Mary I (February 18, 1516 – November 17, 1558), also known as “Bloody Mary” by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Felipe II of Spain from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She is best known for her vigorous […]
November 17, 1516: Birth of Queen Mary I of England and Ireland. Part I.
November 17, 1516: Birth of Queen Mary I of England and Ireland. Part I.
19 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture Tags: British history
How Socialist is Sweden?
19 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, labour economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: Sweden

During our Capitalism versus Socialism debate, Scott Sehon argued that Scandinavia really is quite socialist. Since I’m not on expect on Scandinavia, I asked Johan Norberg, author of the short book The Mirage of Swedish Socialism, as well as the recent The Capitalist Manifesto, to weigh in. Norberg kindly agreed. With great interest I have…
How Socialist is Sweden?
HSR: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone
19 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
The Mineta Institute — named after a San Jose congressman who was Secretary of Transportation in 2001 through 2006 — has a new report claiming that high-speed rail will produce huge economic and environmental benefits. Rather than being based on any careful analyses, it basically repeats old claims that are … Continue reading →
HSR: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone
Diesel-Driven: Electric Car Charging Stations Powered by Giant Banks of Diesel Generators
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, transport economics

While wind and solar advocates reckon we’ll all soon be driving electric vehicles charged up using sunshine and breezes, it’s ‘dirty’ old diesel that’s doing all the hard work. In Australia, those seemingly virtuous souls with EVs are really being propelled by coal, because 85% of the electricity passing through its Eastern grid comes from […]
Diesel-Driven: Electric Car Charging Stations Powered by Giant Banks of Diesel Generators
Hirsi Ali gets criticism of her newfound Christianity; responds
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, liberalism Tags: Age of Enlightenment, Freedom of religion, The Great Enrichment

Just recently Ayaan Hirsi Ali announced, after years of professing atheism (and rejecting her earlier Muslim faith(, that she’d become a Christian. This was announced in an article in Unherd, but she also discussed it briefly on a video, both of which I posted. Although she wasn’t explicit about what exactly she believed about Christianity, it’s […]
Hirsi Ali gets criticism of her newfound Christianity; responds
George Selgin on the New Deal and Recovery (and Relief and Reform)
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, great depression, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, unemployment
TweetWant to get a few hours’ worth of solid learning in less than 35 enjoyable minutes? Listen to my Mercatus Center colleague David Beckworth’s podcast (from October 2022) with George Selgin on the New Deal. Seriously. It will be 34-plus minutes very well spent. George’s book – False Dawn – is forthcoming from the University…
George Selgin on the New Deal and Recovery (and Relief and Reform)
America’s top one percent has not been seeing a rising income share
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: top 1%
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. The opener is this: Can a single self-published paper really refute decades of work by three famous economists? If the paper is the modestly titled “Income Inequality in the United States: Using Tax Data to Measure Long-Term Trends,” then the answer — with qualifications — is yes. And…
America’s top one percent has not been seeing a rising income share
Queensland University of Technology completely ditches merit-based hiring, favoring gender, “looks”, and personality
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: affirmative action, sex discrimination

This gem of a story is about how one Aussie university went to the logical endpoint of the diversity-trumps-merit controversy: Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane is apparently about to hire solely on the basis of diversity, and has erased any mention of the word “merit” in its hiring policy. This of course is ridiculous, […]
Queensland University of Technology completely ditches merit-based hiring, favoring gender, “looks”, and personality
Forever Cancelled: Escalating Costs Crippling Giant Offshore Wind Power Projects
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: celebrity technologies, wind power

The laws of economics don’t discriminate: where the costs of any venture outweigh its benefits, investors stay at home. Originally lured with the meme about wind power being free, and getting cheaper all the time, plenty of hopefuls poured cash into wind power outfits like NextEra, Avangrid and turbine manufacturers like Siemens. Lately, however, the […]
Forever Cancelled: Escalating Costs Crippling Giant Offshore Wind Power Projects
Litigation Only Way to Protect Communities & Environments From Wind Turbine Rollout
18 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming

Holding hands and waving placards just doesn’t cut it. If you want to protect the environment or your community from the industrial wind power onslaught, then litigate. In this post, we contrast a community off the coast of New South Wales, Australia where a rally of surfers gathered to stave off the threat of an […]
Litigation Only Way to Protect Communities & Environments From Wind Turbine Rollout



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