CHART: Medallion Financial Corp. (originates and services taxicab medallion loans) Has Been "Uber'd" @chartoftheday pic.twitter.com/wedQNGJhoH
— Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 12, 2015
Creative destruction in taxi rent capitalisation
13 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, Uber
Australia announces its futile carbon emissions target
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Australia, China, climate alarmism, climate change treaties, free-riders, game theory, global warming, international free riders, international public goods, public goods
Trump has lost 9-points since debate. Rubio, Fiorina and Carson surge.
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: 2016 presidential election, opinion polls, voted demographics
My tip is a President Rubio and Vice President Fiorina or vice a versa.
A look at how @realDonaldTrump is running his unconventional campaign: on.wsj.com/1P5iV49 http://t.co/qXZ6VuGMUW—
Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) August 12, 2015
Won’t be a sober Tory in the Palace of Westminster on the night @jeremycorbyn wins
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in Public Choice Tags: British Labour Party, British politics, echo chamber, expressive boating, information cocoons, left-wing populists, Leftover Left, rational irrationality
https://twitter.com/WikiGuido/status/630851446234316800/photo/1
Anti-establishment candidate with fringe views draws huge crowds in sure-fire guarantee of electoral success http://t.co/P7waxqUXrR—
Alex Wickham (@WikiGuido) August 03, 2015
Liberal voting cities markets have higher income inequality and worse affordability
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: Director's Law, expressive boating, green rent seeking, housing affordability, land supply, land use planning, Left-wing hypocrisy, NIMBYs, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, zoning
All homeowners have an incentive to stop new housing because if developers build too many homes, prices fall, and housing is many families’ main asset. But in cities with many Democrats and Green Party members, environmental concerns might also be a factor. The movement might be too eager to preserve the past.
via Why Middle-Class Americans Can’t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities – The Atlantic.
Net favourability is the name of the presidential primaries game
11 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: 2016 presidential election, expressive voting, rational rationality, rationally parents
Twenty-three percent of GOP voters had a favourable opinion of Trump in a May Washington Post-ABC News poll, while 65 percent viewed him negatively. Eleven percent of Republicans felt strongly favourably toward Trump; 43 percent felt strongly negatively.
via Boy, was I wrong about Donald Trump. Here’s why. – The Washington Post.
The climate alarmists need to lift their game on their scaremongering
11 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: climate alarmism, doomsday prophecies, global warming, scaremongering, voter demographics
Singapore at 50
10 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth miracles, Public Choice Tags: Singapore
How @equitablegrowth showed inequality helps growth when arguing inequality harms growth
10 Aug 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, currency unions, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: British disease, entrepreneurial alertness, Eurosclerosis, France, German unification, Germany, growth of government, sick man of Europe, social insurance, Sweden, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, welfare state
The Washington Centre for Equitable Growth recently tweeted that inequality harms growth in the USA as compared to Sweden, France, Germany and the UK. It was relying on some dodgy OECD research.
.@OECD sees continued rise in growth-harming inequality, reports @PaulHannon29 on.wsj.com/1EZpq1S http://t.co/xt4heZysXT—
Equitable Growth (@equitablegrowth) May 21, 2015
The Washington Centre for Equitable Growth did not check their inequality ratios they tweeted against trends in economic growth and economic policy since 1970, which I have reproduced in figure 1. Germany is not included in figure 1 because German data on growth is thrown askew by German unification.
Figure 1: Real GDP per British, French and Swede aged 15-64, 2014 US$ (converted to 2014 price level with updated 2011 PPPs), 1.9 per cent detrended, 1970-2013
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
Figure 1 shows that France has been in a long-term decline since the late 1970s despite the blessings of a more equal society than the USA as championed by the Washington Centre for Equitable Growth. In figure 1, a flat line is growth in real GDP per working age person, PPP, at the same rate as the USA for the 20th century, which was 1.9% per year. A falling line in figure 1 indicates growth of less than 1.9% while a rising line indicates growth in real GDP per working age person, PPP, in excess of 1.9%. In figure 1, France hardly ever grew at the trend rate of growth for the USA of 1.9% per year and was frequently well below that rate.
