Utopia, you are standing in it!

Alice Evans in this piece (HT: MR blog):

Everyone knows that Southern and Northern India are very different in culture, language, and socio-economic development. But the most dramatic regional disparity may be in gender relations.

Southern and North-eastern women are more likely to

Social Credit ideas have a long history in New Zealand.  The originator, Major Douglas, even visited New Zealand in 1934 and testified to a parliamentary committee.  The ideas influenced Labour in particular in the 1930s, and some who later played very prominent roles in National.  We got our very own political party – the Social Credit Political League – in 1954 and from time to time Social Credit did very well in the polls (and under FPP even managed four MPs at the different times from the 1960s to the 1980s).  I recall a time –  perhaps 1980 –  when Social Credit briefly polled ahead of Labour.  There had been an entire Royal Commission in the 1950s, mostly intended to debunk them, but  they weren’t deterred –  as a young economist at the Reserve Bank, a fair amount of my time was spent responding to letters, to us or the…

Renewable energy rent seekers claim converting useless, unpredictable and unreliable wind and solar power into hydrogen gas is a cinch. Sure, the notion of turning useless electricity into something that can be used as and when consumers need it – rather than something that depends on the whims of mother nature – makes sense – at a conceptual level.

But that’s the point when the reality carriage detaches from the dream caboose.

If converting chaotic wind and solar into hydrogen gas was as cheap and easy as its proponents suggest, then market forces would have brought the process into being, years ago. However, rent seekers pushing the hydrogen line are already putting their hands out for government ‘assistance’ – so get set for yet another crony capitalist playground, where massive and endless subsidies are the endgame.

Like every other country suffering from the wind and solar obsession, Australia’s Federal government…

A couple of years ago I had my arm twisted and agreed to write a chapter for a new book on New Zealand public policy being edited by a couple of Victoria University academics. My chapter was to be on the economy, and although the general tone of the book was to be rather upbeat, about the public policy and governance frontiers New Zealand had marked out, there wasn’t very much to be upbeat about in the longer-term New Zealand economic story. And so I wasn’t.

The published book finally turned up in the mail last week and I’ve started reading it (there might be a post later about some of the other chapters). In my chapter (a slightly longer version of which is here) I’d highlighted the continuing relative decline in New Zealand’s economic performance. I’d forgotten that I’d ended the chapter this way (emphasis added)

Looking ahead…

I have commented previously on the question of the employment status of members of the clergy, which can be quite complicated. A recent decision of the Fair Work Commission, Solomon Woldeyohannes v Zion Church in Melbourne Australia Inc [2020] FWC 4194 (11 August 2020) holds that an assistant pastor of a small incorporated church was an employee of the church, and was able to commence an action for unfair dismissal.