We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how Labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promise The result Build 100,000 affordable homesover 10 years 2,025 built (2.0%) Fund the planting of one billion treesover 10 years 41.4 million trees funded […]
Labour’s final report card
Labour’s final report card
18 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
Politics is Ugly
18 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, International law, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror, World War II
My Dad once told about how the famous British General Bernard Montgomery was asked after WWII whether he might like to go into politics and he declined, saying: War is a dirty business, but politics, by gum! I’ve never looked into the story to see if it’s apocryphal but given that politics appears at the […]
Politics is Ugly
Marriage Fundamentalism: Professor Criticizes Marriage as an Institution Built on “White Heteropatriarchal Supremacy”
17 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of love and marriage, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
George Mason Professor Bethany Letiecq is at the center of a firestorm of controversy over his article in the Journal of Marriage and Family declaring that the institution of marriage plays a key role in white supremacy. In considering what she labels “marriage fundamentalism,” Letiecq lashes out at the “two-parent married family” model. It is the […]
Marriage Fundamentalism: Professor Criticizes Marriage as an Institution Built on “White Heteropatriarchal Supremacy”
Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
16 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: regressive left
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to first suspend Darleen Tana from her small business […]
Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
Americans favor SUV’s over the environment, …
16 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA
…because they are exempt from fuel economy standards: Because making light trucks held to lower environmental standards was more profitable than building small clean cars, automakers marketed big models, including suvs, enthusiastically. They portrayed them as quintessentially American, embodying freedom, strength and adventurousness. By 2002 light trucks made up a bigger share of light-duty vehicle…
Americans favor SUV’s over the environment, …
The Ghahraman Conflict
15 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: crime and punishment, law and order, media bias
What was that judge thinking? Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on the case in Stuff in 2016 and another story about them […]
The Ghahraman Conflict
Exploding Energy Prices in Costly California
14 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA Tags: celebrity technologies, wind power
Green energy policies are the primary cause for high and escalating California energy prices.
Exploding Energy Prices in Costly California
A good refutation of a bad article on the supposed “spectrum” of sex
14 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
On March 8, I wrote a critique of this article, which appeared in American Scientist (click sceenshot to read): When I wrote my piece, I had grown weary of people making the same tired old arguments against the sex binary, arguments like saying that sex isn’t binary because male orangutans come in two forms (“flanged” […]
A good refutation of a bad article on the supposed “spectrum” of sex
Aussie Green Party Leader Used Private Jets, Expensed $1 Million to Taxpayers
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - Australia Tags: climate alarmism
Aussie Greens Leader Adam Bandt flew a private jet to give a speech on the evils of fossil fuel.
Aussie Green Party Leader Used Private Jets, Expensed $1 Million to Taxpayers
One Year Since the Meltdown at Silicon Valley Bank: Commercial Real Estate and Ongoing Threats
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of information, economics of regulation, financial economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - USA Tags: banking panics
One year ago in March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank melted down, quickly followed by similar meltdowns at Signature Bank and First Republic Bank. Measured by the nominal size of bank assets, these were three of the biggest four US bank failures in history. (The failure of Washington Mutual Bank in 2008 remains the largest.) Was…
One Year Since the Meltdown at Silicon Valley Bank: Commercial Real Estate and Ongoing Threats
NZ should go further than Australia
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in international economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: free trade, tariffs
New Zealand sensibly got rid of most tariffs years ago. We should go further than Australia plans to do and abolish the rest: The Taxpayers’ Union is renewing its calls to abolish all tariffs following reports that Australia plans to unilaterally abolish nearly 500 of its tariffs. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “With the stroke […]
NZ should go further than Australia
Once again: the claim that sex is non-binary, but there are no new arguments
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Really? Do I have to rebut the same arguments about the definition of biological sex again? Well, here in American Scientist is a group of two anthropologists, one anatomist, and a gender-and-sexuality-studies professor, all telling us that there is no clear definition of sex, using the same tired old arguments to rebut the gamete-based sex […]
Once again: the claim that sex is non-binary, but there are no new arguments
Nightmare Scenario: How a Trump Trial Could Now Run Up to (or Through) the 2024 Election
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election
Below is my column in the Hill on the real possibility of a federal trial of former president Donald Trump just before or even through the 2024 election. The claim that this schedule is the result of treating Trump like other criminal defendants is increasingly dubious given statements of courts and the Special Counsel. Here […]
Nightmare Scenario: How a Trump Trial Could Now Run Up to (or Through) the 2024 Election
Like vs. Cringe
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election
Joe Biden is now the most unpopular President in US post-WWII history at this stage of the Presidency, being 1140 days in, as analysed by the FiveThirtyEight site. The following figures for each President is the difference between their approval ratings and disapproval rating, which you can in more detail (including graphically) at the link. […]
Like vs. Cringe
What media bias looks like
11 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: marriage and divorce
Lindsay Mitchell writes – When news media took a pummelling last week at both TVNZ and TV3, a number of critics said part of the reason ratings are poor is the public don’t trust them. The public believe that the media is biased. The print media is similarly suspect. An article in Stuff on Sunday […]
What media bias looks like
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