Both the proletariat and the middle class are withering away these days thanks to capitalism and freedom.
@berniesanders How America’s middle class is disappearing
08 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, labour economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: living standards, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, withering away of proletariat
#TPPANoWay @oxfamNZ @GreenpeaceUSA The Effects of Globalization
07 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, international economics, Marxist economics Tags: customs unions, expressive voting, free trade, Leftover Left, ODA, preferential trading agreements, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, The Great Escape, The Great Fact, TPA, TPPA, Twitter left, Tyler Cowen
@FairnessNZ shows how everything is getting better in NZ @FIRST_Union
20 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: Employment Contracts Act, employment law, Leftover Left, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, top 1%, union power, Withering away of the proletariat
The union movement posted two excellent charts during the last election showing how well things have gone since the 1980s economic reforms and their consolidation in the early 1990s.
The charts show that real wage growth returned in the early 1990s after the passage of the Employment Contracts Act and the consolidation of government finances. This was after two decades of wage stagnation in what the unions regards as the good old days.
Furthermore, as the union chart shows, the average incomes of the top 1% in New Zealand is a pretty stable for several decades. Whatever else is happening New Zealand, you cannot blame it on the top 1% because they are lazy. What increase there was in average top incomes in New Zealand was followed by the return of real wage growth in New Zealand and a long economic boom where the unemployment rate drop below 3.5%
The main bugbear is housing affordability which is a result of the Resource Management Act passed in 1993 as the union chart shows. The unions, the Labour Party and Greens all support the laws that result in this housing unaffordability.
Voter turnout rates among the less educated have collapsed since the 1970s
23 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of media and culture, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: expressive voting, rational ignorance, voter demographics, voter turnout
How much lower is youth voter turnout across the OECD?
23 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: rational ignorance, voter turnout
HL Mencken on the @realDonaldTrump & @BernieSanders
13 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, income redistribution, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: 2016 presidential election, expressive voting, left-wing populists, Leftover Left, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, right-wing populists
The obvious reason for the popularity of behavioural economics
10 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, behavioural economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: expressive voting, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, special interests
Are Republican voters becoming climate alarmists?
03 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA Tags: climate alarmism, expressive voting, rational ignorance, rational rationality, voter demographics
Share of world poverty has halved in last 20 years
29 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: capitalism and freedom, expressive voting, extreme poverty The Great Fact, global poverty, rational ignorance, rational rationality, voter demographics
https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/630066216158261248/photo/1
Since 1820 the world's population increased 7x while extreme poverty fell from 94% to 14%. buff.ly/1hgHIrb http://t.co/0dx4GE4Uqc—
Jeremiah Dillon (@jeremiahdillon) August 07, 2015
Why propaganda?
21 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economics of media and culture, income redistribution, Marxist economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: economics of advertising, expressive voting, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Margaret Thatcher on the concept of a false consciousness
21 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: all of communism, capitalism and freedom, class consciousness, false consciousness, Margaret Thatcher, preference formation, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
The inconvenient truths of @AlGore
20 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming Tags: climate alarmism, expressive voting, political propaganda, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
JFK assassination conspiracy theories are still going strong, unfortunately
19 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: conspiracy theories, cranks, expressive voting, JFK conspiracy theorists, political psychology, Quacks, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, social psychology
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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