Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
07 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in liberalism, TV shows Tags: feminism, Leftover Left, political correctness, renegade Left, safe spaces, Twitter left
https://twitter.com/Liberal_Lunacy/status/676834908170526720%20
https://twitter.com/tufc27/status/664117890191400960
https://twitter.com/ZombieNeith/status/664207120385089537
https://twitter.com/AntiFemComics/status/663375168543195136
https://twitter.com/Lauren_Southern/status/695283085038858240
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: conspiracy theories, extradition, Leftover Left, renegade Left, Twitter left
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, Marxist economics Tags: Argentina, Chile, China, left-wing populism, Leftover Left, Oil prices, The Great Fact, Twitter left, Venezuela
Source: The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
31 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, television, TV shows Tags: CER, closer economic relations, Hollywood economics, ISDS, preferential trading agreements, rational irrationality, single market, TPPA, Twitter left
New Zealand filmmakers have used trade treaties to pry open access to foreign markets by challenging failures to honour promises of nondiscrimination in trade and investment in the Federal Court of Australia.
This should please the Twitter Left because they are also a film going left as are most members of the educated middle class as a point of identity and snobbery.
Back in the day, New Zealand television programming was sold cheaply into the Australian market. Many cultural and other products are exported into foreign markets and sold for whatever they can get above the price of shipping or digital transmission. What else explains all that rubbish on cable TV?
Under the Closer Economic Relations agreement that creates a single market between Australia and New Zealand, New Zealand made television programming content must be treated the same way as Australian content so it was included in their 50% local content rules for commercial television back from whenever I remember this story from.
There was a Federal Court of Australia case that ruled that New Zealand television programming was Australian content programming for the purposes of the relevant media regulations because of Closer Economic Relations.
From the late 1990s, with revival of the New Zealand film and television industry, New Zealand content was starting to flood the Australian market, especially in the off-season in the summer when stations were looking for cheap content to fill a low ratings period.
Naturally, this Kiwi invasion did not please the rent seeking Australian television programme production industry and many a mendicant actor, writer and producer
Where there is a will, where there is a way: minimum quality standards are introduced into the Australian content rules defined by price – a price that happen to be above what the television stations used to pay for New Zealand made programming in the off-season.
This court victory in favour of various New Zealand film industry in enforcing a trade and investment treaty puts the Twitter left in a bit of a conundrum. Which is more important? The New Zealand film industry or their hatred of globalisation and the rule of law.
30 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, international economics Tags: customs unions, free trade agreements, globalisation, Jane Kelsey, Leftover Left, Oxfam, Paul Krugman, preferential trading agreements, rational irrationality, TPP, Twitter left, Yes Minister
https://twitter.com/TPPMediaMarch/status/692055631579185152
If George Bush had not won the 2000 presidential election, Paul Krugman would have taken over as the best communicator of economics since Milton Friedman. Instead, he became patient number no.1 of George Bush derangement syndrome. Ann Coulter was patient no. 1 of Clintons derangement syndrome.
Source: Enemies of the WTO.
12 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, labour economics, minimum wage Tags: expressive voting, living wage, rational irrationality, Twitter left
08 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: child poverty, family poverty, Leftover Left, living standards, Maori economic development, Twitter left
https://twitter.com/sbancel/status/654162844884205568
Pakeha and Pasifika real household incomes increased by 55% since the low point of 1994. Maori household incomes increased by 65% since 1994.
Source: Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015), Table D.6.
10 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: top 1%, Twitter left
The latest research of Max Rashbrooke on trends in wealth was in the Dominion Post today. The breathless reporter used it to say that:
The elite and high-income earners of New Zealand have increased their wealth by almost $200 billion while debt among the poorest has climbed to $7b…
The net wealth of the top 10 per cent has increased dramatically while the bottom 10 per cent of Kiwis face increasing levels of debt in the billions of dollar…
The data in the Dominion Post today consisted of a time series of the top 10% and the bottom 10% share of net wealth and an interactive pie chart showing the distribution of wealth.
When you chart the data published by Max Rashbrooke as a time series rather than an interactive pie chart, today is not quite the day for the down-trodden proletariat to kick in the rotten door of neoliberal capitalism to start the permanent revolution.
It is not much of a call to the barricades to say that just about every section of New Zealand society became much richer in a short six-year period – their wealth increased by between 60-80% between 2004 and 2010 as shown in the chart below. The middle class has been doing just swimmingly between 2004 and 2010: up from $194 billion to $348 billion in a short six years. This is an increase of 80% in six years. So rapid an increase that the sceptics among you might start to doubt the accuracy of the data either at the beginning or by the end.
Furthermore, no section of society noticeably increased their share of wealth as shown in the chart below. Further evidence of how lazy is the top 1% is in New Zealand. Their wealth increased only by 56% between 2004 and 2010. Having the wealth of the top 1% increase by less than every group in society bar the bottom 10% qualifies as a dramatic increase in inequality by the journalistic standards of the Dominion Post. The wealth of the top 10% increased between 2004 and 2010 by 68% – no more than any other group in society bar the top bottom 10%. That too is a dramatic increase in inequality by Dominion Post standards.
Source: Geoff Rashbrooke, Max Rashbrooke and Wilma Molano, Wealth Disparities in NZ Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (November 2015) via The richest 10 per cent own $436 billion of New Zealand’s wealth: research | Stuff.co.nz.
Joan Robinson in the 1940s was on to this failure of capitalism to impoverish the proletarian when she said the battle cry of Marxists would have to change from the 1848 version “rise up ye workers, rise up for you have nothing to lose but your chains” to “rise up ye workers, rise up for you have nothing to lose but the prospect of a suburban home and a motorcar”.
Today that battle cry of the Marxist revolution would have to be “rise up ye workers rise up for you have nothing to lose but your iPhone and your air points”. As Joan Robinson observed in the 1940s, that’s not much of a basis for a revolutionary movement.
The Twitter Left are grumpy buggers because a rapid increase in wealth that is broad-based across New Zealand society – lifting up 90% of New Zealand society – for them is only another reason to complain.
06 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of information, economics of media and culture, health economics Tags: agricultural economics, food snobs, organic farming, Twitter left
27 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic growth, labour economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: 2016 presidential election, Leftover Left, Twitter left
25 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, energy economics, labour economics, minimum wage, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, carbon tax, climate alarmism, expressive voting, Leftover Left, living wage, rational irrationality, Twitter left
23 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: The Great Escape, The Great Fact, Twitter left
21 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in currency unions, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - USA Tags: British disease, British economy, Eurosclerosis, France, sick man of Europe, Sweden, Swedosclerosis, Twitter left
The Washington Centre for Equitable Growth have joined the Wall Street Journal in falling for that dodgy OECD hypothesis about rising inequality holding back economic growth.
The chart below shows stark differences between egalitarian Sweden and France, and the more unequal UK since 1970 in departures from a trend growth rate of 1.9% in real GDP per working age person, PPP.
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
In the above chart, a flat line is growth at the same rate as the USA for the 20th century, which was 1.9% for GDP per working age person on a purchasing power parity basis. The USA’s growth rate is taken as the trend rate of growth of the global technological frontier. A falling line in the above chart is growth in real GDP per working age person, PPP, at below this trend rate of 1.9%; a rising line is above trend rate growth for that year.
Britain did very well, both under the neoliberal horrors of Thatcherism and the betrayals by Tony Blair of a true Labour Party platform. The UK grew at above the trend annual growth to 1.9% for most of the period from the early 1980s to 2007.
Neither France or Sweden, despite their egalitarian economies, kept up with the US growth rate since 1970. Under the OECD’s hypothesis, if France and Sweden had been more unequal, their trend growth rates would have been even more appalling since 1970.
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