New Zealand sensibly got rid of most tariffs years ago. We should go further than Australia plans to do and abolish the rest: The Taxpayers’ Union is renewing its calls to abolish all tariffs following reports that Australia plans to unilaterally abolish nearly 500 of its tariffs. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “With the stroke […]
NZ should go further than Australia
NZ should go further than Australia
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in international economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: free trade, tariffs
Only Thing That’s ‘Renewable’ About Wind & Solar: Massive & Endless Subsidies
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: wind power
The millions of solar panels and hundreds of thousands of turbine blades already ground up in landfills means there’s absolutely nothing ‘renewable’ about wind or solar. The term ‘renewable’ is just another monstrous abuse of the English language perpetrated by a cult that would have us believe the unbelievable by ignoring the bleeding obvious: weather-dependent […]
Only Thing That’s ‘Renewable’ About Wind & Solar: Massive & Endless Subsidies
Once again: the claim that sex is non-binary, but there are no new arguments
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Really? Do I have to rebut the same arguments about the definition of biological sex again? Well, here in American Scientist is a group of two anthropologists, one anatomist, and a gender-and-sexuality-studies professor, all telling us that there is no clear definition of sex, using the same tired old arguments to rebut the gamete-based sex […]
Once again: the claim that sex is non-binary, but there are no new arguments
Claude 3 Opus Also Fails Steve Landsburg’s Economics Exam
13 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation
Almost one year ago, Steve Landsburg tried GPT-4 on one of his exams. It failed, badly. I tried out some of the same questions on Claude 3 Opus, by many accounts now the leading AI. It failed, badly. Steve’s exams are very clever. They aren’t technically difficult but they are tricky in the sense that […]
Claude 3 Opus Also Fails Steve Landsburg’s Economics Exam
Irish High Court Slams Wind Turbine Operator For Noise “Like Aeroplanes that Never Land”
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, law and economics, property rights Tags: noise pollution, wind power
Freedom from wind turbine noise nuisance isn’t a “concern”; it’s a hard-won legal “right” based on the lawful entitlement to sleep comfortably in your own home – a right (not a privilege) that’s been upheld against the mighty, rich and powerful for close to 200 hundred years. The grinding, thumping cacophony generated by giant industrial […]
Irish High Court Slams Wind Turbine Operator For Noise “Like Aeroplanes that Never Land”
Nightmare Scenario: How a Trump Trial Could Now Run Up to (or Through) the 2024 Election
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election
Below is my column in the Hill on the real possibility of a federal trial of former president Donald Trump just before or even through the 2024 election. The claim that this schedule is the result of treating Trump like other criminal defendants is increasingly dubious given statements of courts and the Special Counsel. Here […]
Nightmare Scenario: How a Trump Trial Could Now Run Up to (or Through) the 2024 Election
The RCT Agenda
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, econometerics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of information, economics of regulation, experimental economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, managerial economics, market efficiency, Marxist economics, occupational choice, organisational economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics Tags: The fatal conceit
Randomized Controlled Trials: Could you be any more scientific? The book I’m now writing, Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets, insists that the randomistas of the economics profession actually have a thinly-veiled political agenda. Namely: To get economists to humbly serve the demagogues that rule the world instead of bluntly challenging their unabated…
The RCT Agenda
Like vs. Cringe
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election
Joe Biden is now the most unpopular President in US post-WWII history at this stage of the Presidency, being 1140 days in, as analysed by the FiveThirtyEight site. The following figures for each President is the difference between their approval ratings and disapproval rating, which you can in more detail (including graphically) at the link. […]
Like vs. Cringe
Some Chinese electric cars are ‘almost uninsurable’ in Britain
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in development economics, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth miracles, law and economics, transport economics, urban economics Tags: adverse selection, asymmetric information, British politics, electric cars, moral hazard
By Paul Homewood h/t Patsy Lacey Owners of some of the latest Chinese electric cars to enter Britain are facing expensive premiums and in some cases are ‘almost uninsurable’ for drivers. It comes after various reports of Range Rover owners struggling to find affordable cover for their vehicles, which is linked […]
Some Chinese electric cars are ‘almost uninsurable’ in Britain
Sobering Up? EU May Scrap Its Plans To Ban Internal Combustion Engines By 2035
12 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, transport economics, urban economics Tags: electric cars
The EU plans to reassess the phase-out of combustion engines, based on the latest data and developments.
Sobering Up? EU May Scrap Its Plans To Ban Internal Combustion Engines By 2035
What media bias looks like
11 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: marriage and divorce
Lindsay Mitchell writes – When news media took a pummelling last week at both TVNZ and TV3, a number of critics said part of the reason ratings are poor is the public don’t trust them. The public believe that the media is biased. The print media is similarly suspect. An article in Stuff on Sunday […]
What media bias looks like
‘Swiftonomics’ and the optimal number of Taylor Swift examples
11 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of information, economics of media and culture, history of economic thought, industrial organisation
I was interested to read this recent article on Inside Higher Education, about ‘Swiftonomics’:Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, Nobel Prize winner and Distinguished Professor of economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, began working on the curriculum for the course last summer. Swift’s massive Eras Tour had just kicked off, creating such a frenzy…
‘Swiftonomics’ and the optimal number of Taylor Swift examples
Reading deal – rare media bouquet
11 Mar 2024 1 Comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of media and culture, income redistribution, industrial organisation, law and economics, market efficiency, movies, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, survivor principle, theory of the firm, urban economics Tags: Wellington
Both Matt Nippert of the NZ Herald and Tom Hunt of The Post deserve a bouquet for their analyses of the truly remarkable deal between the Wellington City Council (WCC) and the troubled American Cinema company Reading. For this who don’t know, Reading owns a large (more than 14, 000 square metres or 1.4 hectares) […]
Reading deal – rare media bouquet
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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