This week marks the ten-year anniversary of this Sex, Drugs and Economics blog. Here’s my first post (from 8 October 2013), briefly explaining my rationale for blogging, including:…this blog is a way for me to create a discussion space for my students, and help them to recognise the value in the economic approach to looking…
Ten years of Sex, Drugs and Economics
Ten years of Sex, Drugs and Economics
17 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Today’s post by Tom Gross on the war
16 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

It turns out that readers here can’t subscribe to Tom Gross‘s email newsletters, as they’re intended for people in media and politics. Tom has, however, kindly agreed to send the newsletter to me and allow me to reproduce the contents on this site. Here’s his latest newsletter, with his words indented. 90-year-old Czech-born Holocaust survivor Gina […]
Today’s post by Tom Gross on the war
Anti-Israeli protests and sentiments at American colleges
16 Oct 2023 1 Comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Israel, Middle-East politics

Among American politics, nothing pains me more right now than college students supporting the Palestinian desire to erase Israel. Further, this week those sentiments often came with approval of Hamas’s butchery a week ago. (After all, didn’t Israel bring it on itself?) Yet, as Bill Maher notes in the short video below, Palestine (and Hamas) […]
Anti-Israeli protests and sentiments at American colleges
From the comments, what will happen in New Zealand edition?
16 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Libertarian reform isn’t at the top of the headlines in New Zealand, but there are a few things you might expect in that direction: – Reforming pharmaceutical approvals so products with approval in two other trusted peer countries get automatic approval in NZ. Relevant because of the relatively slow approval time for Covid-19 vaccine in […]
From the comments, what will happen in New Zealand edition?
David D. Friedman: The Machinery of Freedom, Education, and India
16 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in David Friedman, development economics, economic history, economics of crime, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, property rights
“Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt”: Panetta Repeats Debunked Russian Disinformation Claims on Laptop
16 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

Last night, many of us responded to the statement of Leon Panetta, former CIA Director in the Obama Administration, that he “has no regrets” about signing the now infamous letter of 51 former intelligence officials suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Even more unsettling were his comments that he believes it could […]
“Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt”: Panetta Repeats Debunked Russian Disinformation Claims on Laptop
Facts Trump Feelings: Grand Wind & Solar ‘Transition’ Tale Rapidly Unravels
15 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming

The only certainties attached to the wind and solar transition are being constantly whacked with crushing power bills and sitting freezing or boiling in the dark, when the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in. Whereas Europeans are crab-walking away from their mad rush towards wind and solar – with many tapping into next-generation nuclear power […]
Facts Trump Feelings: Grand Wind & Solar ‘Transition’ Tale Rapidly Unravels
How About Hunter? Justice Department Adds FARA Charge to Menendez Prosecution
15 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

Below is my column in the New York Post on issuance of superseding indictments for Sen. Bob Menendez, his wife, and associates to include new charges related to his alleged work as unregistered foreign agents. The new charges not only highlight the alleged corrupt practices of Sen. Menendez, but also the absence of such charges […]
How About Hunter? Justice Department Adds FARA Charge to Menendez Prosecution
New Zealand votes out woke Labour government by a big margin
15 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

Although if I were a Kiwi I’d probably be a member of the Labour Party, I have criticized them strongly for their education policy: a policy that has constantly tried to insinuate Māori “ways of knowing” (Mātauranga Māori ) into school science curricula (it’s fine if taught as history or sociology). Labour has also been […]
New Zealand votes out woke Labour government by a big margin
From Tom Gross: more photos and videos related to the war
15 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

These come from a newsletter that is not online but is received by Andrzej and Malgorzata. As Wikipedia notes, Tom Gross is. . . . . . . a British-born journalist, international affairs commentator,and human rights campaigner specializing in the Middle East. Gross was formerly a foreign correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and New York Daily News. […]
From Tom Gross: more photos and videos related to the war
Deadly Routine On The Italian Front – The 8th Battle Of The Isonzo I THE…
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low…”
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
I gather that the National Party has run into some problems defending its tax proposals in the face of an unending attack not just from Labour but also our fair and balanced MSM. In light of that I put this post up as a suggestion as to how National might start to fight back, since […]
“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low…”
Heterogeneous Agent Fiscal Theory
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, monetary economics

Today, I’ll add an entry to my occasional reviews of interesting academic papers. The paper: “Price Level and Inflation Dynamics in Heterogeneous Agent Economies,” by Greg Kaplan, Georgios Nikolakoudis and Gianluca Violante. One of the many reasons I am excited about this paper is that it unites fiscal theory of the price level with heterogeneous agent…
Heterogeneous Agent Fiscal Theory

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