Competing visions of success – left and right
06 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, entrepreneurship, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: activists, distributive justice, do gooders, expressive voting, Leftover Left, poverty and inequality, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, top 1%
Paul Ehrlich – the gift that keeps giving
05 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in environmentalism Tags: activists, do gooders, doomsday alarmists, environmental alarmists, environmental cranks, Greens, Paul Ehrlich, Quacks
HT: alexepstein
Evidence of mass kidnappings of Occupy protesters
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: activists, do gooders, expressive voting, Left-wing hypocrisy, occupy movement, superstar effect
Because the most-popular songs now stay on the charts for months, the relative value of a hit has exploded.
The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music, media researchers report. And even though the amount of digital music sold has surged, the 10 best-selling tracks command 82 percent more of the market than they did a decade ago.
The advent of do-it-yourself artists in the digital age may have grown music’s long tail, but its fat head keeps getting fatter.
The only explanation for the failure of the Twitter Left to protest against this concentration or of wealth and massive rise in ticket prices to the downtrodden young public that go to concerts is a mass kidnapping of the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Further evidence of mass kidnappings of peace activists
02 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in war and peace Tags: activists, Egypt, Gaza blockade, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, Left-wing hypocrisy
Egypt is doing more work to set up a 13-mile buffer zone with the Gaza Strip, after it discovered hundreds more tunnels running from the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave into the Sinai Peninsula. The plan includes clearing 10,000 residents from some 800 houses. Egypt has already destroyed over 1600 smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip and is constantly on the lookout for more.
Where is the international protest is regarding this continued blockade of the Gaza Strip? Why haven’t the peace activists taken to the streets across the globe to protest at this blockading the Gaza Strip?
The only possible explanation as to why these principled peace activist are unavailable to take to the streets is mass kidnappings. This blockade by Egypt of the Gaza Strip and its intensive long-term dimensions has been regularly reported in the Guardian, so they must know of it. The Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip is so intense that Hamas has resumed trade with Israel.
Of course, once you start discussing the Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, you must discuss what Hamas is doing to remove it, which are well-known.
As the Guardian reported, Hamas’s decision to carry on fighting in in the recent war recent weeks despite catastrophic civilian losses owed as much to Egypt’s refusal to lift this blockade as it does to Israel’s. Egypt wanted Hamas to accept an immediate ceasefire without preconditions. Hamas wanted Egypt to spell out how it might ease the siege before it would agree to a ceasefire.
Even the Guardian occasionally mentions who was the real target of the Hamas missiles fired at Israel. Where are the peace activists? Kidnapped?
Why Can’t Public Transit Be Free? – The Atlantic
01 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, transport economics Tags: activists, do gooders, free public transport, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge
The earliest urban experiment in free public transit took place in Rome in the early 1970s. The city, plagued by unbearable traffic congestion, tried making its public buses free.
At first, many passengers were confused: “There must be a trick,” a 62-year-old Roman carpenter told The New York Times as he boarded one bus. Then riders grew irritable. One “woman commuter” predicted that “swarms of kids and mixed-up people will ride around all day just because it doesn’t cost anything.”
Romans couldn’t be bothered to ditch their cars—the buses were only half-full during the mid-day rush hour, “when hundreds of thousands battle their way home for a plate of spaghetti.” Six months after the failed, costly experiment, a cash-strapped Rome reinstated its fare system.
Three similar experiments in the U.S.—in Denver, Colorado, and Trenton, New Jersey, in the late 70s, and in Austin, Texas, around 1990—also proved unfruitful and shaped the way American policy makers viewed the question of free public transit.
All three were attempts to coax commuters out of their cars and onto subway platforms and buses. While they succeeded in increasing ridership, the new riders they brought in were people who were already walking or biking to work. For that reason, they were seen as failures.
