My column in Newsroom this week makes a few guesses about where NZ local water policy may be headed. Labour forced the amalgamation of water services into new entities that National promised to throttle before they can get going. What happens next?No election platform survives contact with post-election coalition negotiations.But one outcome seems rather obvious –…
Charting a course
Charting a course
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, urban economics
House resolution favoring Israel passes with ten holdouts, nine of them Democrats (and six Dems voted “present”). Guess the Democrats!
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
The new House, with a new Speaker, has finally done something: passing its first resolution. It’s a resolution supporting Israel in its war against Hamas. A bit from the NY Times: The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to pass a resolution declaring solidarity with Israel, pledging to give its government whatever security assistance it needs […]
House resolution favoring Israel passes with ten holdouts, nine of them Democrats (and six Dems voted “present”). Guess the Democrats!
Vanity Fair reveals secret discussion at the NYT about using Hamas sources for headlines: “hedging” versus “attributing”
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Of all places, Vanity Fair has a short but interesting discussion of the New York Times headline fracas! You may remember that when there was an explosion in a Gaza hospital on October 17, the NYT reported what Hamas told it: first that there was an Israeli airstrike and then, when that became less credible, […]
Vanity Fair reveals secret discussion at the NYT about using Hamas sources for headlines: “hedging” versus “attributing”
What are markets telling us about the Middle Eastern war?
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt: Despite the continuing war in the Middle East, most markets have been relatively calm. Stock exchanges have not plunged, while volatility appears manageable, indeed ordinary. If you were looking at just the markets (except for Israel’s), you might not even know there is a […]
What are markets telling us about the Middle Eastern war?
Sowell Exposes Social Justice Fallacies
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, discrimination, economic history, economics of crime, gender, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, occupational choice, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, Thomas Sowell, urban economics Tags: gender wage gap, racial discrimination, sex discrimination
Matthew Lau reviews Thomas Sowell’s latest book Social Justice Fallacies in a Financial Post article: No sacred cows in Thomas Sowell’s takedown of social justice fallacies. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. In his latest book, renowned economist and author demolishes the myths that underpin the social justice movement. Thomas Sowell, age […]
Sowell Exposes Social Justice Fallacies
No Bid: Offshore Wind Power Now So Expensive It Can’t Find Buyers
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: celebrity technologies, wind power
So much for all the cheap talk about wind power being cheap. Offshore wind power is so expensive it can’t attract a buyer. In the UK, the last round of the government’s annual auction – which awards 15-year contracts to wind and solar generators, taking their occasional produce at a set price – did not […]
No Bid: Offshore Wind Power Now So Expensive It Can’t Find Buyers
Accountability
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Public Choice
On Saturday dozens of candidates for the governing Labour Party stood for election to Parliament. The aim was to form (at least a big part of) the next government. They didn’t succeed. People will debate for decades precisely what motivated the public as a whole to vote as we did, but having governed for the […]
Accountability
Winter Blackout Threat Drives Germany to Fire-Up More Coal-Fired Power Plants
26 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming
‘Green’ energy ideologues are terrified of mass blackouts; the moment when the proles work out the wind and solar transition is a monstrous lie. In Germany, the worship of intermittent wind and solar has all the hallmarks of a deranged cult. However, as with most cults, it’s a zealous few that end up driving a […]
Winter Blackout Threat Drives Germany to Fire-Up More Coal-Fired Power Plants
Finding external balance
26 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, international economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics
That was the title of a ten page piece published last week by the ANZ economics team (chief economist Sharon Zollner and one of her offsiders, who appears to be a temporary secondee from the Reserve Bank). You can find a link to the paper here. The gist is captured in the paper’s summary I […]
Finding external balance
Jesse Singal takes apart a bad paper on sex
26 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
I don’t think I’ve analyzed this paper on my site, but, since it came out recently, it’s become well known among rational biologists for being tendentious, ideologically based, and largely incoherent, something you might intuit from its title. You can read it by clicking on the screenshot below: The paper’s object is to dismantle the […]
Jesse Singal takes apart a bad paper on sex
October 25, 1760: The Accession of King George III of Great Britain and Ireland.
26 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
From The Emperor’s Desk: On the anniversary of the accession of King George III upon the British throne, instead of doing a full biography of the king, I have decided to just concentrate on the titles that George inherited throughout his lifetime. George III (George William Frederick; June 4, 1738 – January 29, 1820) George […]
October 25, 1760: The Accession of King George III of Great Britain and Ireland.
My letter to the Washington Post on race
26 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
About a week ago, the Washington Post published, starting on its front page, a long article arguing that race is a purely social construct without reality or utility, and thus should be eliminated. The author Sydney Trent, is a science journalist who covers social issues, and that may explain why the article was replete with […]
My letter to the Washington Post on race
Are Rep. Tlaib, the New York Times, and Other Media Guilty of Disinformation on the Hospital “Strike”?
26 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
The New York Times and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) have long denounced disinformation on social media and called for censorship of those spreading false information. They and various other media outlets now find themselves accused of immediately spreading false images and accounts of the recent explosion at the hospital in Gaza. The NYT picture […]
Are Rep. Tlaib, the New York Times, and Other Media Guilty of Disinformation on the Hospital “Strike”?
Yes, Hamas is Legally, Morally, and Factually a Terrorist Organization
25 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Below is my column in the New York Post on the Associated Press guideline for reporters to avoid calling Hamas a terrorist organization. Voice of America and other media outlets have made the same decision. This is not about supporting the Palestinian cause. It is about correctly describing a group that commits terrorist attacks as…
Yes, Hamas is Legally, Morally, and Factually a Terrorist Organization
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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