Name recognition and your chances of winning the presidential nomination
06 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of information, economics of media and culture, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, name recognition
A clickable timeline of central banking activity during the 2008 financial crisis
05 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
Why popularist politics work: People Are Terrible at Estimating Income Inequality
05 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of information, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: expressive voting, poverty and inequality, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, the top 1%, urban myths
Does global warming denial and the anti-vaccination movement march to the same anti-science step?
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in climate change, economics of information, economics of media and culture, environmental economics, global warming, health economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: anti-vaccination movement, climate alarmists, expressive politics, expressive voting, psychology of persuasion
In the last post, I presented evidence, collected as part of the CCP Vaccine Risk Perception study, that showed that the trope has no meaningful connection to fact.
Those who accept and reject human evolution, those who believe in and those who are skeptical about climate change, all overwhelmingly agree that vaccine risks are low and vaccine benefits high.
The idea that either climate change skepticism or disbelief in evolution denotes hostility to science or lack of comprehension of science is false, too. That’s something that a large number of social science studies show. The CCP Vaccine Risk study doesn’t add anything to that body of evidence.
Vaccination rates are a serious issue. Do those that are trying to lift vaccination rates think they going to get anywhere by calling people stupid, corrupt and in the pay of a multinational.
Of course not. This matter is serious. It’s a real public health risk.
People are persuaded to vaccinate through gentle messages providing facts in a way they can understand that also respects their knowledge, their intellect, and their concerns for the safety of the children. You don’t win people over by insulting them.
The climate alarmists are so insulting because they have no interest in persuading the people that are actually talking to. They are reaching out to members on the audience were are on the margin, and appealing to their political base, including the fundraising base by showing how staunch they are in slaying the Dragon.
Evidence of mass kidnappings of Occupy protesters
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: activists, do gooders, expressive voting, Left-wing hypocrisy, occupy movement, superstar effect
Because the most-popular songs now stay on the charts for months, the relative value of a hit has exploded.
The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music, media researchers report. And even though the amount of digital music sold has surged, the 10 best-selling tracks command 82 percent more of the market than they did a decade ago.
The advent of do-it-yourself artists in the digital age may have grown music’s long tail, but its fat head keeps getting fatter.
The only explanation for the failure of the Twitter Left to protest against this concentration or of wealth and massive rise in ticket prices to the downtrodden young public that go to concerts is a mass kidnapping of the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Street by street confirmed measles cases in Auckland, New Zealand 2014
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, measles
video link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAluTnnLyF4
Data is for the Auckland health board district.
Some demographics of the anti-vaccination movement
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, The Great Escape, vaccinations, vaccines
Australia is number 9 in taxing investment income – corrected
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: capital gains tax, company tax, efficient taxes, optimal taxes
Infographic: The Anti-Science Climate Denier Caucus, 114th Congress Edition | ThinkProgress
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA Tags: 2014 congressional elections, climate alarmism, climate scepticism
Irrespective of whether you look upon climate sceptics as sceptics or heretics to be driven from the temple, this is a great graph of Who’s Who in Congress on climate alarmism.
Via Infographic: The Anti-Science Climate Denier Caucus, 114th Congress Edition | ThinkProgress.
Why Senator Elizabeth Warren supported school choice and school vouchers
02 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, entrepreneurship, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: capitalism and freedom, Elizabeth Warren, School choice, The meaning of competition, vouchers
It is not a coincidence that Warren’s support for school choice dropped through the floor once she decided to run for public office as a Democrat. In spite of large cash infusions from wealthy environmentalists and trial lawyers, teacher unions remain the party’s largest and most influential donor base.
…In recent years, Warren has bent over backwards to qualify what she “really meant” by school choice.
In a rather astonishing reinterpretation of her own work, it turns out she never supported vouchers for religious school or even for non-sectarian private schools, just the ability to go to a public school in an adjacent district.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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