A former vice-president of your party (and son of one of your MPs) says your party is run like a dictatorship. When this accusation is put to the co-leaders, the male co-leader refuses to answer and heads off. He sees the female co-leader is not following him and may be about to answer the question, […]
How to refute accusations of dictatorial behaviour
How to refute accusations of dictatorial behaviour
13 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
Sorry, But Pope Leo Is Mistaken
13 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economics of religion, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: The Great Enrichment
TweetHere’s a letter to a new correspondent. Mr. __: Thanks for sharing Sohrab Ahmari’s tweet, which I’d not otherwise have noticed. It is, frankly, pathetically inept. In order to criticize the pro-free-market Acton Institute, Ahmari favorably quotes Pope Leo’s assertion that “pseudo-scientific data are invoked to support the claim that a free market economy will…
Sorry, But Pope Leo Is Mistaken
The supply side of media bias
12 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, industrial organisation, politics - USA, survivor principle Tags: media bias
In my ECONS102 class, we cover economic explanations for media bias. Drawing on past research from Matthew Gentzkow and others, we demonstrate that there are demand-side explanations (media bias arises because of a bias in the preferences of the news-consuming public) and supply-side explanations (media bias arises because media firms segment the market, and focus…
The supply side of media bias
World Bank Reduces Emissions, Not Poverty
12 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: climate alarmism
The World Bank and other Western institutions retreat from fossil fuel finance has created a significant geopolitical opportunity for China. China is willing to finance fossil fuel projects in Africa and the developing world and reap the strategic benefit of control of energy infrastructure in many countries.
World Bank Reduces Emissions, Not Poverty
Brendan O’Neill ponders the unemployment of Israel haters
11 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, war against terror
The lead story on last night’s NBC News was about the cease-fire in Gaza, and it showed Israelis celebrating the return of the hostages, and Gazan civilians celebrating the cessation of war. Even my Jewish friends in America are celebrating, though they’re properly wary of “stage 2” of the deal: will Hamas gives up its […]
Brendan O’Neill ponders the unemployment of Israel haters
Some Economics of US Biofuels
11 Oct 2025 1 Comment
Twenty years ago, with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the US decided to encourage “biofuels” in a big way with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, which started with RFS1 and later was amended to RFS2. Gabriel E. Lade and Aaron Smith provide an overview of what has happened since then in Biofuels: Past, Present,…
Some Economics of US Biofuels
More judicial activism
11 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: constitutional law, crime and punishment, law and order, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
Roger Partridge writes: When Parliament says gang insignia “is forfeited to the Crown,” citizens are entitled to assume those words mean what they say. Yet on 11 August the District Court ruled otherwise. Judge Lance Rowe directed that a Mongrel Mob vest, seized under the Government’s new Gangs Act 2024 and forfeited following a guilty plea, should nevertheless […]
More judicial activism
Ancient Wisdom vs Science
11 Oct 2025 1 Comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
Robert Bartholomew writes: For millennia, indigenous cultures have accumulated a vast repository of information that has helped them to adapt and survive. Prior to European contact, the Quechua of the Andes used quinine from the bark of the cinchona tree to treat fevers. It later proved to be the first effective treatment for malaria. Salicin from […]
Ancient Wisdom vs Science
Tories Won’t Commit To Lift Petrol Car Ban
10 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, transport economics Tags: British politics
By Paul Homewood Mike Graham interviewed Matt Vickers, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, yesterday. At about 3hr 12 minutes in, the topic of Net Zero is raised. Vickers is asked whether the ban on petrol cars will be lifted – answer came there none! It is astonishing that no thought seems […]
Tories Won’t Commit To Lift Petrol Car Ban
A ceasefire in Gaza
10 Oct 2025 1 Comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, war against terror
Stuff reports: Celebration – tinged with anxiousness – has broken out in parts of Israel and Gaza after the announcement of a ceasefire deal between the warring parties. Israel has begun implementing the ceasefire deal in Gaza, after it reached an agreement with Hamas for the Palestinian militant group to release all the hostages it holds. Crowds in both […]
A ceasefire in Gaza
Te Pāti Māori
10 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
Still the same entitled grifters breaking the rules and achieving nothing
Te Pāti Māori
Is the earned income tax overrated?
09 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of education, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, Public Choice, public economics, welfare reform Tags: taxation and labour supply
This policy has been so popular with economists on a bipartisan basis, yet a recent piece in ReStud raises some doubts, as the wage subsidies induce many to drop out of school: As a complement to the federal earned income tax credit (EITC), some states offer their own EITC, typically calculated as a percentage of […]
Is the earned income tax overrated?
We do actually have a transformational government
09 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economics of regulation, law and economics, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, property rights
Governments of the left like to claim they are transformational, when they’re not. The Ardern Government achieved so little it was the opposite. They used wellbeing as a slogan, and did a couple of disastrous mergers. They spent a lot of money. To be fair the Clark Government did actually achieve some major stuff such […]
We do actually have a transformational government
Two tier justice
09 Oct 2025 1 Comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: British politics, law and order
Guido Fawkes points out: The same judge who spared jail for a man who attacked someone burning a Quran with a knife gave a man a prison sentence for sending nasty email to John Bercow. Rule of lawyers in action… Judge Adam Hiddleston gave Moussa Kadri a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months. In Knightsbridge […]
Two tier justice
The Green Party Calls for the Abolishment of Private Landlords in the United Kingdom
08 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, income redistribution, industrial organisation, law and economics, Marxist economics, property rights, Public Choice Tags: British politics
On Sunday, the Green Party in the United Kingdom voted to “abolish” private landlords in a move that reaffirms the…
The Green Party Calls for the Abolishment of Private Landlords in the United Kingdom
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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