Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
10 Oct 2015 1 Comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: Auckland, housing affordability, land supply, land use planning, RMA, San Francisco, zoning
https://twitter.com/JoshZumbrun/status/652517712070082561/photo/1
"Your neighborhood could be next." San Francisco-wide mailer in support of Prop I, the Mission housing moratorium. http://t.co/PtN38JTaUM—
Jed Kolko (@JedKolko) October 10, 2015
@sival84 @MarketUrbanism @SFyimby More for thought: Permits vs prices for top ten tech hubs trulia.com/blog/trends/pr… http://t.co/yRvjVWDova—
Ralph B. McLaughlin (@housingnomix) October 01, 2015
10 Oct 2015 1 Comment
in Economics of international refugee law, International law, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand Tags: Australia, economics of migration, refugees
Australia and New Zealand at times has taken in a great many refugees from abroad according to the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees data. Oddly enough these bursts of generosity coincided with a Liberal Country party government in Australia and National Party governments in New Zealand. The Left of New Zealand politics was too busy fighting to be nuclear free to make New Zealand a place of refuge for the victims of oppression when they had their hands on the wheels of power.
Source: UNHCR – UNHCR Statistical Online Population Database.
Because Australia took in so many hundreds of thousands of refugees, it is difficult to read the New Zealand data so I have reproduced the New Zealand data on refugees as a separate graph.
Source: UNHCR – UNHCR Statistical Online Population Database.
At times of crisis such as after the Vietnam War and the chaos in the Balkans, New Zealand has taken in a great many refugees – many times its current generosity.
09 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
09 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, international economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: TPA, voter demographics
09 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: capitalism and freedom, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
What will it take to finish the “Last Mile” in ending extreme #poverty? brook.gs/1LiFT8E http://t.co/YxSZ36VCSW—
Brookings (@BrookingsInst) October 07, 2015
08 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in International law, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: asylum seekers, Australia, economics of migration, refugees
Data extracted on 08 Oct 2015 09:06 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat; Dataset: International Migration Database.
08 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, Economics of international refugee law, International law, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, population economics Tags: Australia, British politics, economics of migration, refugees
New Zealand’s intake of asylum seekers has been embarrassingly low. The left-wing parties in New Zealand should be ashamed of themselves given the way they wear their international consciences on their sleeves about New Zealand being above it all morally, nuclear free, and can lecture the rest about war, peace and compassion from on high.
Data extracted on 08 Oct 2015 09:06 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat; Dataset: International Migration Database.
The UK absorbed an immense number of asylum seekers in the 1990 as did Canada. The data stops in 2013.
08 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - USA, Public Choice
Thomas Edsall is one of the smartest op-ed writers at the New York Times. His latest op-ed is about how well-to-do people are contributing to and voting for the Democrats as much as the poor these days. The Democratic Party now holds the majority of the most affluent congressional districts in America.
Source: How Did the Democrats Become Favorites of the Rich? – The New York Times.
The median income of Republican districts is slightly less than that of Democratic Party congressional districts. The Republicans are no longer the party of the well-off albeit by a whisker on average. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are doing their best as predicted by the Directors’ Law. They service the swinging voter who is a middle-class voter.
Source: How Did the Democrats Become Favorites of the Rich? – The New York Times.
I first noticed this trend in in the best TV soapy of 2008. In the 2008 presidential primaries campaign, Hillary Clinton just talked all the time about the struggles of the middle class and will again in her 2016 campaign. Obama was no different.
A key reason for the withering away of the proletariat in Democratic Party campaign rhetoric is too many of the swinging voters are not in the working class and there are many more many members of the middle classes. One consequence of the withering away of the proletariat is parties that claim to represent the working class are representing a shrinking electorate. They must adapt or face permanent opposition.
Source: The Problem With Middle-Class Populism – The New York Times.
The Democrats do well among the college educated voters. Obama won this over Romney in 2012 by 10 percentage points. This may explain why the Democrats are slightly conflicting: they must win the working class vote as well as the college educated vote to win. The risk for the Democratic party of basing its support in the middle-class is this middle-class is fiscally conservative and rather unwilling to pay for any large-scale redistribution of wealth because it will come out of their very own pockets.
One reason that the Democratic Party and many parties on the centre-left moved into the politics of identity is that allows them to better target their policies towards people who might switch their vote to them all this at the expense of the welfare of the working class. By targeting race, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity, the policies of the Democratic Party moved away from promoting the general welfare towards servicing their specific voting constituencies. The social liberalism of the Democratic Parties is part of this servicing of their constituencies.
Source: How Did the Democrats Become Favorites of the Rich? – The New York Times.
Do not get your hopes up with Bernie Sanders. He too is the favourite of the middle class and college students – expressive voters all. The working class and minorities do not actually have much time for him. Bernie Sanders has terrible polling among black Democratic voters and about 90% of blacks vote Democrat.
Source: How Did the Democrats Become Favorites of the Rich? – The New York Times
There is certainly a lot of straight median voter theorem in the Democratic Party being co-opted by the middle-class but there is more than that. There is the issue of smart political communication in the era of The Great Enrichment. Andrew Cherlin showed some insight into both the basics of political communication about identity and expressive politics when he observed that:
Politicians may prefer to call working-class families by the class position they aspire to rather than the one they hold.
