Utopia, you are standing in it!

In December 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennessee mansion, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

Presley was originally scheduled to be inducted on January 20, 1958. However, due to commitments at Paramount and the filming schedule of his latest film, King Creole, Presley had to personally write to the Memphis Draft Board to request a deferment. He explained to them that Paramount had already spent up to $350,000 on pre-production of the film, and that many jobs were dependent on him being able to complete filming, which was due to begin on January 13. They granted him an extension until the middle of March. When news of the extension broke, angry letters were sent to the Memphis Draft Board complaining about the “special treatment” that Presley was receiving. According to Milton Bowers, head of the draft…

What do you need to do to become a special agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous

Well actually not that much. All you do is you book a flight to DC, on board you write a letter to the President of the USA.

Once you land you take a limo to the White House and drop the letters off.

Well that’s what Elvis did and it worked out for him.

Elvis was traveling with some guns and his collection of police badges, and he decided that what he really wanted was a badge from the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs back in Washington. “The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him,” Priscilla Presley would write in her memoir, Elvis and Me. “With the federal narcotics badge, he believed he could legally enter any country both wearing guns and carrying any drugs he wished.

The Bourne Identity (2002) Director: Doug Liman

“I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab or the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?”

★★★★★

Based on the late Robert Ludlum’s 1980 novel of the same name, The Bourne Identity represents an explosive renaissance of the gritty, realist, high-espionage film drama that James Bond had so whimsically drifted apart from at the time (cue the scenes of Pierce Brosnan riding a giant CGI…

Casablanca (1942) Director: Michael Curtiz

“Here’s Looking At You, Kid.”

★★★★★

Casablanca is one of the greatest films of all time, and it has sometimes been called one of the great American propaganda films of the 20th century. The film was shot and released on the heels of the Second World War and it captured the initial hesitance of the American public to get involved in the war, hiding behind a veil of neutrality, only to eventually choose their side in the battle. The film examines the impossibility of neutrality in war.

Casablanca is based on an un-produced stage show called “Everybody Comes to Rick’s.” The play was inspired by a trip to Vienna and witnessing anti-semitism. It has an all-star cast including Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, as well as Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and others. It was never expected to be a major success in Hollywood at…

From Russia With Love (1963) Director: Terence Young

★★★★☆

The second James Bond film was again directed by Terence Young (he was the director of several early Bond films). After the tremendous success of 1962’s Dr. No, United Artists quickly pushed for a sequel to be released by Eon, and the film was rushed to completion by October 1963. Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name was his fifth Bond novel, actually preceding the novel for Dr. No (and fleming thought it might be his last at the time). He wrote it at his “Goldeneye” estate in Jamaica. His typical writing pattern was to write for three hours in the morning, and then again for an hour in the evening. He never looked back at what he wrote or did much editing prior to finishing the book, and that way he could write about 2,000 words per day. It…

Daily power rationing is the inevitable product of the ‘inevitable’ transition to an all wind and sun powered future.

When the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in wind and solar power can’t be bought, at any price.

So, even at first glance, the perceived logic of supplying consumers with electricity from nothing but wholly weather-dependent wind power and wholly sunshine-dependent solar power lacks any connection with reality.

Sure, when wind and solar output entirely collapse electricity will be available. But it will come from expensive to run fast start-up gas and diesel plants. And you’ll be forced to pay a staggering price to get it.

The rollout of mandatory smart meters is part of the package: when wind and solar power output hits the floor the grid manager is able to drive the price you’ll pay through the roof.

None of this, of course, troubles the filthy rich, who…

Spain is more economically backwards than most nations in Western Europe. As a public finance economist, my gut instinct is to blame bad fiscal policy.

And there’s certainly plenty of evidence for that view. After all, taxes drive a huge wedge between pre-tax income and post-tax consumption. So there is not much incentive to be a productive member of society.

But it’s important to remember that fiscal policy is just one of the ways politicians can hurt an economy.

In an article for the Foundation for Economic Education, Michael Peterson explains how labor law is stifling job creation in the Spanish economy.

Spain doesn’t suffer from a labor shortage like in the United States, but something much worse—a sclerotic labor market marked by…Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) that constrains employers from hiring and firing workers. …These figures help explain the high unemployment rates observed in Spain over the past three…

Scales of Justice
[image credit: Wikipedia]
Climate lawfare draws a blank again. Exactly as the verdict says, such claims “invite the Court to venture beyond its sphere of competence.”
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The High Court has refused a renewed application from Plan B and three UK students for permission to apply for judicial review of the UK Government’s alleged failures to meet its climate change commitments, says Freshfields BD, noting the “insuperable problem” of trying to establish that such failures also violated the Claimants’ human rights.

Nature of the complaint

In this latest challenge, the Claimants called for a declaration that the Government’s alleged failures to take effective measures to meet their climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Act 2008 were in breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.

They also sought a mandatory order that the Government urgently implements a framework to meet…

Putin’s murderous assault on the people of Ukraine is a threat to peace and security worldwide. But someone also has to worry about the impact on the UK economy. The fallout should prompt a rethink of the response to the cost of living crisis and the tax hikes planned for April.

The catastrophe in Ukraine is potentially a game changer here, for two reasons. First, and most obviously, the increase in uncertainty adds to the downside risks to the recovery, particularly via the impact on energy prices.

This is still highly speculative. The prices of crude oil and natural gas soared after the invasion, but then fell back. Traders have been reassured that Western sanctions are targeting Russian banks and individuals, not energy suppliers.

In the meantime, the EU is continuing to buy large amounts of oil and gas from Russia – and the flow through Ukraine has actually increased…

This is the title to a paper in Historical Methodsthat I believe should convince you of two things. The first, and this applies to scholars in economic history, is that the journal Historical Methods is a highly interesting one. It tends to publish new and original work by economists, historians, sociologists and anthropologists who are well-versed in statistical analysis and data construction. The articles that get published there often offer a chance to discover solutions to longstanding problems through both interactions of different fields and the creation of new data.

The second is that it is becoming increasingly harder to hold the view that the industrial revolution was “a wash”. I described elsewhere this view of the industrial revolution as a wash as believing one or more of the following claims: “living standards did not increase for the poor; only the rich got richer; the cities were dirty…

At the NZ Economics Forum on Friday, Oliver Hartwich delivered a frank assessment of central agencies.

He asked why Treasury, the lead economic advisor to the government, is advertising senior economic analysis positions that require “good relationship skills” and “comfort working at pace” but not economics. He notes the Reserve Bank is giving senior appointments to people without relevant skills. Members of the Monetary Policy Committee must have no current or future research in monetary policy to avoid conflicts of interest. Oliver calls this ludicrous.

He asks what Treasury’s Living Standards Framework can do that cost-benefit analysis cannot. He calls the LSF a distraction. He wants rigour.

Oliver also calls out the Chair of the Productivity Commission for almost apologising for his organisation’s mission.

It is not a question of whether the next Global Financial Crisis will occur, says Oliver, but when. To get through the coming storms, our…