Charming The Poles – The Central Powers Look For New Allies I THE GREAT …
10 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
GRAHAM ADAMS: Does learning te reo make you virtuous?
10 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of media and culture Tags: economics of languages
A week before election day, TVNZ’s John Campbell went to a polling station in Ōtara, South Auckland, to lie in wait for voters. When he encountered a young Māori woman who was about to vote for the first time, his trademark gushiness was unleashed: “Mere is nineteen. She speaks fluent te reo Māori and English.…
GRAHAM ADAMS: Does learning te reo make you virtuous?
This year ‘virtually certain’ to be warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists say — ignoring contradictory evidence?
10 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in econometerics, environmental economics, global warming
The ‘virtual’ in virtually certain is from a computer model result: ‘we combine our data with the IPCC’. Two things to bear in mind: satellite data only started in the 1970s, with other less accurate (due to shortage of data) records being kept from the 1880s onwards, and ‘the mid-Holocene … mean annual temperature reached […]
This year ‘virtually certain’ to be warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists say — ignoring contradictory evidence?
Book Presentation with John Cochrane: “The Fiscal Theory of the Price Le…
09 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, public economics Tags: monetary policy
Who ruled Germany before Hitler? Weimar Republic (1918–1933)
09 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, war and peace Tags: Germany, Nazi Germany, World War I
Why Gen Z Are Blind to Bloodthristy Hamas
09 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
Brad Polumbo explains at Newsweek An Insane Number of Gen Zers Support Hamas’s Slaughter of Innocent Israelis. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. Nearly half of young respondents said they side with the terrorist group that just earlier this month purposefully targeted and slaughtered innocent civilians. Gen Z is really not okay. […]
Why Gen Z Are Blind to Bloodthristy Hamas
Biden 2.0: Can the President Avoid the “Second-Term Curse”?
09 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
Below is my column in The Hill on a second Biden Administration and what it might entail in policy priorities. With one year before the next presidential election, the Hill asked me to project what such a second term might look like for President Joe Biden. Here is the column: Popular culture has curses that…
Biden 2.0: Can the President Avoid the “Second-Term Curse”?
Self Imposed Energy Poverty Coming to Canada
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, econometerics, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: Canada
Jock Finlayson describes how climate change policies are depleting Canadians’ financial means in his article Millions of Canadians May Face ‘Energy Poverty’. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. The term “energy poverty” is not yet part of day-to-day political debate in Canada, but that’s likely to change in the next few years. […]
Self Imposed Energy Poverty Coming to Canada
International Law in War
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, International law, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics
A follow-up to my post on Bombing Your Way To Proportionality as one Natasha Hausdorff discusses more than just that aspect of waging war. She’s a barrister who got a law degree at Oxford University and an LL.M. specialising in public international law. She then clerked for the President of the Supreme Court of Israel […]
International Law in War
Willis as Minister of Finance
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
In this morning’s edition The Post has a double-page article about what Nicola Willis might be like as Minister of Finance. Those of my comments that were included are here My bottom line was actually very similar to that of CTU economist, Labour champion, and former political adviser to Grant Robertson who was quoted as […]
Willis as Minister of Finance
MIKE GRIMSHAW: It’s about critiquing power, stupid!…
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics
Or the societal necessity to support (yet critique) Academic Freedom and Free Speech. Mike Grimshaw writes – The other day I attended the Free Speech Union AGM and was on the Academic Freedom panel. It was an interesting experience because while I am a committed supporter of Free Speech and Academic Freedom, in many ways […]
MIKE GRIMSHAW: It’s about critiquing power, stupid!…
The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips (revised edition, 2020)
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, economics of crime, energy economics, International law, law and economics, Public Choice, war and peace Tags: Iran, Israel, Middle-East politics, Syria, war against terror
There are quite a few book-length studies of the Syrian Civil War. The distinctive thing about this one is that academic and author Christopher Phillips insists that other regional countries weren’t ‘drawn into’ the conflict once it had got going but, on the contrary, were involved right from the start, helped to exacerbate the initial […]
The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East by Christopher Phillips (revised edition, 2020)
Reflections on the TCU Capitalism versus Socialism Debate
08 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, privatisation, property rights, Public Choice, public economics Tags: economics of socialism, Sweden
Two days ago at Texas Christian University, I debated Scott Sehon, chair of Bowdoin College’s Philosophy Department, on Capitalism versus Socialism. (Video forthcoming eventually). My opening statement was a slight variation on the one I wrote for an earlier debate on the same topic with Elizabeth Bruenig. Sehon’s opening statement was adapted from his Socialism:…
Reflections on the TCU Capitalism versus Socialism Debate
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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