L'Affranchi

Anita & Mao

2009-10-17T22:10:00.000+02:00

Anita Dunn, directrice de communication de la Maison Blanche, vénère le meurtrier Mao Tsé-Toung...

(Not so) global warming

2009-10-17T21:40:00.001+02:00

Nouvelle mise en cause des faussaires du climat.

Nanny State

2009-10-17T20:50:00.001+02:00

L'Etat n'a pas pour fonction d'être une grande nurserie. Dossier préparé par le Nouvel Economiste.

Bhagwati et la crise

2009-10-17T19:26:00.001+02:00

Jagdish Bhagwati challenges Joseph Stiglitz’s analogy that the current worldwide recession is analogous to the fall of the Berlin Wall. For Stiglitz, the decline is due to neo-liberal policies gone awry. Bhagwati, on the other hand, sees things differently. First, he reads the recent evidence of economic liberalism as poverty reducing and welfare enhancing. (...)
Second, he also doubts claims that markets undermine morality. (...) And finally, rent-seeking caused the crisis.

link: Stationary Bandit: Bhagwati on the Crisis

Great Depression

2009-10-17T19:17:00.001+02:00

"If spending on munitions really makes a country wealthy, the United States and Japan should do the following: Each should seek to build the most spectacular naval fleet in history, an enormous armada of gigantic, powerful, technologically advanced ships."

link: War did not "solve" the Great Depression | Samizdata.net

Free speech

2009-04-20T14:45:00.008+02:00

Corée du Sud: acquittement d'un blogueur de 31 ans qui en savait trop:

A South Korean online economic commentator who criticized and angered the government but commanded a huge following was freed from jail Monday after a court acquitted him of charges of maliciously spreading false information on the Internet.
The arrest of Park Dae-sung in January and his ensuing trial on charges of spreading false data in public with a harmful intent — a crime punishable by as much as five years in prison — prompted debate about how much freedom of expression should be tolerated in cyberspace in this extensively wired country.

World Bank

2009-04-19T17:09:00.006+02:00

Avec la démission en 2008 de Suzanne Folsom, directrice de l’unité anti-fraude de la Banque Mondiale, le monde entier avait déjà pu s’apercevoir que l'organisation ne prenait pas le phénomène de la corruption au sérieux et que nombreux étaient les collaborateurs “allergiques” à tout effort visant à poursuivre les cas de fraude:

(...) many in the bank remained “allergic” to efforts to prosecute cases of fraud. Another official said that ties between Ms. Folsom and the bank had been on a “downward spiral” in recent months.

Associates of Ms. Folsom said she had decided to leave her job because she had accomplished the goal of making the battle against corruption a major priority, but realized that opposition to her work by others had made it difficult for her to go on.

Comme si cela ne suffisait pas, la Banque Mondiale reçoit aujourd'hui un zéro pointé officiel concernant ses procédures de détection des fraudes dans ses programmes d’aide aux pays pauvres:

The World Bank's fraud-detection procedures in its main aid program to poor countries were labeled a "material weakness" in an internal report, adding to the bank's woes in handling corruption issues.

The bank's Independent Evaluation Group gave it the lowest possible rating for fraud-detection procedures in the $40 billion aid program, called the International Development Association. That could hurt contributions to the effort, which gives grants and interest-free loans to the world's 78 poorest countries. (...)

The World Bank has been pilloried by critics for years for not taking corruption seriously enough, and some staffers worried that the report's publication was being delayed for political reasons. The U.S., in particular, pushed for its publication, said bank staffers.

Espagne écolo

2009-04-18T05:20:00.006+02:00

La folie des éco-subsides en Espagne:

(...) Spain's renewable-energy business is a bubble waiting to burst. The study, released last month by researchers at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, uses data from the Spanish government and European Union to demonstrate that each job created in Spain's renewables industry costs as much as 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

(...) Some commentators have reported that Spain has lost 2.2 jobs for each job created by solar, wind or hydroelectric power producers. But the study instead is talking about opportunity cost -- the jobs that weren't created because resources were used inefficiently, or what the French economist Frédéric Bastiat meant by "what is seen and what is not seen."

