Ramesh Thakur is one of many commentators inside the Covistance who think government public health advisers have committed crimes against humanity . His anger was raised by reports of desperate parents in India selling their children into virtual slavery, including sexual expl...
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Dr. Joffe just posted a new article on the many negative effects of lockdowns in Canada and in the world as a whole. He really has put in a fantastic effort to source the evidence on the negative effects of the covid-related policies, digging up and critically evaluating nearl...
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Posted in Politics - national, Politics - international, Life, Education, Society, Economics and public policy, Health, Medical, Death and taxes, Social Policy, Coronavirus crisis
Sweden is a rich, spacious country famous for IKEA, ABBA, dark cold winters, and its unique covid-policies. We escaped London for a few days to see for ourselves what the deal was with this Scandinavian country of 10 million. It is as rich and well-run as the statistics say it...
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[caption id="attachment_34359" align="alignright" width="460"] Yuan Yuan (YY) Liu. Doing her bit for a better world[/caption] This June I was approached by Yuan Yuan Liu who wanted to discuss funding of scholarships for disadvantaged people with me "as you are the best economi...
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Published in and edited form in The Conversation . Martin Wolf has a crisp face-to-camera opinion piece in which he points out that populism in government hasn’t lined up neatly against relative success in keeping populations safe from COVID. Thus in the Anglosphere, Donald’s...
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Those who already in March foretold the folly of lockdowns and social distancing did not dream we'd still be in the same place after 7 months. Only slowly has it dawned that the panic would become an enduring business model . For a long time, we believed sanity would soon prev...
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Posted in Politics - national, History, Humour, Science, Geeky Musings, Health, Dance, Cultural Critique, Death and taxes, Democracy, Coronavirus crisis
[caption id="attachment_34335" align="alignright" width="378"] Dan Andrews said that his 'Road Map' for easing the lockdown is not a doctoral thesis – a proposition that's hard to argue with. Further propositions will be offered at subsequent press conferences.[/caption] Life...
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A group of senior medical scientists have gotten together to pen an open petition to governments and society, calling for a herd immunity approach to the coronavirus. Signatories already include over 3000 "Medical & Public Health Scientists", 4000 "Medical Practitioners", and...
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I have been reading The Great Persuasion Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression by Angus Burgin (ostensibly in order to write an article on Michael Polanyi) and was taken with this Chapter on Milton Friedman . I hadn’t really crystalised for myself until the chapter poi...
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[caption id="attachment_34314" align="alignleft" width="624"] How do you do a graphic for a post-COVID world? Well I guess you have an office with everyone running around with Groucho glasses facemasks on.[/caption] The Mandarin asked me to pontificate about the budget – along...
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Have a look at the graph below which summarises (excess) deaths per week in 24 European regions , roughly the EU, over the last few years. Note how the vertical axis only starts at 40,000 and that hence the fluctuations relative to baseline are smaller than they seem here. The...
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https://youtu.be/w5WsRmgqe_M Above is a recording of me presenting a session on How the competition delusion is ruining everything. It's the presentation of this essay "Trust and the Competition Delusion". Because it's easily done these days, I’ve recorded the video on my phon...
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I've mentioned Edward Broughton numerous times on this blog , a man of great humanity who responded to the plight of the Jewish internees who were at his command. A quick snippet from one of the grateful internees. So far I've read it on each occasion at the three dinners I’ve...
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One can tell many stories of how current times resemble some earlier historical period. The conflict between nationalism and internationalism, as personified by the controversies surrounding Brexit and Trump, has been seen as somewhat of a re-run of the conflict between fascis...
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Till 20 year ago, IQ scores in the West increased about 3 points per decade ever since the 1920s, a phenomenon known as the “Flynn effect”. That rise in IQ test scores, which have an average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, was attributed to improved schooling, improved...
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Posted in Uncategorized, History, Education, IT and Internet, Science, Gender, Media, Social, Parenting, Public and Private Goods, Inequality, Employment
[Bottom line: the conflicting forces now being created in the UK and Australia are truly frightening.] The UK government has just announced a nationwide return of one of the most destructive elements of lock downs: mandatory social isolation. Gatherings of more than 6 people a...
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Posted in Politics - national, Politics - international, History, Society, Science, Journalism, Libertarian Musings, Health, Law, bubble, Social, Cultural Critique, Inequality, Social Policy, Democracy, Coronavirus crisis
[caption id="attachment_34260" align="alignright" width="352"] Source: Sortition in the History of Democracy , Slide 3[/caption] A lottery is a defensible way of making a decision when, and to the extent that, it is important that bad reasons be kept out of the decision. Peter...
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[message: the "stay at home" firms will see their bored and lonely good young staff jump ship to the hip, drunk, snorting, and cavorting hard-work hard-play offices everyone loves to complain about.] The estimate from Transport for London is that 72% of workers are still not b...
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[caption id="attachment_34242" align="aligncenter" width="2304"] I really love this design by Casey Finley, who was kind enough to allow me to publish it here. He has a very distinctive style which is really coming into its own as he works on it. For instance, see here and her...
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[micro-trigger alert: dark humour ahead] The top prize for economic winners in the covid hysteria goes to the pharmaceutical companies who were quickest to jump on the covid-vaccine business. They are already selling billions of unproven vaccines that will now clearly arrive t...
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