Trade-offs in an high-gun arms race equilibrium
28 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: game theory, gun control
The man who save the world, this day 1962
27 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, war and peace Tags: Cuban missile crisis
.@4corners @amnestynz evidence standards hit new low on #Nauru refugee reporting
18 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in Economics of international refugee law, international economics, politics - Australia Tags: economics of immigration, Nauru, refugees
The ABCs journalistic standards have dropped so low that they continued to regard as credible a witness who compared Nauru with Syria. Neistat wrote the report for Amnesty which Four Corners then built on.
Syria is a war zone. Nauru is not. This is the Australian Government’s travel advice for Syria
We strongly advise Australians not to travel to Syria because of the extremely dangerous security situation, highlighted by ongoing military conflict including aerial bombardment, kidnappings and terrorist attacks…
Australians are also warned not to travel to the northern Caucasus included Chechnya for any reason because of the threat of terrorism and kidnappings.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade does not issue travel advice for Nauru at this time.
I doubt that the state of law and order in Syria or Chechnya in peacetime is any different from Nauru at its worst. Refugees seek asylum from persecution. That does not guarantee them asylum in a country that is materially wealthier than the one they fled.
Many people engage in considerable hubris to avoid making difficult decisions about immigration and refugees. Tullock talked about how people avoid difficult decisions. They do not want to face up to the fact resources are scarce and they face limits on their powers.
To reduce the personal distress of making these tragic choices, Tullock observed that people often allocate and distribute resources in a different way so as to better conceal from themselves the unhappy choices they had to make. This even if this means the recipients of these choices are worse off and more lives are lost than if more open and honest choices were made up about there only being so much that can be done.
The Australian Greens, for example, call for a doubling of the refugee quota. A drop in the ocean when there is 59 million refugees out there. This allows them to feel righteous when they go to sleep at night
When it is pointed out that their policies will encourage more people to get on a boat, some of whom will drown, the Greens suggest people should be free to fly to Australia without documentation and then be released after a short security check.
#LetThemStay https://t.co/n1hA7W3q3Q—
Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) February 04, 2016
Naturally, no government will ever adopt this suggestion. It shows that the Greens are not serious participants in managing refugee flows across borders. They prefer to feel righteous rather than actually systematically help people to the maximum available.
Arriving by boat in Australia does not increase the size of the refugee quota. It just changes who gets to the head of the queue and how many died trying to get to the head of the queue.
Joe Exotic for President! 2016
18 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election
Third Parties: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
18 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election
.@DrJillStein wants Assad win #SyrianCivilWar #usefulidiots #peaceoffensive
17 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: 2016 presidential election, Leftover Left, Middle-East politics, Syrian Civil War
Source: Stein Opposes Obama’s Troops on the Ground in Syria – Jill2016 via The Strange Sympathy of the Far Left for Putin
Further evidence that @NZGreens are pretty sane compared to @DrJillStein
15 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - USA
Fact checking @leerhiannon on John Howard and @PaulineHansonOz
15 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, politics - Australia
Leading up to the 1996 election, Hanson advocated the abolition of special government assistance for Aborigines, and she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party. Ballot papers had already been printed listing Hanson as the Liberal candidate, and the Australian Electoral Commission had closed nominations for the seat.
Hanson was still listed as the Liberal candidate when votes were cast, even though Liberal leader John Howard had declared she would not be allowed to sit with the Liberals if elected.
On election night, Hanson took a large lead on the first count and picked up enough Democrat preferences to defeat Scott on the sixth count. She won 54 percent of the two-candidate preferred vote. Had she still been running as a Liberal, the 19.3 percent swing would have been the largest two-party swing of the election. Hanson won the safest Labour Party seat in Queensland.
.@JudithCollinsMP showed that @JacindaArdern does not know when to stop digging
13 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: crime and punishment, family poverty, law and order, New Zealand Labour Party
Judith Collins today in Question Time showed that Jacinda Ardern does not know when to stop digging. Ardern quoted a snippet of the question put to the police minister at the recent police conference.
That selectivity allowed Collins to right to quote the conference question in full and her full answer, which was not just about money poverty but also about
“… a poverty of ideas, a poverty of parental responsibility, a poverty of love, a poverty of caring …”.
Later Collins said she does not agree with Labour saying today that poverty causes crime.
The Labour Party showed that it is no longer rooted in working class values when it argues that poverty is not linked to a poverty of responsibility and of parental love.
There are plenty of poor people who do not resort to crime and who despise those that do, in part because they often make them the victims of their crimes including burglary.
Killed by police by threat level, January – September 2016
13 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, law and order, police shootings
The rise of a working rich in Australia
12 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, politics - Australia, poverty and inequality, survivor principle Tags: superstar wages, superstars, top 1%, top incomes
Source: The World Wealth and Income Database.
#WomensBoatToGaza @MaramaDavidson silent on Hamas rocket attacks
11 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, laws of war, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, Left-wing hypocrisy, Middle-East politics, New Zealand Greens
#homeslessnessinquiry champions contracting-out @NZLabour @NZGreens @Maori_Party
10 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: homelessness
Did they swallow a dead rat! After complaining bitterly about the privatisation of social housing and the contracting out of government services and in particular social services generally, the New Zealand Labour Party, the New Zealand Greens and the Maori Party all accepted that part of the solution to better emergency housing services to the homelessness is to fund community housing providers to build them houses. A greater role for the private sector, be it the NGO sector, in solving pressing social problems.
Source: Cross-party enquiry into homelessness.
It is pious to say that NGOs should build new social housing but existing social housing should not be sold to them to administer better than the bureaucrats.
The private sector has always been the last line of the defence for the social safety net for the homeless. Hotels and motels are used for emergency housing. There are plenty of them and it takes very little time to book into one as long as WINZ sends along the documentation to guarantee payment.
The report of Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party included reference to the Kate Amore data on homelessness which comfirms its credibility. That data shows that homelessness has fallen significantly in NZ since 2001 and 2006.
Homelessness is a by-product of bureaucratic inefficiency. So few people are actually sleeping rough or in shelters on any one night that is really an issue of why are those people are not in a shelter or permanent social housing.
The problem of homelessness is the efficiency of the bureaucracy in identifying these people, putting them in temporary quarters be at a hotel or motel if necessary, and then moving them into social housing.
No one is surprised at a homelessness shelter is run by a church or charity all with the assistance of government funding. No one seriously expects bureaucrats to be any good at running homeless shelters or the hotels or motels where the homeless are occasionally booked in.
Lazy Australian top 0.1% only increased their income under @AustralianLabour
09 Oct 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, industrial organisation, politics - Australia, poverty and inequality, survivor principle Tags: antimarket bias, entrepreneurial alertness, superstar wages, superstars, top 1%, top incomes
Australia’s top income earners are a lazy lot. The top 0.1% only ever had a rising income share under a Labor government in the 1980s. Even the top 1% had a pretty lean time until the 1990s.
Source: The World Wealth and Income Database.
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