(...) Spanish policy shows that green dreams like renewable energy are achievable only through massive transfers of money from productive sectors to those seeking to get rich quick thanks to government mandates. And that the few jobs created greatly depend on maintaining impossible levels of growth.

GM: l'incompétence récompensée

2009-04-17T04:06:00.002+02:00

Le constructeur automobile General Motors, au bord de la faillite et déjà porté à bout de bras par le contribuable américain, va rappeler 1,5 million de véhicules potentiellement dangereux.

Tea parties

2009-04-16T15:33:00.001+02:00

Le Monde, toujours porté sur le manichéisme primaire titre “Les conservateurs organisent des tea-parties” anti-Obama”. Et oublie les libertariens dans le tas.

Femmes maltraitées

2009-04-16T15:28:00.001+02:00

Au Pakistan et en Afghanistan, le sort des femmes ne s’arrange décidément pas.

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai signed a law that effectively sanctions marital rape. In Pakistan, a video surfaced of the Taliban in the Swat Valley publicly flogging a young woman screaming for mercy. Pakistan’s government compounded the indignity on Monday by giving in to Taliban demands and formally imposing Shariah law on the region.

Chine

2009-04-16T15:26:00.002+02:00

La Chine s’installe en Amérique Latine et devient son second partenaire commercial après les Etats-Unis:

In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.

Pub télé

2009-04-16T15:23:00.003+02:00

En France, un gouvernement de droite avait supprimé la publicité sur les télévisions publiques. Un gouvernement de gauche fait maintenant la même chose en Espagne.

2009-04-15T17:39:00.002+02:00

La hausse des prix pétroliers de 2008 à la source de la crise financière? L'auteur d'un "paper" publié par le Brookings Institute en parait convaincu:

"Causes & Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08"

TARP: remboursements?

2009-04-14T14:53:00.013+02:00

En toute logique, les banques qui bénéficient de l'aide de l'Etat ne peuvent plus prendre seules certaines décisions importantes. C'est le cas de la politique de rémunération des cadres (dont les fameux bonus) sur laquelle les gouvernements "bailleurs de fonds" veulent influer.

Goldman Sachs l'a bien compris (les bonus permettent d'attirer et de conserver les meilleurs éléments) et souhaite au plus vite rembourser les aides reçues (10 milliards de $) en procédant à une augmentation de capital:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., buoyed by profit that exceeded the most optimistic Wall Street estimates and a 54 percent jump in its stock price, plans to raise $5 billion to repay federal rescue funds and shed government limits on executive pay.

Il semble que Washington acceptera le remboursement des fonds dans ce cas précis bien qu'il n'en ira pas toujours de même avec d'autres institutions financières:

(...) I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. (...)

The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics. (...)

D'autres banquiers regrettent amèrement d'avoir accepté l'argent du contribuable et se disent que, peut-être, on aurait mieux fait de laisser le libre marché effectuer son travail naturel de réallocation des ressources:

Richard M. Kovacevich, chairman of Wells Fargo, expressed outrage at the TARP money he accepted and the strings that might be attached to it after the bonus bill passed last week.

“Is this America, when you can do what your government asks you to do and then retroactively you also have additional conditions put on?” he asked after a speech at Stanford University, according to Reuters. He went on to say that he wished he had never accepted the TARP money.

“We would have been able to raise private capital at that time, and with that private capital, given what is going on today, it is very unlikely that we would have had to reduce the dividend.”

Il fallait peut-être y penser avant, non ?...

G20 et régulation

2009-04-14T09:11:00.003+02:00

Un papier de Xavier Méra sur les résultats du sommet du G20. Les projets de régulation supplémentaires, sur lesquels les grands de ce monde semblent s'être accordés, y sont gentiment démontés:

