Utopia, you are standing in it!

At 11am the New Zealand Initiative released their latest report, by Bryce Wilkinson and Leonard Hong, under the title “Walking the Path to the Next Financial Crisis”. It comes complete with a Foreword from former Reserve Bank chief economist (and former Board chair) Arthur Grimes, under the title “A short walk?”, foretelling doom and repeating his recent attacks on the Reserve Bank’s conduct of monetary policy over the last 20 months, ending with the ominous – and printed in bold – declaration “This time is not different”.

The Initiative was kind enough to send me an embargoed copy yesterday. Perhaps the first thing that rather surprised me – in a document that is really quite critical of both monetary and fiscal policy and aspects of the way the Bank does other things – is that the acknowledgements include thanks to a Reserve Bank MPC member (Bob Buckle) for “valuable feedback…

I’ve shared several videos (here, here, here, and here) that use rigorous data to show that grinding poverty and severe material deprivation was the norm for humanity – until capitalism gained a foothold a few hundred years ago.

Fortunately, as free enterprise has gradually spread around the world, there’s been a remarkable increase in living standards, leading to a stunning drop in poverty.

For today’s column, let’s look at some new academic evidence about the link between capitalism and poverty reduction.

Here the abstract of a new study by Colin Doran and Thomas Stratmann of George Mason University.

We study the relationship between economic freedom and poverty rates in 151 countries over a twenty–year period. Using the World Bank’s poverty headcounts of those living on less than $1.90 per day, $3.20 per day, and $5.50 per day, we find evidence that…

In the wake of announcements from the Labour government yesterday I put forward some ideas from history that may be useful.

Courtesy of the Berlin Wall Museum, which I visited in the 1990’s, just a few years after it all came tumbling down.

This one would take too long and Auckland lacks even unemployed miners.

The following may be the most appropriate in my case.

Readers are encouraged to put forward other ideas.

Ahead of the launch event for their new book on the continuing constitutional pressures of Brexit, Oran Doyle, Aileen McHarg and Jo Murkens summarise the book’s introductory essay. They conclude that, five years on from the seismic constitutional event that was the 2016 referendum, it is clear that Brexit is exerting pressure on various aspects of the constitution, but it remains too early to tell the full impact of Brexit on the UK constitution.

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union was clearly a development of major significance that affected the UK constitution and its three legal systems, and brought about a series of political crises. But the prolonged process of negotiating the terms of withdrawal and the future UK-EU relationship also imposed and exposed a range of other constitutional tensions and pressures. This is true not only in respect of the UK itself, but also for the…

Wind and solar zealots may have scored own goal with their push for net-zero carbon dioxide gas emissions targets. The reason being is that nuclear power is the only stand-wind power generation system capable of delivering electricity 24 x 365 – irrespective of the weather, without generating carbon dioxide gas, in the process.

The Big Calm that struck Western Europe last month – when wind power output amounted to a doughnut for weeks on end – has sharpened thinking about the benefits of having a power source that’s available, come what may. Much to the horror of the wind and solar acolyte.

The climate cult apparently promotes net-zero on the basis that wind and solar are the only solutions in town; renewable energy rent-seekers are salivating at the prospect. The pathetic performance of wind power in Europe is helping to put paid to that cozy notion.

Despite Boris Johnson’s bluff…

“I’ am a tired man”, US President Abraham Lincoln once confessed to a friend, “Sometimes I think I’m the tiredest man on earth”.

But he said that in 1865 and had every reason to feel that way after four years of leading the nation through the most brutal war in its history and then facing the prospect of trying to pull it together again when the bitter conflict ended and 600,000 bodies lay in the ground.

By contrast the only reason the current POTUS is tired is that he’s an old man placed in a job he is simply not capable of performing, and never was.

Painful to watch. Xi Jinping, Putin and a host of others are watching this and know they have three more years…

In yesterday’s post I drew attention – yet again – to New Zealand’s continued drop down the international productivity league tables. There are all sorts of caveats to the details – PPP comparisons are inevitably imprecise, and the data are subject to revisions – but few seriously doubt that we do much worse now relative to other advanced countries than we did just a few decades ago.

But it is easy to lose sight of what the numbers actually mean for ordinary New Zealanders, so I thought today I might do just a short stylised illustration.

In yesterday’s post – as on various occasions in the past – I’ve contrasted our outcomes with those of a group of highly successful OECD countries (but excluding Norway (oil), Ireland (even their own authorities don’t use GDP as a measure of Ireland’s outcomes) and Luxembourg): Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, Sweden, Austria…

Matilda of Flanders (c. 1031 – November 2, 1083) was Queen of the English and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and regent of Normandy during his absences from the duchy. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

In 1031, Matilda was born into the House of Flanders, the second daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of the Franks, the second daughter of King Robert II of West Francia and Constance of Arles.

Flanders was of strategic importance to England and most of Europe as a “stepping stone between England and the Continent” necessary for strategic trade and for keeping the Scandinavian Intruders from England. In addition, her mother was the daughter of Robert II of West Francia.

Marriage

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love with the English ambassador…