Source: Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth – OECD (2016).
@NZGreens MPs travel expenses in the 3 months to 31 December 2015 @dbseymour @JordNZ
28 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand, transport economics Tags: Green Left, Left-wing hypocrisy, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, rational irrationality
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Members’ expense disclosure from 1 October to 31 December 2015.
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Members’ expense disclosure from 1 October to 31 December 2015.
Landcorp dividends and capital injections, 2007 – 2015 @dbseymour @JordNZ
27 Feb 2016 1 Comment
in environmental economics, financial economics, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, public economics, survivor principle Tags: agricultural economics, privatisation, state owned enterprises
As cash cows go, Landcorp has had $2.25 million more in capital injections from taxpayers than it returned to them in dividends since 2007.
Source: data released by the New Zealand Treasury under the Official Information Act.
Those $1.5 billion in assets in Landcorp do not appear to be worth a cent in net cash to the long-suffering taxpayer.
Source: data released by the New Zealand Treasury under the Official Information Act.
Landcorp is a state-owned enterprise of the New Zealand government. Its core business is pastoral farming including dairy, sheep, beef and deer. In January 2012, Landcorp managed 137 properties carrying 1.5 million stock units on 376,156 hectares of land.
Children fully immunised at selected ages in NZ
27 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: vaccination
Ratio of unemployment and single parents benefit to the New Zealand net average wage since 1970
27 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand, welfare reform Tags: domestic purposes benefit, single mothers, single parents, social insurance, unemployment benefit, welfare state
Source: OECD Economic Survey New Zealand 2015.
@Twitter is now a #safespace so #RIPTwitter
26 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, liberalism, politics - USA
https://twitter.com/politicsinmemes/status/702895866613514240
Source: Someone on Twitter is engaging in abusive or harassing behavior. | Twitter Help Center.
@Maori_Party New Zealanders aged 25 to 34 with NCEA level 4 or above qualifications by ethnicity
26 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of education, politics - New Zealand Tags: education premium, Maori economic development
Source: OECD Economic Survey New Zealand 2015.
#Childpoverty has nothing to do with @AmnestyNZ
25 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, international economics, politics - New Zealand
What gave Amnesty International its strength, appeal and political credibility was most could agree with its opposition to the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience and to torture and that political prisoners should be put on trial.
Including child poverty as part of its most recent international annual report proves Robert Conquest’s 3rd law of politics: the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies
Source: 2015/16 Annual report – The State of the World’s Human Rights | Amnesty International NZ.
Amnesty International should not be giving people reasons not to join. It should stick to its original mission, which most people support. An NGO with members from across the political spectrum has much more credibility and influence.
@BernieSanders how did Danish, Swedish, Finnish & Norwegian billionaires make their money?
25 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - USA, survivor principle Tags: 2016 presidential election, billionaires, Denmark, entrepreneurial alertness, Finland, inherited wealth, Norway, superstar wages, superstars, Sweden
OK, Nordic billionaire population sizes might be small, but plenty more billionaires make their own money in neoliberal USA than in Bernie Sanders’ Utopia
@GarethMP proves the case for privatisation when arguing against privatisation
24 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: anti-market bias, New Zealand Greens, privatisation, rational irrationality, state owned enterprises
Green MP Gareth Hughes today nailed the case as to why governments should never run businesses. Too many MPs simply do not understand what dividends represent and what the profits from asset sales represent.
Hughes was reported today saying that taxpayers lost nearly $1 billion in dividends since the recent privatisations of power companies. He is the Green party spokesman on state owned enterprises.
Source: Asset sales cost hits $1 billion | Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Does the Green Party understand that an asset sells for a price equal to its risk-adjusted discounted net present value of the stream of dividends. When you sell a financial asset, you cash out the net present value of the stream of dividends that might have come from those assets.
The Greens, who are prissy about government transparency and dishonesty of their opponents, did not mention the $4.7 billion in revenue from the asset sale. Taxpayers now receiving more in dividends as a part owner of the privatised power companies than they did as a full owner.
Hughes had the cheek to complain about the politicisation of those privatisations such as favourable terms for small share buyers. That inability of governments to even sell an asset competently is a strong reason why governments should never run businesses in the first place.
If an asset cannot be sold in the full light of day – a major issue in an election campaign and a referendum – without the sale price that is politicised, what is the chance of good management of any state-owned enterprise when it is not the central focus of opposition scrutiny?
It is been many years since dividends from the state-owned enterprise portfolio has been a net positive cash flow for the taxpayer, as the chart below shows.
Source: New Zealand Treasury – data released under the Official Information Act.
KiwiRail and Solid Energy gobbled up whatever dividends came out of the power companies. Aside from power companies, state-owned enterprises not really offer much in the way of dividends to the taxpayer as the chart again shows.
Megan McArdle’s iron law of commentary on refugee policy @GreenCatherine
24 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in Economics of international refugee law, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: asylum seekers, cognitive psychology, psychology of persuasion, refugee policy
More on honest @BernieSanders and his voodoo economics
24 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, macroeconomics, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, grates, left-wing populists, Paul Krugman, quackery, rational irrationality
Think Again: The Green Economy @janlogie @GarethMP
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, energy economics, environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, resource economics Tags: climate alarmism, green economy, green rent seeking
Source: Matthew Kahn (2009) Think Again: The Green Economy | Foreign Policy
Edward Prescott and @BernieSanders compared
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - USA
https://twitter.com/TheNewDeal/status/696864555658539008
As a contrast against the Bernie Sanders tax-and-spend high-growth plan, the Edward Prescott plan is:
- mandatory savings for retirement;
- Eliminate capital income taxes;
- Broaden tax base and lower the marginal tax rate;
- Phased-in reforms so all birth-year cohorts are made better off;
- Left welfare programs and local public good shares the same; and
- Savings not part of taxable income, saving withdrawals part of taxable income – with these changes U.S. income tax would be a consumption tax.
Source: Edward C. Prescott – Importance of Good Governance for Economic Prosperity.
The difference between the Prescott and Sanders plans is Prescott delivers high growth through massive supply-side reforms that include the abolition of taxes on income from capital, mandatory savings for retirement along with much lower marginal tax rates.
The Sanders plan argues that if you tax people a lot more, there is more growth, more investment, more innovation and entrepreneurship and greater labour supply. There is no historical precedent for that as an outcome from higher taxes.
In the case of Prescott, the disagreement is over how large are his growth dividends. In the case of the Sanders band, only one economist agrees that his plan will increase growth. Despite that, he is still voting for Hillary Clinton.
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