Utopia, you are standing in it!

John Taylor [here/here] recently reiterated his views on what caused the global financial crisis.

He contends the following.  That the Great Moderation was due to adherence to the Taylor Rule [and to ‘rules-based’ fiscal policy].  That during the early 2000s, monetary policy was set looser than that prescribed by the Taylor Rule.  This caused the build up of debt and risk-taking, which ultimately led to the bust, and the end of the Great Moderation.  Weak activity following the crisis has been due to departures from rules based monetary policy, in the form of unconventional monetary policy.   And departure from rules based fiscal policy, in the form of the fiscal stimulus enacted by Obama in 2009.  These departures have created uncertainty that has weighed against activity.  Tighter policy on both counts would have led to more buoyant activity during the recovery on account of being more certain.

It was never going to be released while those directly responsible were able to milk it for political advantage and totally avoid their direct lapses that allowed a weedy little demented Aussie to purchase and employ the weaponry to enter the lists of the horrible.

A misdirected cost saving that enabled Tarrant to accumulate an arsenal that a very high percentage of those buying weapons and ammunition would never even contemplate.

It is very hard to ascertain the suitability of anyone wanting a New Zealand arms licence, and it could still eventuate that a bad person could defeat the very stringent rules that stand between a sane stable reasonable shooter and a desire to lawfully purchase what is desired.

I have some personal knowledge and understanding of what might have gone wrong that allowed an insignificant vertically challenged Aussie Nutter to set himself up as a one person killing machine…

Today, I am very pleased to introduce Professor Eleanor Scerri, an archaeological scientist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena! Eleanor is Lise Meitner Professor in Archaeology and leader of the Pan-African Evolution research group, where she directs a suite of multidisciplinary projects and fieldwork programmes based in Africa and southwest Asia. She also has recently initiated fieldwork projects on the island of Malta, where she is from! Eleanor’s research aims to establish how and to what extent archaeological, genetic and biogeographical data are related in order to develop new theories and methods for understanding human evolution. This led to her leading the publication that introduced the new ‘African structured metapopulations model’ for the evolution of Homo sapiens, proposing that it took place across Africa in interacting subpopulations as opposed to just in East or South Africa, as traditionally assumed.

What are your…

The pathetic energy density of wind power is just another reason why it is so insanely expensive, compared to any meaningful power source.

The bigger turbine, the further apart they need to be spread – so that the dirty wake of one turbine doesn’t affect the airflow to any turbine downwind and, thereby, reduce its output and/or wreck its blades and running gear (see above).

Britain’s PM, Boris Johnson has hatched a plan to thoroughly encircle his islands with these things, throwing something like an additional £50 billion in over the market contracts and government subsidies at foreign-owned wind power outfits, which – in a country that will take decades to recover from its self-imposed lockdown recession – is positively bonkers.

Now it seems, that on the numbers, Johnson’s grand plan is even crazier, still. Dr John Constable reports.

New data casts doubt on Boris Johnson’s 2030 offshore wind plans