Quotulatiousness

April 14, 2018

Andrew Coyne asks “Why do we need a Senate?”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 05:00

And the answer for anyone who’s lived through previous constitutional mud-wrestling is almost certainly going to be a variant of “We don’t, but to change it in any way means re-opening the entire constitution for revision and re-negotiation … thanks, but no thanks … we’ll put up with the Red Chamber of Irrelevance”:

More than two years after the Trudeau government introduced its system of “independent, merit-based” appointments to the Senate, transforming — so it was said — the Other Place from a house of patronage and partisanship to a house of virtue, the government’s “representative” in the Senate has given some thought to how it will all work.

In a 51-page discussion paper, Peter Harder offers his views on what role the Senate should play, as one of the last remaining appointed legislatures among the world’s democracies — and the most powerful, on paper — particularly in light of its changed circumstances. It makes for a fascinating, not to say hallucinatory read.

In Harder’s estimation, the past two-and-a-bit years have been something of a golden age of Senate legitimacy, a period in which it has rebuilt its credibility after what he plainly views as the dark age of partisanship that preceded it: a dark age that precisely coincides with the period of Conservative government.

The expense scandals, the epic confusion that followed the government’s half-considered reforms, the repeated episodes of brinksmanship as the newly envirtued Senate threatened to defeat this or that bill, these rate barely a mention, in Harder’s account, beside the Senate’s “robust bicameralism,” its “positive track record” and contributions that have been “effective, policy-oriented and always respectful of the role of the representative House of Commons.”

Ah yes. About that: if the Senate were so “always respectful” of their respective roles, it’s curious Harder should feel the need to spend 51 pages explaining what those roles are. But then, that is because it is so exquisitely complicated, so delicately subtle, requiring such a delicate balance.

The Danelaw – The Fall of Eric Bloodaxe – Extra History – #2

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 12 Apr 2018

After peace was made between King Alfred and Guthrum, the Danelaw was born — a geographic area in England controlled by the Danes, but also extremely reliant on the cooperation by the Anglo-Saxons and the local Christian population.

Sponsored by Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia!

Alcohol and health – if you torture the data long enough, it will give you the answer you want

Filed under: Britain, Health, Wine — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Tim Worstall isn’t convinced that a recent study summarized in The Lancet is either honest or useful:

We have a new study out, in the Lancet no less, telling us that the new, lower, limits for reasonable alcohol consumption are just right. Well, of course the report says that, right? The problem being that it’s entirely contrary to the more general experience we’ve got of booze consumption. For, yes indeedy, there’s a level of drinking which will – as always, on average – shorten life. But our experience to date is that it’s several times what is the current measure of safe consumption. This basic understanding of ours being that no booze lowers lifespan, too much lowers it, a modicum increases it. The argument being the definition of modicum of course.

Observation of large populations being that modicum is anything from some up to perhaps 40 or even 50 units a week. This isn’t what the current study shows at all […]

I’m not in any manner a medical expert but that does look odd. 5 million observation years on half a million people, looks like 10 years on average per person. They’re using this to predict lifespan at age 40? When lifespan at 40 is, these days, a further 40 to 50 years or so? OK, maybe there’s some sekkrit decoder ring for epidemiologists here but anyone want to try and explain it?

Ah:

    We focused our study on current alcohol drinkers

So the comparison doesn’t include those who don’t drink. We’re not therefore getting a baseline of no alcohol consumption to compare with. That is, by design, the study excludes the known to be higher death rates (or lower lifespans) of the temperance types. No, really:

    Third, never-drinkers might differ systematically from drinkers in ways that are difficult to measure, but which might be relevant to disease causation.

Our more general stats do indeed say that heavy drinkers (that 40 to 50 unit level perhaps) and never drinkers have about the same lifespans. Quick, gotta exclude that information, eh?

As far as we’re concerned that’s probably enough. We’ll see what Snowdon has to say about it, shall we? Because this finding is contrary to pretty much everything else we know about booze consumption. Explaining why it is will be important.

