Catallaxy Files

Last week we had a debate on child labour. Here is Steven Landsburg’s take.

As any historian could tell you, no society has every pulled itself out of poverty without putting its children to work. Back in the early 19th century, when Americans were as poor as Bangladeshis are now, we were sending out children to work at about the same rate as the Bangladeshis are today. Having had the good fortune to get rich first, Americans can afford to give Bangladeshis a helping hand, and there are plenty of good ways for us to do that. Denying Third Worlders the very opportunities our ancestors embraced, whether through fullfledged boycotts or by insisting on health and safety standards they can’t afford to meet, is not one of those ways.

(HT: Cafe Hayek)

This will be interesting to watch.

Colin Brierley, 63, of Windaroo in the Gold Coast hinterland, says he suffered a massive electrical shock just a week after he had foil insulation installed in his home.He says the jolt of power went through his knee and exited his head, and he wound up in an induced coma in a Brisbane hospital.

Mr Brierley’s lawyers say he’s the first to take legal action against the Government, alleging its management of its rebate scheme has been neglectful.

Shine Lawyers, the firm representing the Windaroo man, has not revealed how much compensation is being sought. But the case will be lodged in the Supreme Court in Brisbane later today.

Mr Brierley says his doctors are amazed he survived the shock on October 6 last year, just a week after he had the foil put into his roof.

Update: from the Australian

Ms Pridmore, who had five operations for burns, said the government “definitely could have prevented this from happening”.

“Because of their lack of care, patience, thinking and involvement in this whole situation, four Aussie lives have been lost,” she said.

“The government really needs to start thinking about the people and not just about the money that is coming into the economy.”

While the federal government spends billions on school halls…

HSC students at Davidson High School in Sydney’s north were being forced to teach themselves maths online because of a teacher shortage. The students have been without a qualified 2-unit maths teacher for the first month of year 12, following the retirement of a teacher last year.

Jones et al 1998:

..we can only concur with Hughes and Diaz (1994) that there is little evidence for the ‘Medieval Warm Period’, although it is variably quoted as occurring between 900 and 1200…From the few reconstructions used prior to 1500 there is little evidence for the ‘Medieval Warm Period’.

Jones and Mann 2003:

To the extent that a ‘Medieval’ interval of moderately warmer conditions can be defined from about AD 800–1400, any hemispheric warmth during that interval is dwarfed in magnitude by late 20th century
warmth.

Jones & Mann 2004:

Our assessment affirms the conclusion that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric and, likely, global scales.?

BBC interview 2010:

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

Bishop Hill can be found here.

The latest pronouncements by Olivier Blanchard of the International Monetary Fund are concerning as it seems he thinks we should jettison decades of economic thinking and embrace higher inflation and activist fiscal policy in conjunction with greater regulation.

The news reporting of the Blanchard paper suggest that the IMF has called

for the overthrow of inflation targeting

yes the paper has the following disclaimer

Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the authors and should not beattributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management.

So let’s not yet assert that the IMF has embraced these views.

And if Blanchard thinks 4 per cent inflation is ok, why not 5 or 6 per cent? It is a slippery slope.