WW1 Trucks and Logistics I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
05 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
A Mexican student newspaper interviews Deirdre McCloskey
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: Deirdre McCloskey, The Great Enrichment
OIA @NZprocom on fluffing #globalwarming level versus growth rate effects @oneforthedr @EricCrampton
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand
.@NZprocom fluffs #globalwarming level effect into an annual growth rate effect? @oneforthedr @EricCrampton
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand
The Productivity Commission failed to mention that this is a level effect, not an annual cost. It is the reduction in the global GDP between now and a certain date such as 2060 of between 0.2% to 2%. That is the loss of between a month and a year’s global GDP between now and 2100. If you want to know the annual cost, you divide that number 40. Even a cost of 2% of global GDP divided by 40 is a tiny number.
The Productivity Commission’s zeal for net-zero
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
It looks like a zero carbon economy is very much like the case for a universal basic income. The best way to talk yourself out of it is to simply read the material put out by its advocates.
In the case of universal basic income, a huge tax rise is required without making any one for whom the modern welfare state was designed to protect better off.
In the case of a zero carbon economy, the costs are enormous relative to any reasonable estimate of the costs of runaway climate change to New Zealand. Indeed the unreasonable and wild estimates are still less than the cost of a zero carbon economy.
Among those holding the reins of power – and their supporters – there appears to be an almost passionate commitment to a goal of eliminating (net) all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. So passionate as, it seems, to care very little about the consequences for New Zealanders. And since some of the easiest and least costly (probably actually net beneficial) ways to make big inroads on New Zealand greenhouse gas emissions run head-on into other passionately-held ideological commitments, those options simply get ignored as well. None of this seems based on any robust analysis, either of the specific issues facing New Zealand, nor of the way in which the substantial costs of adjustment would be likely to fall most heavily on the poorest in our society. Some, who should know better, seem to want to pretend that a major coerced reorientation of our economy would actually be net beneficial (in…
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What is a woman?
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
Again and again I hear people criticise women generally, and feminists in particular, for not accepting transwomen as “real” women and for “excluding” them. Trans people are oppressed, they say, and these so-called exclusionary behaviours and attitudes create the dogma behind this oppression just as racism is the dogma behind the oppression of Black people. It is misguided, they say, and dangerous and is called transphobia, which makes you, me, anyone who doesn’t agree with them, a bigot who deserves to go to hell with all fascists and racists.
But when feminists try to explain that of course they oppose all discrimination and violence against trans people, but there are issues that are complicated that we need to look at, discuss, understand, it seems that our accusers won’t listen. (Not that this is a surprise – not listening to women is, after all, a major characteristic of male…
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Does Eating Breakfast Really Help You Lose Weight?
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in fisheries economics, health economics Tags: economics of obesity
Edward C Prescott on the EU, business cycles and European economic research
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, economic history, Edward Prescott, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, international economic law, international economics, macroeconomics, Public Choice Tags: Common market
What We Learned by Putting Cars on the Moon
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture Tags: moon landing
The English Civil War: Every Day
04 Sep 2018 Leave a comment
in economic history Tags: British history, maps
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