Utopia, you are standing in it!

Topping the list of things that seemed like a good idea at the time sits wind and solar power.

What, with the energy sources that drive them free and natural; with no visible emissions of spent gas or fumes; with their shiny panels harvesting the sun’s rays and delivering electricity for five or six hours a day (rain and cloud cover permitting); with their majestic 50-60m blades lovingly caressing benevolent breezes and thereby ‘powering’ hundreds of thousands of homes (around-the-clock, according to wind industry marketing blurb), why wouldn’t the gullible masses be sucked into the belief that sunshine and breezes will soon deliver all of our energy needs, forevermore?

That was then. This is now.

The increasing reliance on the unreliables has been revealed for what it is: sheer lunacy.

But this is stupidity with a kicker: the blackouts caused by sudden and unpredictable collapses in wind and solar output…

Born in 1819, Victoria was the only child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess of Kent. Tragically, her father died shortly after Victoria was born and her mother then fell under the alluring spell of John Conroy, her comptroller and personal secretary, a man upon whom the eyes of history have not looked favorably. He was considerably ambitious, apparently plotting with Victoria’s mother to keep the young princess locked away in Kensington Palace under the strict tutelage of her governess, Baroness Lehzen. Young Victoria had a secluded and lonely life. She was reared to be neither weak nor submissive, as in the tradition of the Whigs, but her freedom and joy was very much repressed under what became known as the “Kensington System,” a rigid series of rules intended to keep Victoria a puppet when she eventually became queen, as well as…

My home province of Quebec in Canada has been under lockdown since the Holidays (again). At 393 days of lockdown since March 11th 2020, Quebec has been in lockdown longer than Italy, Australia and California (areas that come as examples of strong lockdown measures). Public health scientists admit that the Omicron variant is less dangerous. But the issue is not the health danger, but rather the concern that rising hospitalizations will cause an overwhelming of an exhausted health sector.

And to be sure, when one looks at the data on hospital bed capacity and use-rates, you find that the intensity of lockdowns is well-related to hospital capacity. Indeed, Quebec is a strong illustration of this as its public health care system has one of the lowest levels of hospital capacity in the group of countries with similar income-levels. The question then that pops to my mind is “how elastic is…

A key insight of international economics is that there should be “convergence” between rich countries and poor countries, which is just another way of saying that low-income nations – all other things being equal – should grow faster than high-income nations and eventually attain the same level of prosperity.

The theory is sound, but it’s very important to focus on the caveat about “all other things being equal.” As I explain in this interview from my last trip to Australia, countries with bad policy will grow slower than nations that follow the right policies.

When I discuss convergence, I often share the data on Hong Kong and Singapore because those jurisdictions have caught up to the United States. But I make sure to explain that the convergence was only possible because of good policy.

I also share the data showing that Europe was catching up to…

I only share long videos when they satisfy key criteria, such as being very informative and very educational.

This video from Arthur Brooks is both.

What I like most is that he does a very good job of showing that concern for the disadvantaged is the most important reason to support free markets and limited government.

And he does this by exploring some very interesting and challenging topics, such as Denmark’s unusual mix of free markets and a welfare state (I’ve referred to that country’s public policy as a combination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

But I want to focus on his discussion of India’s partial economic liberalization. We’ll start by perusing the most-recent edition of Economic Freedom of the World to confirm that there was a significant increase in economic liberty during the 1990s.

But it’s also important to stress that India’s partial economic liberalization was…well…

Charles’s beheading was scheduled for Tuesday, January 30, 1649. Two of his children remained in England under the control of the Parliamentarians: Elizabeth and Henry. They were permitted to visit him on January 29, and he bade them a tearful farewell. The following morning, he called for two shirts to prevent the cold weather causing any noticeable shivers that the crowd could have mistaken for fear: “the season is so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation.”

He walked under guard from St James’s Palace, where he had been confined, to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold had been erected in front of the Banqueting House. Charles was separated from spectators by large ranks of soldiers, and his last speech reached only those with him on the scaffold. He blamed his fate on his…