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Perspectives: Issue 519 An Ignored ‘Disparity’: Part II

3 February 2012, Thomas Sowell

One of the ways of trying to reduce the vast disparities in economic success, which are common in countries around the world, is by making higher education more widely available, even for people without the money to pay for it. This can be both a generous investment and a wise investment for a society to make. But, depending on how it is done, it can also be a foolish and even dangerous investment, as many societies around the world have learned the hard way.

Perspectives: Issue 518 I Love Greed

31 January 2012, Walter E Williams

What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It's really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it's human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behaviour. I'm talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let's look at it.

Perspectives: Issue 517 An Ignored 'Disparity'

25 January 2012, Thomas Sowell

With all the talk about "disparities" in innumerable contexts, there is one very important disparity that gets remarkably little attention -- disparities in the ability to create wealth. People who are preoccupied, or even obsessed, with disparities in income are seldom interested much, or at all, in the disparities in the ability to create wealth, which are often the reasons for the disparities in income.

Perspectives: Issue 516 A Wild Forecast for Euro Pain

24 January 2012, Oliver Marc Hartwich

Revisiting my predictions for Europe in 2011 (Don’t believe this forecast, December 23, 2010), I can today declare without any false modesty that I was right on the money. Not only that 2011 has been very much like 2010. It is also emerging that we will celebrate Christmas on December 25 this year – just as I had forecast last December.

Perspectives: Issue 515 In Private Enterprise We Trust

18 January 2012, Richard A Epstein

The persistently fragile economic situation confronting the United States, Europe, and now perhaps Asia presents a grave challenge on how to best reverse the current trend of stagnation through the introduction of sound regulatory and business policies. In dealing with this issue, it is imperative to recognize that the proper response to short-term boom or bust cycles depends on developing those policies and practices that prove sustainable in the long run.

Perspectives: Issue 514 Rising Credulity

21 December 2011, Nils-Axel Mörner

It has now become traditional for climate change summits to open with a new, dazzling prediction of impending catastrophe. The UN Climate Conference under way in the South African coastal town of Durban is no exception. This year’s focus is on a familiar and certainly arresting argument: that sea levels are rising at a catastrophic and unprecedented rate mainly due to man-made global warming.

Submission: Submission on the 2012/13 appropriations for electricity efficiency appropriation

20 December 2011,

A joint submission by the Major Electricity Users’ Group and the New Zealand Business Roundtable on the 2012-13 appropriations for electricity efficiency appropriation.

Perspectives: Issue 513 Curing the Unemployment Blues

19 December 2011, Richard A Epstein

One of the enduring faiths of modern progressive thought is that omniscient policy makers can cancel out the errors of one form of economic intervention by implementing a second. That lesson was brought home to me when I was a third year student at Yale Law School, whenever discussion turned to the perennial debate over the minimum wage.

Media Release: Think Tanks to Merge

16 December 2011, Business Roundtable

The New Zealand Business Roundtable and the New Zealand Institute confirmed today that the boards of the two organisations had agreed to combine forces to form a new, independent public policy think tank.

Perspectives: Issue 512 Sending Profits Abroad is a Good Thing

14 December 2011, Oliver Marc Hartwich

On Sunday, Senator Bob Brown was interviewed on ABC 1's Insiders program. The Greens leader admitted that putting a price on carbon would ultimately mean shutting down the coal industry. But never mind, Brown explained. Since the big mining companies were largely 'foreign-owned, multinational corporations,' their profits would only 'line the pockets of millionaires elsewhere in the world.'