Friday Afternoon Ramble

A random walk through a few things that caught my eye this week …

“I am thoroughly encouraged that young people are espousing  "individual and property rights." And me, I’m thoroughly surprised!
Dispirited Delahunty – LINDSAY MITCHELL

Yes, it’s rhetorical.
Is It Possible to Create New Wealth? –THOUGHTS FROM 40^o SOUTH

“Commissioner Mike Bush said arming the police would change the police's relationship with the public beyond repair.”
Things that make me want to get citizenship here... – Eric Crampton, OFFSETTING BEHAVIOUR
And if you have to carry a gun to keep your fragile seat at number one ... – Andrew Geddis, PUNDIT

Use your open fire in Auckland next winter, and expect a knock on the door from a clot with a clipboard.
Open fire could cost you $20,000 – NZ HERALD

“You need exceptional designers, urban planners and architects to look at it and figure it out. What you don't want to do though is to open it up to the free market."
Grand Designs mean government designs?
Kevin McCloud's Grand [Government] Designs on NZ – STUFF

“Democracy Action is alarmed by a number of provisions in the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) that provide one class of citizens, loosely defined as “Mana Whenua”, with new and substantial powers over Auckland’s resources and the private property of its citizens.”
Democracy Action are the good guys. If you oppose legal favour to a special class of citizens, get behind their campaign.
Auckland's Unitary Plan – DEMOCRACY ACTION

But I thought the internet was the new media?
Dotcom and Internet Party still blaming “the media” – YOUR NZ

“While Chinese demand for Australian property is not showing signs of waning, there does appear to be a softening in demand from China for education places in Australia.”
Dodgy Chinese money already drying up at unis? – MACROBUSINESS.COM.AU

I can think of a few who should be signing up.
Australia & New Zealand Students for Liberty

Here’s a simple way to save taxpayers nearly $1.5 billion per year – and give consumers more choice.
New Report on Corporate Welfare in New Zealand – UTOPIA  - YOU’RE STANDING IN IT

“Chorus's ultra-fast broadband competition Gigatown is a waste of money and is stealing copyright, critics say
Gigatown waste of money, say critics – RADIO NZ

“Homeowners who install solar panels to cut their power bills are pushing up prices for everyone else, lines companies say.”
Solar costs handed on – NZ HERALD

Too soon?

“With the end of QE3 coming, stock market bulls need to take a note of caution because the Austrian measure of the money supply is already falling -- typically a sign of trouble for stock markets…”
The End of QE3, Trouble Ahead for the Bulls? – Mark Thornton, CIRCLE BASTIAT

“Australian housing bubble: part of a global cycle.”
Property Bubbles: Why “the Whole World has Become a City” and Australia [and NZ] is a Part of It – NUOVO NOVALIS

“The 2% inflation mantra has been repeated so early and often by Fed speakers, their court economists and the Wall Street stock peddlers known as “strategists” that it appears to amount to the monetary equivalent of the Pythagorean theorem.”
The Fed’s 2% Inflation Target: The Ultimate Keynesian Con Job – David Stockman, ECONOMICS POLICY JOURNAL

“The ECB has been concerned about falling consumer prices. I propose that's 100% stupid.”
Challenge to Keynesians "Prove Rising Prices Provide an Overall Economic Benefit"  – MISH’S GLOBAL ECONOMIC TREND ANALYSIS

“Surely we can find groups or situations which don’t look good also under inflation? So what is the point Wessel is trying to make, unless he has friends only in these categories and no friends in categories affected by inflation?”
Deflation Hysteria – Per Bylund, ECONOMIC REASONING

“Many years ago, falling prices were a sign of improved efficiency and expanding wealth, and of widening consumer choice. Thanks to the spread of electricity and other such wonders in the final quarter of the 19th century, prices dwindled year by year at a rate of 1.5% to 2% per year. People didn’t call it deflation – they called it progress.”
We’re in an Era of ‘Central Bank Worship’ – Jim Grant, JIM GRANT BLOG

