Proctologists from outer space alert: what would you do if you had just travelled many light years to visit Earth?
04 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
Film review – Elysium
03 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, law and economics, liberalism, P.T. Bauer, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, Rawls and Nozick, technological progress Tags: democracies, movies, rule of law, The Great Enrichment
Elysium was on TV. When I saw it on the big screen, no one told me it was a depiction of contemporary capitalism and the class war.
I read it as a contrast between third world countries lacking the rule of law and capitalist democracies.
The ships shooting up to the space station reminded me of Cubans trying to cross into the USA by boat to Florida.
Sorry, but I am just a simple country boy from the back blocks of Tasmania.
What is the precariat?
24 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, rentseeking, technological progress, Uncategorized Tags: Leftover Left, precariat, The Great Act, The Great Enrichment, The withering away the proletariat
With the withering away of the proletariat because of the great enrichment, the Left over Left coined the word precariat.
The precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity: a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence. The term is a portmanteau obtained by merging precarious with proletariat.
Very similar to the Karl Marx’s Lumpenproletariat: the layer of the working class that is unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and is therefore lost to socially useful production, of no use to the revolutionary struggle, and perhaps even an impediment to the realization of a classless society.
One of the drawbacks of the precariat is they are inconveniently happier than Left over Left are willing to give them credit. For example, a lot of women in part-time jobs are happier than those in full-time jobs because of the greater worklife balance. Casual and seasonal jobs pay more too.
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Ending child labour can only be through expanding family opportunities
11 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic growth, human capital, labour economics, technological progress Tags: Ben Powell, child labour
Who wins from the perennial gale of creative destruction
04 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in technological progress Tags: creative destruction, Schumpeter, technology diffusion, The Great Enrichment, the withering away of the proletariat
- In 1900, <10% of families owned a stove, or had access to electricity or phones
- In 1915, <10% of families owned a car
- In 1930, <10% of families owned a refrigerator or clothes washer
- In 1945, <10% of families owned a clothes dryer or air-conditioning
- In 1960, <10% of families owned a dishwasher or colour TV
- In 1975, <10% of families owned a microwave
- In 1990, <10% of families had a cell phone or access to the Internet
HT: The Atlantic
Everything is just getting better and better for men’s health
25 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics, technological progress Tags: medical progress, The Great Escape
HT: cato.org
What Sam Walton do to make his family rich?
10 Jul 2014 2 Comments
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, market efficiency, survivor principle, technological progress Tags: entrepreneurship, innovation, Walmart
HT: antidismal.blogspot via cafehayek
The value of a statistical life through time in the USA
06 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, health economics, technological progress, Thomas Schelling, transport economics Tags: Thomas Schelling, value of life
Thomas Schelling’s crucial contribution in 1968 at RAND was the notion of statistical lives—mortality risks—in contrast to valuing the lives of specific, identified individuals. His insight was that economists could evade the moral thicket of valuing life and instead focus on people’s willingness to trade-off money for small reductions in the risks they face.
Would You Give Up The Internet For Life For 1 Million Dollars?
05 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, entrepreneurship, liberalism, technological progress Tags: The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
from Would You Give Up The Internet For 1 Million Dollars? – YouTube via Luke Froeb.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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