Utopia, you are standing in it!

In a post a couple of weeks ago I outlined some reasons for scepticism about the case for increasing the OCR by 50 basis points specifically at the then-forthcoming OCR review. My point was mostly about the data hiatus – the OCR decision would be taking place almost 3 months after the most recent CPI data and more than 2 months since the last main labour market data. It seemed (and seems) foolish for the MPC to stick to its schedule of review dates, including the long summer holiday it will give itself after next month’s MPS. It remains highly problematic that New Zealand governments have penny-pinched on core statistics and as a result we have such slow and infrequent macro data (we got the September quarter CPI inflation data yesterday, Switzerland by contrast released September month data on 3 October).

But there were also some considerations in the macroeconomics

Crushing power costs and power rationing follow wind and solar reliance, like night follows day. Texas is no exception.

Bullying power consumers to stop consuming power is par for the course; chiselling taxpayers to cover the exorbitant cost of making up for power shortfalls when the wind stops blowing and/or the sun sets, is grist for the mill.

Bill Peacock explains it all below.

Texas Grid Reliability: Gone With the Wind (and solar)
Master Resource
Bill Peacock
14 September 2022

“The solution to keeping the lights on in Texas is … to stop politicians and regulators from micromanaging the Texas energy market. Texas politicians could do this by ending renewable energy subsidies in the state and making renewable companies pay for the costs they impose on the rest of us from their federal subsidies.”

As everyone knows, Texas had the worst blackout in its history during the winter of 2021…

October is Black History Month in the UK, as institutions like the History of Parliament attempt to re-insert and highlight the Black experience into fields of history previously overlooking this. Here, we hear from Helen Wilson, PhD candidate with the History of Parliament and Open University, who is researching the Black and Mixed Ethnicity Presence in British Politics, 1750-1850. As Helen explains, despite significant barriers to their inclusion, there are some active and engaged Black voters to be seen in this period…

There has been a marked change in the research into Black political participation in the eighteenth century; a topic now proving as rich an area of study as that of the participation of women. In the wake of modern scandals like the Windrush scandal the push for a more inclusive British political and social history is clear to see. In the last 20 years significant scholarship into Black…

Marlo Thomas explains in his Real Clear Energy article Expensive Energy Is a Core Feature, Not a Bug, of Biden’s Climate Agenda.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was being generous by describing interventionism’s nasty side-effects as “unintended.” Some younger interventionists are naïve, and know not what they do, but the older, street-smart captains of progressive politics understand the harms their policies entail. For them, the adverse consequences are features, not bugs.

The only downside is the risk of political retribution at the polls.

That’s the predicament in which the Biden administration now finds itself. It is also the theme of “Energy Inflation Was by Design,” a new report by supply-chain consultant Joseph Toomey.
[Synopsis is in previous post Energy Inflation Playbook]

President Biden and congressional Democrats want to replace fossil fuels with a “zero-carbon” energy system. Their

One aspect of the British Monarchy is hereditary succession. However, that is not the only rule governing the succession to the crown. There are laws controlling who can legally inherit the throne.

I often will see people claim that some descendant of either a King of England or a scion of the royal family is the rightful monarch of England or the United Kingdom due to hereditary succession. These claims mistakenly believe that hereditary descent is the main issue controlling the succession to the crown.

His Majesty, the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

In the beginning of the monarchy, in the times of the Anglo-Saxon period prior to the Norman Conquest, the throne was elective. Succession was governed by the Witan.

The Witan (lit. ’wise men’) was the king’s council in Anglo-Saxon England from before the seventh century until the 11th century. It was composed…