07 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, population economics
07 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, politics - USA, technological progress, transport economics Tags: creative destruction
CHART: Since 1995 the CPI for new vehicles has been flat, while the CPI (and wages) increased 60%. What a bargain! http://t.co/DOdlQn8pcK—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) July 01, 2015
06 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, international economic law, international economics, International law, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: colonialism, GATT, Leftover Left, preferential trading agreements, TPA, TPPA
What's in the #TPP? Robust enforceable environmental protections. Get the facts ustr.gov/tpp #LeadOnTrade http://t.co/hzapJwGaCa—
USTR (@USTradeRep) October 05, 2015What's in the #TPP? Protections for American workers. Get the facts: ustr.gov/tpp #MadeInAmerica http://t.co/VPeV70zaPT—
USTR (@USTradeRep) October 05, 2015https://twitter.com/JimRose69872629/status/651230008875220992
One of my policy essays for my Masters of Public Policy Degree in Japan was on the social clauses of the GATT. I described the labour and environmental clauses is a new form of colonialism.
My classmates were government officials from all around Asia, more than 20 countries. As they spoke English as a second language, they were pleased to learn of a new way of describing social clauses in trade agreements in English.
A Filipino friend had a blunter way of referring to social clauses in trade agreements: “the whites are back, telling us what to do”.
Environmentalists are praising wildlife measures in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal nyti.ms/1hlu7hS http://t.co/ZLYarL9QE7—
The New York Times (@nytimes) October 05, 2015
Jane Kelsey in a television interview said she opposes the reductions in sovereignty in trade agreements that result from investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions because they limit the democratic choices of future governments.
If so, she must oppose environmental and labour standards in trade agreements and, more importantly, binding the hands of future governments with climate treaties. All international treaties are about restrictions on sovereignty.
Environmental and labour clauses in trade agreements and climate treaties all limit the powers of governments to legislate on environmental and employment law in accordance with the will of the people as expressed in the most recent election and change of government. Power to the people.
https://twitter.com/rorymccourt/status/625540621457960960
Jane Kelsey would do better focusing on those parts of the TPPA deal that lowers the net value of the deal such as those extending the term of patents over the drugs. All international treaties are about trade-offs.
View original post 212 more words
06 Oct 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, international economic law, international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights Tags: conspiracy theories, David Friedman, foreign direct investment, free trade agreements, FTI, international investment law, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, preferential trading agreements, TPPA, Twitter left
About 1% more GDP but higher drug prices.
Source: No increased medicine costs under TPPA | Stuff.co.nz
.@MSF: Patients and treatment providers in developing countries the big losers of the #TPP bit.ly/TPPconcludes http://t.co/cbikANleyA—
MSF Access Campaign (@MSF_access) October 05, 2015
The next best arguments James Shaw made were xenophobia about foreign investment in land and some vast conspiracy theory regarding endangered dolphins.
When your next best argument is foreigners are coming to buy up all our land, you are playing from a weak populist hand. About half of million New Zealand born live in other countries.
About 80% of these live in Australia, the great majority as residents rather than as citizens. These New Zealanders living in Australia and elsewhere need protection under international agreements to ensure they are not the victim of populist outbreaks against the sale of land to foreigners.
Source: Statistics New Zealand.
In addition, if a foreigner wants to pay over the odds for my house I am glad to separate a fool from his money.
Source: Statistics New Zealand.
New Zealand has a strong interest in protecting the rights of its own expatriates as well as New Zealand foreign investors to buy land in other countries. As David Friedman explains:
Much more commonly, [economic imperialism] is used by Marxists to describe–and attack–foreign investment in “developing” (i.e., poor) nations. The implication of the term is that such investment is only a subtler equivalent of military imperialism–a way by which capitalists in rich and powerful countries control and exploit the inhabitants of poor and weak countries.
There is one interesting feature of such “economic imperialism” that seems to have escaped the notice of most of those who use the term. Developing countries are generally labour rich and capital poor; developed countries are, relatively, capital rich and labour poor. One result is that in developing countries, the return on labour is low and the return on capital is high–wages are low and profits high. That is why they are attractive to foreign investors.
To the extent that foreign investment occurs, it raises the amount of capital in the country, driving wages up and profits down. The effect is exactly analogous to the effect of free migration. If people move from labour-rich countries to labour-poor ones, they drive wages down and rents and profits up in the countries they go to, while having the opposite effect in the countries they come from.
If capital moves from capital-rich countries to capital-poor ones, it drives profits down and wages up in the countries it goes to and has the opposite effect in the countries it comes from. The people who attack “economic imperialism” generally regard themselves as champions of the poor and oppressed.
To the extent that they succeed in preventing foreign investment in poor countries, they are benefiting the capitalists of those countries by holding up profits and injuring the workers by holding down wages. It would be interesting to know how much of the clamour against foreign investment in such countries is due to Marxist ideologues who do not understand this and how much is financed by local capitalists who do.
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