Update, 15 April: It’s no wonder that people are confused about the benefits and/or drawbacks of drinking…

The Solow Model and the Steady State

Filed under: Economics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Marginal Revolution University
Published on 12 Apr 2016

Remember our simplified Solow model? One end of it is input, and on the other end, we get output.

What do we do with that output?

Either we can consume it, or we can save it. This saved output can then be re-invested as physical capital, which grows the total capital stock of the economy.

There’s a problem with that, though: physical capital rusts.

Think about it. Yes, new roads can be nice and smooth, but then they get rough, as more cars travel over them. Before you know it, there are potholes that make your car jiggle each time you pass. Another example: remember the farmer from our last video? Well, unless he’s got some amazing maintenance powers, in the end, his tractors will break down.

Like we said: capital rusts. More formally, it depreciates.

And if it depreciates, then you have two choices. You either repair existing capital (i.e. road re-paving), or you just replace old capital with new. For example, you may buy a new tractor.

You pay for these repairs and replacements with an even greater investment of capital.

We call the point where investment = depreciation the steady state level of capital.

At the steady state level, there is zero economic growth. There’s just enough new capital to offset depreciation, meaning we get no additions to the overall capital stock.

A further examination of the steady state can help explain the growth tracks of Germany and Japan at the close of World War II.

In the beginning, their first few units of capital were extremely productive, creating massive output, and therefore, equally high amounts available to be saved and re-invested. As time passed, the growing capital stock created less and less output, as per the logic of diminishing returns.

Now, if economic growth really were just a function of capital, then the losers of World War II ought to have stopped growing once their capital levels returned to steady state.

But no, although their growth did slow, it didn’t stop. Why is this the case?

Remember, capital isn’t the only variable that affects growth. Recall that there are still other variables to tinker with. And in the next video, we’ll show two of those variables: education (e) and labor (L).

Together, they make up our next topic: human capital.

QotD: Plato’s ideal society

Filed under: Books, Greece, History, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

This [controlling the poor to protect the wealthy] is a problem addressed by Plato in at least two of his works — The Republic and The Laws. The first is his description of an ideal state, the second of a state less than ideal but still worth working towards. I do not claim to be an expert on Plato, though am dubious of many of the claims made against him. However, his general solution to the problem was to stop the enlightenment and to reconstruct society as a totalitarian oligarchy.

His ideal society would be one in which democracy and any degree of accountability would have been abolished, together with married life and the family and private property. Poetry was to be abolished. All other art and music were to be controlled. There was to be a division of society into orders at the head of which was to be a class of guardians. These would strictly control all thought and action.

His workable society would be one in which some property and some accountability would be allowed to remain. Even so, there was to be the same attempt at controlling thought and action.

The stability of these systems was to be maintained by a new theology. A single divine being would take the place of the quarrelling, scandalous gods of mythology and the Homeric poems. The common people could be left with a purified version of the old cults. But these gods would be increasingly aligned with the secondary spirits through which the One God directed His Creation.

People were to be taught that the Platonic system was not a human construct, but that it reflected the Will of Heaven. Rebellion or disobedience would be punished by the direct intervention of God through His Secondary Spirits. Before then, though, it would be punished by the state as heresy. At the end of the fifth century, Anaxagoras had been exiled from Athens for claiming that the sun was a ball of glowing rock. This had been an occasional persecution — indeed, it is hard to think of other instances. In the Platonic system, there was to be a regular inquisition that would punish nonconformity with imprisonment or death.

Thus there is at the heart of the Platonic system a “noble lie” — though Plato may have believed much of it himself. This is of a religion that looks into the most secret places of the mind, and dispenses rewards and punishments according to what is found there. In the old theology, Poseidon had no power beyond on land. Apollo had none in the dark. Zeus had no idea who was thinking what. The Platonic God was just like ours. No sin against His Wishes could go undetected or unpunished.

And so the people were to be kept in line by fear of hellfire, or by fear of everything short of that.

Sean Gabb, “Epicurus: Father of the Englightenment”, speaking to the 6/20 Club in London, 2007-09-06.

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