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have no interest rates. We used to have them and they were swell. Some of your parents may have lived off them."
James Grant Conference Video: Inflation Expectations, Growth, Policy Problems; Europe Has Become Japan – MISH’S GLOBAL ECONOMIC TREND ANALYSIS

To allow capitalism again, end central banking.
The End of Central Banking, Part I – Richard Salsman, OBJECTIVE STANDARD
The End of Central Banking, Part II - Richard Salsman, OBJECTIVE STANDARD

Casey Research are calling it for 2014 (we report, you decide):

“The man shot dead by the Canadian Parliament's Sergeant-at-Arms has been named as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a man born in Quebec as Michael Joseph Hall and reported to be a "revert" to Islam.”
Non-"Senseless" Violence – Mark Steyn, STEYN ONLINE
Talking Treason – Mark Steyn, STEYN ONLINE

“Surprise! Obama's New Ebola Czar Is A Long-Time Lobbyist, Dem Operative With No Public Health Expertise.”
New Ebola Czar Ron Klain Is A Long-Time Lobbyist, Democratic Operative – THE FEDERALIST

“It is not Hayek the UK is starting to embrace with its flirtation with UKIP - it is Hansonism.”
Britain's Pauline Hanson moment – CENTRE FOR INDEPENDENT STUDIES

“Nigeria's improbable victory: How it squashed Ebola, despite chaotic health system.”
Nigeria’s hard-earned lesson for quashing Ebola – FINANCIAL TIMES

“Tirole for all his technical proficiency and inventiveness is a garden-variety neoclassical economist [who] uncritically accepts the long-entrenched neoclassical view that “oligopolistic” firms commit the unpardonable sin against economic efficiency of being able to influence prices.”
Jean Tirole wins Nobel Prize in economics for a pseudo-problem – Joseph Salerno, FINANCIAL POST

“But perhaps the most encouraging thing about Hong Kong is that the nation’s top officials genuinely seem to understand the importance of small government.”
Hong Kong’s Remarkable Fiscal Policy – UTOPIA – YOU ARE STANDING IN IT

Unless we take immediate action and move back into caves, the Arctic will be ice-free in the blink of an eye. Or approximately 552,311 years.
Arctic To Be Ice-Free Very Soon – Steven Goddard, REAL SCIENCE

GEt climate sensitivity wrong, and you get your models wrong. And they’ve got climate sensitivity wrong.
The Climate Sensitivity Controversy – Fred Singer, AMERICAN THINKER

Green Growth: Killing Five Birds with One Stone?
Religion and Reality in the Search for Green Growth -

How’s that renewable energy working for you?

“Research, including medical research, is subject to a range of biases which mean that misleading or useless work is sometimes pursued and published while work of value is ignored.”
Most published medical research is FALSE — 85% of research funding WASTED, says Stanford study – JUNK SCIENCE

“The problem of government-funded research is not only moral; it also affects the long-term prosperity of society…”
Government Funding Vs. The Progress Of Science – Malini Kolchar, ATLAS SOCIETY

“The find shows that vertebrates lost and regained the ability to efficiently deliver sperm internally, many times over. Copulation was such fun, evolution discovered it again and again.”
Oldest genitals found. Went out of fashion for eons – NEW SCIENTIST

When Auckland was closer to London than Greenland.
Isochronic Map Showing 1914 Travel Times From London – GEEK PRESS

“As a result of a change in habits, Mr Price said that out of town supermarkets and the weekly shop were now a ‘thing of the past.’”
Supermarkets are 20 years out of date, says Waitrose boss – TELEGRAPH

Days gone by, you’d pour out your late-night heartache to a barman over a  Sinatra song. These days…

The Basie band is Open All Night – and the normally-Zen like Count pulls out some stride piano – to the obvious pleasure of Jo Jones.

[Hat tips Jazz on the Tube,  Paul Litterick, Catallaxy Files, Joe Bastardi , Susan Lund, Jesse Colombo, Rudolf E. Havenstein, Climate Realists, The Federalist, Libertarian Comic, Jeffrey A Tucker, F Bastiat , Intereconomics, Richard Calhoun]

Thanks for reading,
Have a great weekend,
PC