Category Archives: History

What kind of crowd are we now seeing? The 5 surprises in this pandemic.

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Paul Frijters

There are 5 aspects of the covid-19 pandemic I really did not see coming, all pointing to a phenomenon that European sociologists of a century ago spent their whole lives describing, coming up with theories about crowds and their behaviour … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, History, Life, Philosophy, Politics - international, Politics - national, Science, Social, Society, Theatre | 117 Comments

A seminar/workshop on wellbeing cost-benefit analysis applied to covid

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Paul Frijters

Find below the video of a seminar for the Australian Institute for Progress done a few weeks ago detailing the basic cost-benefit view of the current pandemic. The slides of this presentation are here: Presentation CBA Covid May 2020_V2 Most … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Employment, Health, History, Politics - international, Politics - national, Science, Social Policy, Society | 79 Comments

Covid strategies for Australia: herd immunity or quarantine land?

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Paul Frijters

Let’s talk about some of the covid policy options facing Australia in the coming months and years. It seems to me we can either grasp the nettle and accept we will get a wave of highly visible covid-19 deaths before … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Democracy, Economics and public policy, Education, Employment, Health, History, Journalism, Libertarian Musings, Life, Politics - international, Politics - national | 16 Comments

UK policy wonks following Troppo in saying the lock downs were a mistake (but hiding the message a bit)

Posted on April 25, 2020 by Paul Frijters

Here at Clubtroppo, we have been saying for well over a month now that a quick look at the economic damage and the health damage of the responses to the corona virus tells you they dwarf the possible benefits of … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Health, History, Methodology, Social Policy, Society | 12 Comments

How many WELLBYs is the corona panic costing?

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Paul Frijters

How much unhappiness is created by the unemployment of millions of people in Western countries (mainly N-Am +Europe) caused by the corona panic? How much unhappiness has been created due to the vast expansion of loneliness and physical inactivity? And … Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Democracy, Education, Employment, Health, History, Politics - international, Science, Social, Social Policy, Uncategorized | 38 Comments

Crowdsourcing the crisis: crossing the is/ought barrier

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

I recently reposted my old column on blogging the 2008 crisis and there’s been some great blogging of this crisis. What about crowdsourcing the crisis? To some extent, we’re doing that with people out here in television land suggesting stuff and … Continue reading →

Posted in Democracy, Economics and public policy, History, Politics - national, Web and Government 2.0 | 1 Comment

6 post-Corona Institutional questions

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Paul Frijters

The mass hysteria of the corona crisis is raging, with the resulting self-isolation of whole economies and populations. The loss seems greater with every new forecast on the economic collapse than I initially thought, and the benefit of imprisoning and … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Climate Change, Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, Health, History, Life, Political theory, Politics - international, Public and Private Goods, regulation, Religion, Science, Social, Society, Terror | 20 Comments