Utopia, you are standing in it!

Subsidies and special deals for favoured firms/industries seem to have been becoming increasingly common in New Zealand.  There is Tiwai Point, the Sky City convention centre, the forestry industry, the export education industry and probably others I’ve forgotten.   There are the R&D tax credits the Prime Minister touts at every turn –  the only substantive item in her (very short) list of things the government is doing to reverse the atrocious productivity performance.

And then there is the film industry, into which many hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured over the last couple of decades.  There is an industry there, but one which official advice to the government makes clear has no prospect of viability without heavy subsidies.  That should be a good test as to whether there is any robust case for the subsidy.  Barring something like national defence considerations, any industry that has no credible…

Andrew Doyle on much of the crap displayed by stupid woke idiots

May 09,2022

Wikipedia

Masters of Money is a 2012 British documentary series produced by the BBC.^[1] The programme premiered on BBC Two from 17 September to 1 October 2012 and is presented by Stephanie Flanders, who was then the BBC economics editor.^[2] Dominic Crossley-Holland served as the executive producer of the programme.^[3] The Open University worked in partnership with the BBC to produce the series.^[3]

The series explores the lives of John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, and Karl Marx, and their influence on modern economics.^[2] Keynes is known for Keynesian economics and as an early pioneer of macroeconomics, Hayek is part of the Austrian School of economics, and Marx is known for communism and the theories that are collectively called Marxism. Flanders speculates how each would have reacted to the 2007–2012 global economic crisis, and what they would…

Everyone is supposed to have their 15 minutes of fame. Perhaps I have just had mine, after the contenders for the Tory leadership were invited to endorse the ‘Charter for tax cuts’ that I co-wrote for Conservative Way Forward.

It was certainly pretty cool to be namechecked at the launch event on Monday both by the new Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, and by a strong candidate to be the next Prime Minister, Suella Braverman.

The thinking behind the piece was simple. I wanted to summarise the case for tax cuts and respond to some of the arguments against, including that we cannot afford them, or that they would be inflationary.

The timing, as it turned out, could not have been better. The changes at the top are a golden opportunity to rethink economic policy. The Government should do much more to lower the burden of taxation as part of…

About this episode from TV Guide

Conflicts sparked by the Supreme Court’s 1955 ruling that schools should be integrated with “all deliberate speed.” Included: James Meredith’s efforts to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962; and newsreel comments by former Mississippi senator James Eastland. Narrator: Julian Bond.

About this series

Wikipedia

Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network and also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at the film production company Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills and interviews of participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the folk song “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” which is used in…

Covers quite a lot of ground, The article referenced below sets out some context to the video with Sean Plunket

July 12, 2022

Buzz from the Beehive

Transport Minister Michael Wood left the dollar signs out of his press satement when declaring   that the Hamilton Section of the Waikato Expressway has opened, marking the final chapter of a 30 year roading project.

It was terrific to see the last 22-kilometre piece of the Expressway “falling into place”, he enthused.  This reflects somewhat curiously on the work of the engineers and construction gangs.

The road connects Auckland to the agriculture and business centres of the Waikato and would improve economic growth and productivity in the region.

The full 102km Waikato Expressway will also reduce travel times between Auckland and Tirau by 35 minutes for approximately 20,000 vehicles a day.

The Hamilton section is the biggest roading project in Waikato’s history and runs from Ngāruawāhia in the north to the existing Tamahere interchange south of Hamilton.

Work on the earlier sections of the Waikato Expressway…

Renewable energy rent-seekers and politicos have been gripped by a sense of palpable panic: the mob won’t tolerate blackouts for very long, and repeated power rationing will have the same incendiary effect on public sentiment.

The destruction of reliable and affordable power supplies caused by chaotically intermittent and heavily subsidised wind and solar was perfectly predictable and it was perfectly avoidable.

Think of it as a malignant cancer that spreads and ultimately devours its host. Wrecking the profitability of conventional generators is integral to the model of punitive mandates and ludicrously generous subsidies, which advance the unreliables at the expense of everything else that works. A power pricing and supply calamity soon follows.

The cancer has already consumed California and is well on its way to devouring Texas, now it appears that great swathes of the US will soon experience the same kind of Dark Ages chaos that their…

Last week, the Constitution Unit published a blogpost which posed five key questions for the Conservative leadership contenders, one of which focused on rebuilding parliament’s scrutiny role. In this post, David Natzler and Charlotte Sayers-Carterargue that such scrutiny should include telling parliament about politically significant international agreements it has made and allowing for oversight and the expression of dissent.

On 11 May Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed bilateral security agreements with Sweden and Finland. At that time both countries were actively considering applying for membership of NATO, which they did together a week later, on 18 May. Once objections by Turkey to their membership had been dealt with, NATO agreed to these applications at its June meeting in Madrid. Now they have been admitted, the necessary amending Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty will be laid before parliament. Under the terms of Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and…