January 18, 2024

China Versus Argentina: Place Your Bets

January 18, 2024/ Francis Menton

In a world of now close to 200 countries, every day provides an updated report card as to what works and what doesn’t in economic policy. As reported by the IMF, World Bank, and UN, some countries have per capita GDP as much as 300 times more than the per capita GDP of other countries. What are the poor ones doing wrong?
Most countries largely stick with the same collection of economic policies for long periods of time, with only small changes. Unsurprisingly, the rich get richer, because what they are doing is working. The poor may or may not get poorer, but at best they stagnate, unless they are ready to try the things that have made the rich rich.
But every once in a while you get a country that makes a relatively significant change. Two that are doing that now are China and Argentina.
Which one is more likely to be successful going forward?

January 15, 2024

Status Report From Another Would Be "Climate Leader," The UK

January 15, 2024/ Francis Menton

At any given moment in the course of human events, not everyone can be the leader. And thus can the world only have a small number of “climate leaders” to light us the way to the Great Green Energy Nirvana of the future.
Among that select group of “climate leaders,” New York is definitely one. We know that because New York enacted its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2018, announcing its “climate leadership” to the world for all to envy.
But there are a handful of jurisdictions out there that are not to be outdone in the competition for the title of “climate leader.” One of those is the UK. Ten years before New York even entered the competition, the UK had enacted its Climate Change Act of 2008, setting an initial round of legally-binding emissions reduction targets (80% below 1990 levels by 2050). Then, in 2019 the UK upped the ante, committing by statute to “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions for its entire economy by 2050.
We know from my last post how things are going with this “climate leadership” thing in New York: five years into the competition, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have actually increased substantially, as two large new natural gas power plants have replaced electricity generation from two prematurely-closed emissions-free nuclear facilities, while generation of electricity from wind and solar has barely budged.
Has the UK been any more successful?

January 12, 2024

January 12, 2024/ Francis Menton

The cries of climate alarm get ever louder and more urgent. (E.g., New York Times, January 9, “It’s confirmed: 2023 was the planet’s warmest year on record and perhaps in the last 100,000 years. By far.”). We’re all about to boil! Something must be done!
OK, but then there is the proposed solution: Order up by government fiat that our current fully working and inexpensive energy system must be replaced with a never-demonstrated pipe dream conjured up by political science and gender studies majors who know nothing about how an energy system works.
We’re far enough into this by now that some of the pieces are starting to blow up in dramatic fashion. Are we allowed to notice?

January 09, 2024

January 09, 2024/ Francis Menton

What is it about Israel that inspires that special intense hatred and anger among the cadres of the left? “Anti-semitism” is a description of the phenomenon, and an appropriate one, but tells us nothing about the causes, and particularly does not explain why among all the conflicts in the world this one dispute should be the focus of all the left’s energy.
Yesterday it was more of same here in New York City. The New York Post reports this morning on well-organized protests yesterday that blocked various bridges and a tunnel that cross the rivers into Lower Manhattan. The headline is “Anti-Israel protesters create commuter chaos at three NYC bridges, Holland Tunnel — over 330 taken into custody.”
There is no shortage in the world of behavior that does clearly fit the definition of the word genocide without any need to contort its meaning. But for some reason you won’t find the Democratic Socialists of America or Susan Sarandon or any other leftist group uttering a peep about these real genocides.
For Exhibit A, how about the ongoing slaughter of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria?

January 07, 2024

January 07, 2024/ Francis Menton

It’s been almost two years (February 20, 2022) since I added a post to this series. The reason is that global surface temperatures, as measured by NOAA and NASA, had decreased somewhat from 2020 highs, bringing about a hiatus in the otherwise endless drumbeat of propaganda from those agencies claiming “hottest month ever” or “hottest year ever.”
But then a strong El Niño early last year induced a small temperature increase several months later, picked up by the NOAA/NASA thermometer network. Result: From NOAA, October 16, 2023 (“Globally, September 2023 was the warmest September in the 174-year NOAA record. The year-to-date (January–September) global surface temperature ranked as the warmest such period on record.”); NOAA, November 15 (“The planet added another record-breaking month to 2023, with October ranking as the warmest October in the 174-year global climate record.”); Axios, December 14 (“With November ranking as the warmest such month on record, NOAA is projecting greater than 99.5% odds that this year will be the world's warmest since instrument records began in the 19th century.”). Expect the official announcement that 2023 was the “hottest year ever” to come out some time around the middle of this month.
But do the data really establish that the most recent months and year are the hottest?

January 04, 2024

January 04, 2024/ Francis Menton

Why, oh why, is the world so unfair and unjust? In one of the latest narratives of the left, “colonialism” has recently become the trendiest part of the explanation. Or maybe it’s the even more evil variant, “settler colonialism.”
But didn’t colonialism end just about everywhere around 60 or more years ago? Sorry, but that doesn’t matter. Something as evil as colonialism has magic tentacles that can cause injustice and unfairness and ruination extending out multiple generations beyond the time when it came to an end.
This can go to quite absurd lengths.