The name change at Cato’s Project on Social Security Choice is far from complete. Clicking on “About the Project …” takes you to a page headed “About the Project on Social Security Privatization”, but the boilerplate at the bottom, asserts copyright for the Project on Social Security Choice. Maybe this is deliberate ambiguity, or maybe they need to put a bit more work into their website

In a total reversal of normal etiquette, I welcomed new blogger Alex Robson in person quite a while ago, but have failed to do so in blogspace until now. Read his riff on “Bob and Mary Stringbag” (Amanda V’s imaginary couple). Alex has also revealed the secret poet hidden inside every economist. Stay tuned for some contributions on this blog.

Paul Krugman is usually right up to the minute. But the main point of his latest piece, namely, that the US Republicans have backed away from using the term “privatization” to describe their plans for Social Security individual accounts, was in Salon’s Spinsanity back in June.

And the kicker for his column is this para:
“And what’s the name of the Cato project to promote personal accounts? Why, the Project on Social Security Privatization, of course.”

In fact, as was reported in this blog, back in July, the Cato Institute has followed the Republican party line, and changed the name to Project on Social Security Choice. Of course, it will be a bit embarrassing for them to write in with a correction, since it simply underlines the main point.

For those interested in an economic analysis of some of the key issues, look out for September’s American Economic Review, which will include an article by me and Simon Grant.

I was surprised to see a piece with the byline of Raymond Evans, and saying:
“After all, it’s one thing to behave like a rogue elephant on the international scene when you’re actually an elephant like the US but it’s another thing to posture like a rogue elephant when, in global terms, you scarcely carry the size and muscle of a wombat. Perhaps Howard is now wavering on Kyoto because he finally recognises this fact.”
This seemed like a huge turnabout from Ray Evans, eminence grise of the Melbourne right, secretary of the HR Nicholls society, founder of the Lavoisier Group etc etc.
Boringly enough, it turns out that Raymond Evans is a completely different bloke – he’s “a research scholar with the school of history, religion, classics and philosophy at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. ”
This is the second case of this kind to arise in Australia recently. Readers of Australian social commentary have been confused by the opinions of Peter Saunders. The original (and best, IMHO) is director of the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW. The other Peter Saunders is a relatively recent arrival from Britain, working for the Centre for Independent Studies. Readers who know the two institutions can make their own judgements about who is left and right, and about who is right and wrong.

According to Amanda Vanstone, public discourse is ailing because public intellectuals and commentators fail to address “Bob and Mary Stringbag (an average couple who shop on the weekend with a string bag)”. I don’t know when Amanda last went shopping, but it’s been years since I saw a string bag down at the mall. I don’t even bother to suggest that Amanda might have heard of weblogs.

Teresa Fels asks what Jason and Ken Parish think about the issues raised by the Esso class action which is about to commence, but I’ll take her invitation as general. In this piece, which was mainly devoted to debunking the Y2K bug (remember that?), I made the case for strict liability in the case of privatised (or for that matter, corporatised) monopoly suppliers of infrastructure services. Key para:

The case for corporatisation and privatisation is based on the assumption that the profit motive is the best guide to efficient outcomes. If this is the case, then we will get as much safety and reliability as is profitable. Assuming the suppliers of services have better information than anyone else, this means they should be absolutely liable for the consequences of any systems failure, without a requirement to prove negligence. Absolute liability is the criterion that prevails, for practical purposes, in the United States, which is the model for private provision of infrastructure services. If we import US institutions like private electricity companies, we must also import the legal institutions, such as aggressive litigation, that keep those companies honest.

What revolution are You?
Made by altern_active
Thanks to Group Captain Lionel Mandrake for pointing me to this quiz. Judging by our shared views, and the fact that we both got the same revolution, the Founding Fathers really hated Microsoft.

Tim Blair says “Call me an optimist, but signs of wonderful green death seem to be appearing all over” and I’m happy to take up the invitation. The only signs of death mentioned by Tim are a collision between two rallies and an attack from someone called “Leon Mann”, director of something called the ” Free Market Foundation”. I bet lots of Greenpeace activists handed in their resignations when they heard that Leon had come out against them.
Meanwhile, as Tim himself observes “BMW, Zurich Financial, De Beers and Shell spent millions in Johannesburg to present themselves as green-friendly. ” and of course China, India, Canada and Russia announced that they would ratify Kyoto. By omitting Canada and Russia, and ignoring the fact that China and India are now committed to future rounds in which they will have targets, Tim manages to dismiss this as meaningless. The Australian government isn’t quite as silly, and is starting to realise how lonely life will be as the only non-ratifying country small enough to be kicked with impunity.
For some real signs of death, hop on over to the Global Climate Coalition Until a couple of years ago, this was the main big business lobby group opposing Kyoto and included most of the big motor and oil companies. The individual companies started dropping out and GCC regrouped as an umbrella body for business organisations. That didn’t work and they’ve now declared victory and gone home. To quote their site:
“The Global Climate Coalition has been deactivated.  The industry voice on climate change has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming.  ”
Of course, Tim’s objections are more about style than substance and here there’s some good news. The kind of street-theatre politics in which Greenpeace traditionally excelled is becoming obsolete. Why chain yourself around a corporate headquarters when, as Tim’s own report notes, they’re eager to invite you into the boardroom.

In the interests of readability, I’m experimenting with changes to the colour scheme. One result may be the end of the interesting (and sometimes confusing) coincidence of templates with the Catallaxy collective and Weatherall’s Law. But if my changes are an improvement, Jason and Kim are welcome to copy them. If you have comments or suggestions, please email me – it will be easier for me to keep track of than the comments box.

The RSL says no to war with Saddam. More precisely, it sets out sensible conditions: clear evidence of danger, a specific UN resolution, a plan for postwar reconstruction.
A couple of observations on this. First, I’d guess that this means that the RSL is now dominated by people who were in Korea and Vietnam, rather than WWII, and are therefore unimpressed by slogans like “All the way with the USA”.
Second, as is pretty much the norm, I used the term “sensible” in the first para to mean “agrees with me”. I can see that this is problematic, but I can’t think of any *sensible* alternative.