Category Archives: Death and taxes

Vale Ed Diener, Mr Happiness

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Ed Diener, one of the best-known scholars of happiness died this week at the age of 76. He was known as Dr Happiness in the United States, well-known for his 7-item scale on wellbeing and his constant refrain that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Death and taxes, Life, Science | Leave a comment

Lockdown cost-benefit analysis for Australia by Martin Lally

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Martin Lally is a kiwi economist who late in 2020 decided to calculate for himself what his own country was losing by locking itself away from the world, coming to the conclusion that New Zealand was sacrificing something like 26 … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Economics and public policy, Employment, Health, Politics - national, Science, Social Policy | 61 Comments

Australia or Sweden: which has had the better 2020?

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Compared to the trends on January 2020, has Australia or Sweden lost more wellbeing in 2020? And which has seen the greater damage to expected future wellbeing years for after 2020? The Table below summarizes the answers to this. For … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Death and taxes, Ethics, Health, Life, Politics - international, Science | 39 Comments

On the nature of gods and inequality.

Posted on April 7, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Sometimes one has an idea that blazes into one’s consciousness as a solution to one particular concern, which then starts to be something much bigger than just a solution to a problem. It becomes an interesting thing in itself and … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Death and taxes, Geeky Musings, Health, Inequality, Religion | 8 Comments

What experiments on cult behaviour tell us about lockdown beliefs

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Paul Frijters

With a recent publication in Nature that reported lockdowns have no effect on covid-cases or covid-deaths, there are now over 30 studies that fail to find any covid-reducing benefits of lockdowns. Worse, across countries and time, more severe lockdowns are … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Health, Medical, Politics - international, Politics - national, Religion, Science, Society, Terror | 62 Comments

Interesting new articles on mass hysteria and medical morality

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Paul Frijters

While the hysteria marches on here in Europe, an interesting economics article came out in a decent journal on the political economy of that mass hysteria. Their abstract: In this article, we aim to develop a political economy of mass … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Democracy, Health, History, Science | 35 Comments

Covid-congestion effects: why are lockdowns so deadly?

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Paul Frijters

Consider the picture below of two hypothetical Accident and Emergency departments (A&E), one that has no covid-regulations and simply has the available nurses trying to help all comers as fast as possible. In the other one the nurses try to … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Education, Health, Science, Society | 33 Comments