. Hyperinflation leading to Hitler’s National Socialists taking power. An impressive free-market revival after World War II. A growing welfare state after the imposition of a value-added tax in the 1960s. Some semi-impressive spending restraint starting in the mid-1990s. Very […]
Let’s hope the Supreme Court agrees that Boulder’s lawsuit is an excellent opportunity to terminate frivolous climate lawfare, expand on the guidance it provided in these two previous cases – and end attempts by climate activists to impose destructive national policies through local and state courts.
Chris McVeigh writes – If you took a double at the TAB, with the Pope getting married as one leg and Radio New Zealand admitting to a smidgen of left wing partiality as the other, you could be forgiven for thinking that the smart money would be on the Vatican gig bringing home the bacon […]
That is my latest piece for The Free Press, focusing on the claims of Michael W. Green. Excerpt: Most of all, there is a major conceptual error in Green’s focus on high prices. To the extent that prices are high, it is not because our supply chains have been destroyed by earthquakes or nuclear bombs. […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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