Utopia, you are standing in it!

Cultural differences between countries are quite large, and likely affect differences in economic development. But how did these differences arise in the first place? Consider recent history: it’s not a stretch to believe that Europeans who immigrated to the US were generally individualistic, adventurous, entrepreneurial people who potentially did not fit in well with their existing society; they were possibly non-conformist, less obedient that those who stayed.

Values such as individualism, innovativeness and entrepreneurialism gave these immigrants an edge in the longer term, and this made the US very successful, even relative to Europe. Can such a story apply over the much longer term? Can it explain how cultures diverged thousands of years ago?

The rate of time preference or in other words long-term orientation has been found to be an important determinant of human behavior. Generally, it is associated with better educational outcomes, and even better physical and emotional health. On an aggregate level it can affect differences in GDP across countries.

This post presents a new paper that asks how differences in time preference arose. Clearly, we see substantial variation in time preference across countries, so the question is what caused this.

A few weeks ago there was the debacle of the government introducing one afternoon a bill that would have imposed GST on investment management fees, ministers defending that bill the next morning, but then by lunchtime the policy was gone.

The proposed law change seemed on the face of it perfectly sensible in principle. I even read the Regulatory Impact Statement that was published with the bill, and most of the reasoning and argumentation made sense there too.

But it contained this little section

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those big numbers got a fair amount of media and political attention. As an example, here was an RNZ story

I was a bit curious about this “modelling”, which was not published at the time the bill was introduced. It wasn’t described in the RIS, the numbers weren’t put in any sort of context, they were just baldly stated. Quite probably ministers don’t read…

We have evidence of a sea change against leftist politics, recently in Sweden ousting the long incumbent left wing parties. Boom! Leftists Ousted in Sweden  Next up this month is Italy where a similar change is expected. Italy’s right heads for clear election victory, final polls indicate.

Closer to home, in Canada keen observer Rex Murphy reports in Epoch Times  Poilievre’s Star Rises as the Liberals Fumble and Falter.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

There wasn’t much drama to the event.  Ever since the Conservative leadership race was announced, it was clear from the crowds that showed up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies that he was the enthusiastic favourite, and by a long shot. He did not merely win. He was a rocket. The rest were Volkswagens.

Secondly, he also demonstrated from the first he was serious, by which I mean the tone and substance of his speeches

Vlad Putin is being accused by pundits as the only reason why Europe’s power prices are spiralling out of control. Not so. Sure, his grip on oil and gas supplies to Europe has put the squeeze on, particularly in Germany, but its so-called wind and solar ‘transition’ – the ‘Energiewende’ – was in serious strife long before Putin invaded Ukraine.

Germans were already suffering Europe’s highest power prices; Putin’s invasion of Ukraine simply revealed how badly his gas was needed to run the fast-start peaking gas plants, that cover wind and solar output collapses, whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in. Something like revealing the Emperor was naked, all along.

The crushing prices being experienced by German households and businesses are taking their toll. Unemployment is on the rise and a no doubt bitter winter – a month or so away – can only add to the misery…

Many people are stunned by the data I shared early last year showing that ordinary people in the United States tend to be much richer than their peers in advanced European nations.

Here’s some more evidence, courtesy of the Manhattan Institute’s Chris Pope.

As you can see, the poorest people in America are about equal to the poorest people in Germany, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but Americans are ahead of their peers when looking at the top 90 percent of the population.

For the top 70 percent, Americans are comfortably ahead.

But not everybody agrees.

Here’s a tweet from John Burn-Murdoch of the U.K.-based Financial Times. He has a very negative portrayal of the United States (and the United Kingdom).

The tweet from Burn-Murdoch includes a link to an article he wrote.

Here are some excerpts.

…one good way to evaluate which countries are better places…

Gallup has polled Americans for many decades about their smoking habits. About 40-45% of adults smoked cigarettes from about 1945-1975, but the percentage has dropped steadily since then. A 2022 poll showed a new low of 11% being smokers. Roughly three in 10 nonsmokers say they used to smoke.

On the other hand, marijuana usage has climbed steadily since Gallup first asked about it in 1969. Some16% of Americans say they currently smokemarijuana, while a total of 48% say they have tried it at some point in their lifetime:

Younger adults (18-34) are much more likely to be current users, but the 55+ crowd tried it nearly as much (44%) as the younger cohorts:

Among all adults, opinion is about evenly split on whether marijuana has a positive or negative effect on society and on people who use it. However, opinion is skewed very positive among those…

Oprah Winfrey gets choked up and breaks down when remembering her inspiration, advisor and friend, the Black screen icon Sidney Poitier. No big surprise there.

But then you hear a little catch in the voice of Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who doesn’t do sentiment unless he’s getting paid to fake it. And you take notice.

“I think of Sidney as this ‘big ass lighthouse,’ a bright light on a promontory,” Freeman says in the new documentary celebrating “Sidney.” “I spent my career focusing on that light.”

“Sidney” is instantly one of the great documentary love-ins in a year that has already produced “The Last Movie Stars,” focusing on Poitier’s contemporaries and one-time co-star, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Hollywood knows how to celebrate its own. And Reginald Hudlin, one of the legions of Black filmmakers (“House Party” to “Marshall”) who followed in actor, director and role model Poitier’s wake…

Oprah Winfrey gets choked up and breaks down when remembering her inspiration, advisor and friend, the Black screen icon Sidney Poitier. No big surprise there.

But then you hear a little catch in the voice of Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who doesn’t do sentiment unless he’s getting paid to fake it. And you take notice.

“I think of Sidney as this ‘big ass lighthouse,’ a bright light on a promontory,” Freeman says in the new documentary celebrating “Sidney.” “I spent my career focusing on that light.”

“Sidney” is instantly one of the great documentary love-ins in a year that has already produced “The Last Movie Stars,” focusing on Poitier’s contemporaries and one-time co-star, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Hollywood knows how to celebrate its own. And Reginald Hudlin, one of the legions of Black filmmakers (“House Party” to “Marshall”) who followed in actor, director and role model Poitier’s wake…