Judging by the tagline, I imagine this guy thinks Democracy’s Quiet Victory is also a victory for free-market capitalism. Regardless, this is a well-reasoned article supporting an optimistic view of world events.

Tim Blair refers to me and other signatories of the Kyoto petition as “alleged economists”. This is an interesting epithet to be applied to, among others 30 professors of economics. If Tim wants to say we are bad or mediocre economists, let him say so, but terms like “alleged” are silly, just like the use of “pseudo-intellectual” as a derogatory term for “intellectual”. The implication is, of course, that somewhere out there are “real’ economists and intellectuals, whose rigorous analysis invariably agrees with the uninformed prejudices of people like Tim. Or should I say- the uninformed prejudices of “people” like “Tim”?

For those interested in following up this issue, I’ve linked to a counterpetition being organised by my colleague Alex Robson, a letter from Alan Moran of the IPA supporting the counterpetition, and an article on approaches that would permit us to meet our Kyoto commitments at low cost and in some cases with a net benefit. Moran and Robson take great exception to the suggestion that there are policies that would both reduce emissions and improve the economy. As I’ve already pointed out, reducing subsidies to the aluminium industry is a case in point. Since Moran is a professional advocate for fossil-fuel intensive industry, he’s unlikely to be impressed by this argument, but other economists thinking of signing the counterpetition might want to ponder it.

Thanks to Tex, I found this interesting piece entitled Rich people work, too. As far as I can tell it was published on the very day that Salomon telecom shill Jack Grubman retired with a payout of $US32 million (on top of millions already received in salary). I suppose putting out ludicrously inaccurate forecasts does constitute “work” in some sense, but I could have done better (in fact, did) in my spare time.

A fascinating piece from the NYT magazine.

Here’s a cached report from the SMH in which President of the NSW Law Society John North denounces mandatory sentencing laws which are, of course, the ultimate method of ensuring proportionality. He’s right about mandatory sentencing, but this contradicts his criticism of the sentence imposed on gang rapist X.

At the Crossroads by Jane Kelsey. Jane has been one of the most prominent critics of free-market ‘reform’ in NZ. I’m reviewing her latest books (which echoes the titles of at least three Australian books taking radically different views) for New Zealand Economic Papers. I’ll post the review on my website in due course.

David Morgan is back from paternity leave

Everyone and their dog has piled on to the predictable handful of critics of the 55-year jail term handed down to gang-rapist X. I just want to make one more observation on this. The people who have protested about the ‘disproportionate’ nature of the sentence are precisely those who in normal circumstances (that is, community outrage over a light sentence) would be stressing the importance of the judge’s discretion to take account of all the circumstances in a particular case, rather than following some sort of mechanical rule of proportionality. For example, I don’t remember any of them protesting about the disproportionately light sentences (later doubled on appeal) that were handed down in the first of the trials. These guys appear to have no consistent legal philosophy, unless you call always siding with criminals a philosophy.

Peasons I’m glad to be a leftwinger these days is that I don’t have to be nearly as embarrassed about the people on my side. It used to be, for example, that a lot of leftwingers were whiny complainers. There are still some, but whining is now far more prevalent on the right. Worst of all are ex-lefties like David Horowitz, who’ve kept their whining style even as they’ve reversed their political views. But there are plenty of others
The big whine is, of course, the continuous complaints about media bias. But lately there has been added a form of right-wing political correctness, in which rightwingers try to silence critics by crying religious persecution. An example I saw recently was the head of the ,
Australian Family Association, writing in the Age. He said ” Today, when moral and ethical debates are being waged, we constantly hear voices telling us that the church, or religious people, should keep their personal convictions to themselves.
The latest example is Terry Monagle’s article, The new Catholic ascendancy”,

And here’s what Monagleactually wrote about the new Catholic ascendancy
“Admirably, and unlike Catholic conservatives of a previous era, they are unafraid of debate and of staking their political careers around a set of ideas they care about. They draw connections between areas of private morality and public policy that have been ignored.”

Monagle went on to argue that the Catholic right was wrong and dangerous, but he made no suggestion they should keep quiet.

According to these numbers in NYT, Jack Grubman (former telecom shill at Salomon) collected a commission of about 0.001 per cent ($30 million) for his role in the greatest wealth destruction in history.