A 2002 report released by the National Center for Transportation Research indicated that the lack of fares attracted hordes of young people, who brought with them a culture of vandalism, graffiti, and bad behavior—which all necessitated costly maintenance. The lure of “free,” the report implied, attracted the “wrong” crowd—the “right” crowd, of course, being wealthier people with cars, who aren’t very sensitive to price changes.
HT: http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/why-cant-public-transit-be-free/384929/
Picking up that blizzard, drought or hurricane, climate alarmists have terrible standards of evidence
01 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: activists, climate alarmists, conjecture and refutation, expressive voting, global warming, philosophy of science
A great hard left critique of the Greens continued
31 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in environmentalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: activists, British politics, do gooders, environmental movement, expressive voting, Greens, Leftover Left
A great hard left critique of the Greens
30 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in environmentalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: activists, do gooders, expressive voting, Leftover Left, The Greens, UK politics
History of cultural bias has led to a lack of diversity in green and left-wing groups
29 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in occupational choice, personnel economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: activists, Greens, Inner-city Left, Leftover Left
Minorities represent nearly 40 percent of Americans, yet account for fewer than 16 percent of workers at the government agencies, nongovernmental organizations called NGOs and foundations that were studied.
…Taylor wrote that an “unconscious bias” exists within the liberal and progressive culture of the groups, preserving a racially homogenous workplace. “Recruitment for new staff frequently occurs through word-of-mouth and informal networks,” the study said. “This makes it difficult for ethnic minorities, the working class, or anyone outside of traditional environmental networks to find out about job openings and apply for those jobs.”
The iron law of volunteering: the nicer the cause, the nastier the people
28 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, liberalism, occupational choice Tags: activists, do gooders, expressive voting, Greens
Saving Civilization: 2009 vs 2015
27 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: activists, climate ala, climate alarmism, do gooders, expressive voting, green rent seeking, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
An absolutely excellent collection of climate alarmist statements by hacks whose jobs depended on fermenting confusion and moral panic
Five years ago, we were told that the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit was the last chance to save civilization. As the 2015 Paris summit approaches, the same sort of fear mongering is ramping up.
Earlier this week, a climate declaration published as a full-page ad in the international edition of New York Times tried to frighten us. It told us that:
the UN Climate Summit in Paris in December 2015 may be the last chance to agree a treaty capable of saving civilization; [bold added]
The declaration insisted that global warming may “cause the very fabric of civilization to crash.” It said charitable foundations should therefore divert resources away from other projects – presumably building hospitals and schools, preventing blindness and malaria, ensuring basic sanitation – in order to “save civilization” from the climate scourge.
Problem is, we’ve heard this before. Not so very long ago, the British Prime…
View original post 86 more words
Definition of an Activist | Coyote Blog
27 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in occupational choice, Public Choice Tags: activists, do gooders, fascism of good intentions
Activist: A person who believes so strongly that a problem needs to be remedied that she dedicates substantial time to … getting other people to fix the problem. It used to be that activists sought voluntary help for their pet problem, and thus retained some semblance of honor.
However, our self-styled elite became frustrated at some point in the past that despite their Ivy League masters degrees in sociology, other people did not seem to respect their ideas nor were they particularly interested in the activist’s pet issues.
So activists sought out the double shortcut of spending their time not solving the problem themselves, and not convincing other people to help, but convincing the government it should compel others to fix the supposed problem.
This fascism of good intentions usually consists of government taking money from the populace to throw at the activist’s issue, but can also take the form of government-compelled labor and/or government limitations on choice.
Evidence that the Left over Left are narrow-minded and personally nasty to people who disagree with them
26 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: activists, expressive voting, Greens, Leftover Left, political psychology, progressive left
Overcoming Bias : Exposing Scientist Liberality
24 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, environmental economics, global warming, occupational choice, personnel economics Tags: academic bias, activists, climate alarmism, expressive 13, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
If the public knew the truth, I expect two effects:
- The public would consider scientists to be less authoritative as a neutral source on policy questions, and
- Since scientists are respected, the public would become less conservative and more liberal.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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