Irrational nonsense mapped
12 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, liberalism, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, antifluoridation movement, antiscience left, BlackBerry, conjecture and refutation, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, expressive voting, infotopia, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Conspiracy theories versus the supply and demand for scientists who are approachable about their findings
11 Jun 2015 5 Comments
in environmental economics, health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, bribery and corruption, climate alarmists, conjecture and refutation, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists
Big Pharma versus Big Placebo
09 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, antiscience left, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists
The survivalist community have finally gone organic and renewable
14 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in environmentalism, health economics, politics - USA Tags: Big Wind, conspiracy theorists, organic farming, survivalists, wind power
For sale: luxury apocalypse-proof condos in a missile silo gu.com/p/4398h/tw via @guardiang2 @IAmTimDowling http://t.co/tH1B7M4lXT—
Guardian Visuals (@GraphicGuardian) November 13, 2014
The red flags of quackery
05 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, liberalism Tags: conjecture and refutation, conspiracy theorists, political psychology, quackery
Bureaucracy also landed on the Moon too
25 Feb 2015 1 Comment
in economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, law and economics, technological progress Tags: conspiracy theorists, moon landing, moon landing hoax
Apparently there were 9/11 Pentagon plane crash conspiracy theories too
21 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in war and peace Tags: 9/11 conspiracy theories, conspiracies theories, conspiracy theorists
Buzz Aldrin punches Moon landing conspiracy theorist stalker after being harassed by him
15 Feb 2015 1 Comment
in economics of crime, economics of media and culture, health economics, law and economics, property rights Tags: Buzz Aldrin, conspiracy theorists, moon landing hoax, privacy, self-defence, stalking
The ruling class versus YouTube
06 Feb 2015 2 Comments
in Marxist economics, Public Choice Tags: conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, ruling class, YouTube
What influence did Milton Friedman have on 1980s and 1990s Australian monetary policy?
29 Jan 2015 3 Comments
in F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, monetarism, politics - Australia Tags: conspiracy theorists, conspiratorial left, inflation targeting, monetary policy, vast right-wing conspiracy
The Hayek and Friedman Monday conferences on the ABC in 1976 and 1975 are still ruling the Australian policy roost, if some of the Left over Left in Australia are to be believed. Milton Friedman is said to have mesmerised several countries with a flying visit with his Svengali powers of persuasion.
When working at the next desk to a monetary policy section in the Australian Prime Minister’s Department in the late 1980s, I heard not a word of Friedman’s Svengali influence:
• The market determined interest rates, not the Reserve Bank was the mantra for several years. Joan Robinson would have been proud that her 1975 Monday conference was still holding the reins.
• Monetary policy was targeting the current account. Read Edwards’ biography of Keating and his extracts from very Keynesian Treasury briefings to Keating signed by David Morgan that reminded me of Keynesian macro101.
When as a commentator on a Treasury seminar paper in 1986, Peter Boxhall – fresh from the US and 1970s Chicago educated – suggested using monetary policy to reduce the inflation rate quickly to zero, David Morgan and Chris Higgins almost fell off their chairs. They had never heard of such radical ideas.
In their breathless protestations, neither were sufficiently in-tune with their Keynesian educations to remember the role of sticky wages or even the need for the monetary growth reductions to be gradual and, more importantly, credible as per Milton Freidman and as per Tom Sargent’s end of 4 big and two moderate inflations papers in the early 1980s.
I was far too junior to point to this gap in their analytical memories about the role of sticky wages, and I was having far too much fun watching the intellectual cream of Treasury senior management in full flight. (I read Friedman & Sargent much later).
Proof at last, that the moon landing was real
26 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, politics - USA, technological progress Tags: conspiracy theorists, immigration, moon landing
I learnt a new word today
24 Jan 2015 2 Comments
in health economics Tags: conspiracy theorists, Quacks
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments