Utopia, you are standing in it!

From the Emperor’s Desk: Tomorrow, August 6th, is the anniversary of the abdication of Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, and also the disillusion of the Holy Roman Empire itself. Today I’m featuring a small biography of Emperor Franz II, and tomorrow I will give a brief telling of the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and starting next week I will do a detailed series on the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

Imperial Standard of the Holy Roman Empire

Franz II (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor (from 1792 to 1806) and, as Franz I, the first Emperor of Austria, from 1804 to 1835. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.

Early life

As Archduke Franz of Austria he was a son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife…

Concerns about the constitutional implications of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill were overwhelmed by a tsunami of Labour hubris and ballyhoo in Parliament yesterday.  The weight of numbers against upholding liberal democratic values  in the governance of our local authorities resulted in the Bill being supported by 77 votes (Labour 65; Green Party 10;  Māori Party 2) to 43 (National 33; ACT 10).

And so – because a highly contentious interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi has been deemed to over-ride the notion that all citizens should have equal rights – one group of people in Canterbury will be spared the need to campaign for electoral support and can simply appoint representatives to two permanent seats on the Canterbury Regional Council.

As National’s Paul Goldsmith explained during the debate, the legislation allows for 14 councillors in Canterbury to be elected by everyone in the community, including Māori. …

Ray Smith,  director-general  of  the  Ministry for Primary Industries,  sent  a  shiver  through  the  NZ  China  Summit in Auckland  when  he  warned  that  foot-and-mouth  disease  getting  into NZ   would  be  a  “scary”  and  a “gigantic thing”.

The  highly  contagious  disease has  been  sweeping  through Indonesia  and  since  it  was  first discovered  in  May  429,000 cases   have  been  identified    through  24   provinces  including Bali,  a  popular  holiday  destination  for many  New  Zealanders.

Indonesia  is  struggling  to  bring the  disease under  control, underlining  what  a problem  it  could  be  for NZ’s  main  export  industries.

The disease, which could cost the country billions of dollars and more than 100,000 jobs if it ran rampant among our livestock, is causing major concern in South Asia. After  the disease was discovered in Bali fragments of the virus that cause the disease have also been found in meat products entering Australia from Indonesia, creating fresh concerns…

In a famous contribution to a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Robert Lucas and Thomas Sargent (1978) harshly attacked Keynes and Keynesian macroeconomics for shortcomings both theoretical and econometric. The econometric criticisms, drawing on the famous Lucas Critique (Lucas 1976), were focused on technical identification issues and on the dependence of estimated regression coefficients of econometric models on agents’ expectations conditional on the macroeconomic policies actually in effect, rendering those econometric models an unreliable basis for policymaking. But Lucas and Sargent reserved their harshest criticism for abandoning what they called the classical postulates.

Economists prior to the 1930s did not recognize a need for a special branch of economics, with its own special postulates, designed to explain the business cycle. Keynes founded that subdiscipline, called macroeconomics, because he thought that it was impossible to explain the characteristics of business cycles within the discipline imposed…

Robert Hetzel undoubtebly is one of the most important monetary thinkers of our time and for more than five decades he has been involved in US monetary policy making and has furthermore greatly contributed to monetary theory and monetary history.

And he is one of my absolut biggest idols in the world of monetary thinking and I am proud to call Bob my friend.

Luckily Bob and I rarely disagree, but I continue to learn from Bob and anybody interested in monetary matters should read Bob’s papers.

Bob now has a new paper out – published by the Mercatus Center where he now is Senior Affiliated Scholar.

Abstract:

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which unfurled starting in March 2020 and raised unemployment dramatically, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) adopted a highly expansionary monetary policy. The policy restored the activist policy of aggregate demand management that had characterized the…

Stardate: 2267, along with an unknown date in a parallel universe date
Original Air Date: October 6, 1967
Writer: Jerome Bixby
Director: Marc Daniels

“What will it be: past or future? Tyranny or freedom?”

Kirk and crew fail to persuade a Council on the planet Halkan to mine dilithium crystals on their planet while an ion storm gathers overhead. Kirk pledges not to use overwhelming force to destroy the Halkans in exchange for the dilithium crystals. However, when Kirk, Bones, Scotty, and Uhura beam back aboard the Enterprise, the ion storm causes a strange transporter malfunction. Much to his horror, Kirk notes that the general appearance of the ship has been altered, the behavior of the likes of Spock (now brandishing a goatee) has become “brutal, savage.” The crewmen are fierce and violent, easily instigating mutiny, and readily willing to now destroy the Halkans on…

Suppose(!) an Oz government or IR tribunal, wanted to shift the standard working week to four eight-hour days.
Here’s one possible path:

Reduce standard working week from 38 hours to 35, a demand of the trade union movement that’s been on the books for the last 50 years. With four weeks annual leave and 10 public holidays per year, that implies just over 1600 hours per year (excluding sick leave etc) 1/..

Now move to the four-day, 32 hour week, with the proviso that the full four days are worked in weeks with public holidays. That gives 1536 hours worked in a standard year 2/..

Now shift from four weeks annual leave to two, with the proviso that workers can put in up to eight 5-day weeks during the year and take the time off in an additional two-week block. That brings annual hours back up to 1600 3/…

Thoughts?

Here’s a  political  conundrum:   why  aren’t   Opposition  parties  doing better in the  opinion polls?

National’s  leadership  has  settled  in, and it’s fair to say support for the Nats has increased since Christopher Luxon replaced Judith Collins.  But the gains have been at the expense of ACT.

And  together,  the two parties  are not  polling  well  enough  to  form a  government on  their own.

It will be worth watching to see if ACT does better after  holding an upbeat  conference last weekend,  oozing confidence levels which  party leader  David  Seymour  might  not  have  recognised  just  five or  so years  ago.

But meanwhile it might take only the suggestion of  a  success  or  two  for  the  government to  turn  around  the  slump  in its  fortunes.

So  far  there  is  no  sign  of that turnaround.

A  government   which began with a  show  of  capability,  if  not in a  blaze  of  glory, is  now…

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will almost  certainly  have  earned  a  bounce  upwards  in  her party’s  polling after  her mission  in  Europe, where,  as a  result of  her  “Captain’s  Call”,  New Zealand  has  accepted  the  terms  of  the  EU free  trade  deal.

The  outcome is   positive  for  some  sectors, though  not for  the  dairy  and  meat  producers. NZ’s  negotiating team,  led   by  the  redoubtable  Vangelis Vitalis,  did  a  remarkable  job in securing  as  much  as  they  did,  but  the  disappointment  over  the  lack of  any  significant gains  for the  dairy  and  meat  industries   could have  justified  the  government  flagging  it  away.

If   the  plaudits  for  the  government  are somewhat muted, it’s on the  home  front that black   clouds   have been  gathering.

Those  may dull  the  homecoming  for  Ardern after she engages in more trade-related talks in Australia.  The  reports   on  the  economy awaiting her are  downbeat, if not chilling.