Sweden tells a slightly different story in figure 1 because of regime change in the early 1990s when Sweden adopted more liberal economic policies where taxes and government spending were reduced:
The rapid growth of the state in the late 1960s and 1970s led to a large decline in Sweden’s relative economic performance. In 1975, Sweden was the 4th richest industrialised country in terms of GDP per head. By 1993, it had fallen to 14th.
@alexvoronov använda smygfinansiering av Generell Välfärd är alltid av ondo. @NimaSanandaji: bit.ly/1Nar2eV http://t.co/wD0YEgncIE—
Old Whig (@aClassicLiberal) August 05, 2015
That regime change reversed a long economic decline since 1970 under the egalitarian policies of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. Under the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Sweden was almost always growing at less than the trend rate of growth of the USA, which was 1.9%. That position reversed only when there was a turn away from big government and high taxes.
Figure 1 tells a similar story for the British economy: a long economic decline in the 1970s when Britain was the sick man of Europe. Under Thatchernomics, Europe had a long economic boom for 20 years or more – see figure 1.
In the 1970s, under the high taxes of the Heath, Callaghan and Wilson administrations, as figure 1 shows, Britain was the sick man of Europe. With the election of the Thatcher Government, Britain soon grew at better than the US trend growth rate for nearly 20 years through few exceptions.
Graph of the Day: The UK has among the lowest total tax rates on businesses in the G7 http://t.co/l6mMhN9yLD—
CPS Think Tank (@CPSThinkTank) August 04, 2015
The Rules of Campaign Cash
10 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: 2016 presidential election, campaign finance regulation
How money is raised by candidates, parties and groups that want to influence the election bloom.bg/1IONJaR http://t.co/f3CI6x9ooc—
Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) August 09, 2015
The Power of Propaganda and the Japanese Empire
09 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in laws of war, Public Choice, war and peace Tags: atomic bombings, credible commitments, game theory, Japan, World War II
The quote of Schuler is an excellent summary of the difficulty of bringing a war to an end rather than give time to regroup and attack again.
Economist Kurt Schuler has a fascinating post on the various currencies that were used in mainland East Asia during World War II over at the Free Banking group blog.
Unfortunately, there are three paragraphs in the post that attempt to take libertarians to task for daring to challenge both the narrative of the state and the narrative of the nation regarding that horrific reminder of humanity’s shortcomings. He is writing of the certainty of the US’s moral clarity when it came to fighting Japan (the post was published around Pearl Harbor remembrance day):
The 1940 U.S embargo of certain materials frequently used for military purposes was intended to pressure Japan to stop its campaign of invasion and murder in China. The embargo was a peaceful response to violent actions. Japan could have stopped; it would have been the libertarian thing to do. For libertarians to claim that the embargo was…
View original post 1,475 more words
@GreenpeaceNZ is the zenith of the Anti-science Left in New Zealand
09 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, environmentalism, health economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: antiscience left, expressive voting, GMOs, green rent seeking, Greenpeace, Left-wing hypocrisy, precautionary principle, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
US researchers: the idea that global warming has slowed is "no longer valid" grnpc.org/IgDMn via @BBCWorld http://t.co/bIDhaWPV3r—
(@Greenpeace) June 05, 2015
Brace yourself. Global warming is 'set to speed up to rates not seen for 1,000 years.' bit.ly/1x8TnKd http://t.co/pLTprLEiIm—
Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) March 09, 2015
Are we doomed? Global temperatures hit critical point, scientists warn. bit.ly/1DWkJq7 via @EcoWatch http://t.co/VRT7DH3stN—
Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) August 01, 2015
Analysing environmental benefits from driving electric vehicles
09 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: coal power, electric cars, green rent seeking, hydroelectric power, nuclear energy, nuclear power, offsetting behaviour, The fatal conceit, The pretense to knowledge, unintended consequences
- The benefit is large and positive in many places in the west because the western electricity grid is relatively clean – primarily a mix of hydro, nuclear, and natural gas.
- The benefit is large and negative in many places in the east because the eastern electricity grid primarily relies more heavily on coal and natural gas.
via Economist’s View.
What happened the last time a Labour PM was elected before Blair
08 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, income redistribution, macroeconomics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: British economy, British Labour Party, British politics, Tony Blair Blair
Quarters following general elections tend to see decent growth – especially 1979 http://t.co/bJarqD8Etj—
RBS Economics (@RBS_Economics) July 28, 2015
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