Or the societal necessity to support (yet critique) Academic Freedom and Free Speech. Mike Grimshaw writes – The other day I attended the Free Speech Union AGM and was on the Academic Freedom panel. It was an interesting experience because while I am a committed supporter of Free Speech and Academic Freedom, in many ways […]
MIKE GRIMSHAW: It’s about critiquing power, stupid!…
MIKE GRIMSHAW: It’s about critiquing power, stupid!…
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics
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)
Reflections on the TCU Capitalism versus Socialism Debate
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, privatisation, property rights, Public Choice, public economics Tags: economics of socialism, Sweden
Two days ago at Texas Christian University, I debated Scott Sehon, chair of Bowdoin College’s Philosophy Department, on Capitalism versus Socialism. (Video forthcoming eventually). My opening statement was a slight variation on the one I wrote for an earlier debate on the same topic with Elizabeth Bruenig. Sehon’s opening statement was adapted from his Socialism:…
Reflections on the TCU Capitalism versus Socialism Debate
New York Times Controversy Exposes the Inherent Conflict in Advocacy Journalism
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
Jazmine Hughes, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, resigned this week after a conflict with her editors over signing of an anti-Israeli letter. New York Times Magazine Editor Jake Silverstein said Hughes violated the company’s policy on public protest. The incident exposes the inherent conflicts — and hypocrisy — in the shift away […]
New York Times Controversy Exposes the Inherent Conflict in Advocacy Journalism
Poland: Steps on the way to cohabitation
07 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
No sooner had I closed off the previous entry by noting that “the specific rules of any country’s semi-presidential system matter less when the election has actually resulted in an assembly majority,” than I read that President Andrzej Duda of Poland has initiated the process of government formation. He has done so by nominating a […]
Poland: Steps on the way to cohabitation
CHRIS TROTTER: Threatening “consequences”
07 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
Chris Trotter writes – “CONSEQUENCES” – it’s a word that acquires an ominous quality in the mouths of political radicals, as in: “Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from its consequences.” Or, as Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa Packer expressed it, when asked what would happen if the Act Party secured its referendum on […]
CHRIS TROTTER: Threatening “consequences”
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
07 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, economics of education, growth disasters, growth miracles, human capital, labour economics
California EV HELL: QUEUING for chargers at MIDNIGHT!!!
07 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, transport economics
By Paul Homewood Coming to a town near you!
California EV HELL: QUEUING for chargers at MIDNIGHT!!!
Smith’s Siren: Can Trump Be Convicted for the Lure of Bad Lawyering?
07 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
Below is my column in The Messenger on the emerging controversy in the Trump prosecutions over the testimony of former counsel to the former president. Various lawyers have now accepted plea bargains. However, Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney appear to be arguing that, while Trump was assured of these claims by […]
Smith’s Siren: Can Trump Be Convicted for the Lure of Bad Lawyering?
The Case Against Affordable Housing
06 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, econometerics, economic history, urban economics Tags: affordable housing
Affordable housing projects aren’t making housing more affordable. In fact, says a new study by an MIT economist, construction of new subsidized housing displaces new unsubsidized housing for little net gain in the housing supply. Specifically, the study found, ten new subsidized housing units resulted in eight fewer unsubsidized units. … Continue reading →
The Case Against Affordable Housing
Ralph Hawtrey, Part 1: An Overview of his Career
06 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, fiscal policy, great depression, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, unemployment
One of my goals when launching this blog in 2011 was to revive interest in the important, but unfortunately neglected and largely forgotten, contributions to monetary and macroeconomic theory of Ralph Hawtrey. Two important books published within the last year have focused attention on Ralph Hawtrey: The Federal Reserve: A New History by Robert Hetzel, […]
Ralph Hawtrey, Part 1: An Overview of his Career
Once again, Scientific American screws up an article claiming that the binary definition of sex is harmful and limiting
06 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
Scientific American just can’t help itself; it has to keep pounding away at the biological definition of sex, which is based on differential gamete size. Just the other day they published a full article in the “evolution” category, arguing that women hunted just as much as men in ancient times (and in hunter/gatherer societies today), […]
Once again, Scientific American screws up an article claiming that the binary definition of sex is harmful and limiting
Was Cavalry Useless in the First World War?
06 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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