2010

Stumbling Chris notes that, unusually, productivity has fallen sharply in the UK during the recession, and works through various possible explanations without really hitting on anything. He wonders if real-business-cycle theorists might have a point, and the recession be triggered by a real underlying fall in productivity. In the comments, I suggested that if there…

Read More in which we accidentally rediscover Kondratiev

This has done the rounds and been roundly done for all the right reasons. There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists…

Read More Authoritarianism Does Its Thing

This Monday, the Guardian ran this story as the front page lead. Here’s the headline and the standfirst: Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures• How the location of weather stations in China undermines data• How the ‘climategate’ scandal is…

Read More The Guardian’s Great Mann Hunt

There is something pleasantly surreal about this story. London Reconnections reports on the appearance of the heads of Tube Lines, the Underground, and Mr. Chris Bolt before the London Assembly’s transport committee. It doesn’t sound obviously hilarious, but then, who is Chris Bolt? You may vaguely remember him as the Rail Regulator, the chap who…

Read More Magic and the decline of railway privatisation