(..) A force d'entendre et de répéter qu'on vit aujourd'hui la crise des marchés dérégulés, la faillite du « capitalisme néolibéral », etc., on finit par oublier qu'évidemment, il n'y a rien de tel dans le monde contemporain. En particulier, il y a déjà des régulateurs « systémiques » aux pouvoirs tout à fait extraordinaires, les banques centrales. (...)
En tant que membre d'un cartel obligatoire coordonné par la banque centrale, [les banques commerciales] doivent avoir un compte à cette “banque des banques” pour obtenir les billets indispensables aux retraits en liquide de leurs clients. Mais elles n'ont aucune obligation de voir les dépôts de leurs clients couverts par une réserve équivalente sur leur compte courant à la banque centrale. A la place, un ratio minimum légal de réserves (au montant ridicule de 2% dans la zone euro) leur permet de créer de la monnaie en masse tant que les dépôts ainsi créés par leurs crédits ne dépassent pas le multiple requis. (...)
La réalité est que dans le système actuel de collusion entre le secteur financier et l'Etat via un système monétaire monopolistique et centralisé -à des années lumières du tout-marché dérégulé- les pertes sont largement socialisées alors que les gains demeurent privés. (...)

Top 100 des blogs libertariens

2009-04-14T08:44:00.002+02:00

Une liste bien précieuse.
On regrettera cependant qu'elle ne recense que les blogs américains.

Greenspan et les slips

2009-04-13T18:08:00.002+02:00

Les errements de Alan Greenspan sont à la base de la crise financière actuelle. Et comment ce monsieur déterminait-il les taux de la Fed? En observant, entre autres choses, le marché des sous-vêtements masculins:

As chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan was known for using quirky, proletariat metrics to judge the temperature of the economy. The most famous of these, as recounted by NPR's Robert Krulwich in January 2008, were the sales of men's underwear. If the economic scales dipped even the slightest, Greenspan reasoned, it was as sure a sign as any that people were truly feeling the pinch. (...)

2009-04-13T15:25:00.004+02:00

En parallèle de la déconfiture du projet de loi Hadopi en France et du débat sur le "piratage internet" et la propriété intellectuelle, voici une réflexion intéressante sur les pirates du 18ème siècle et leur contribution au bien commun (par Peter Leeson, professeur à la George Mason University):

(...) Historical pirates were harbingers of some of contemporary civilization's most cherished values, such as liberty, democracy and social safety. At a time when the legitimate world's favored system of government was unconstrained monarchy, Caribbean pirates were practicing constitutional democracy. Before setting sail each would-be pirate crew drew up and agreed to a set of written rules that governed them. (...)
Pirates also embraced racial tolerance well before their legitimate counterparts. Centuries before the civil rights movement, the ACLU, or the Equal Opportunity Act, some pirates already had adopted a policy of hiring black sailors in their crews. (...)
Modern pirates can't lay claim to helping pioneer liberty, democracy and equality. But early 18th-century pirates can. In this way, historical sea scoundrels contributed something to the world worth as much as, and possibly even more than, what they took out. (...)

Europe: politique inflationniste

2009-04-13T14:26:00.006+02:00

Rapporté par George Lasne: frénésie de création monétaire à la Banque Centrale Européenne:

(...) cette circulation (fiduciaire) a connu une hausse considérable ces trois dernières années, elle est passée :

de près de 570 milliards d'euros fin 2005
à près de 770 milliards d'euros fin 2008.

En d'autres termes, la Banque centrale européenne a fait fonctionner inexorablement la "planche à billets" :
plus de 200 milliards d'euros ont été émis en trois ans (+35%),
soit en moyenne + 11% par an !

Présage d'un risque d'hyperinflation ?

Hayek - Keynes (1)

2009-04-13T13:18:00.011+02:00

Hayek et Keynes se connaissaient bien et s'appréciaient malgré leurs divergences de vues. Dans une interview de 1978, Hayek revient longuement sur la personnalité de Keynes et jette un éclairage pénétrant sur les théories de ce dernier et les fondations fragiles sur lesquelles reposaient celles-ci.

Keynes n'y connaissait pas grand chose en économie et avait peu lu les économistes du 18ème siècle. Hayek le voyait ainsi:

As a man with a great many ideas who knew very little economics. He knew nothing but Marshallian economics; he was completely unaware of what was going on elsewhere; he even knew very little about nineteenth-century economic history. His interests were very largely guided by aesthetic appeal. (...)

A propos de sa connaissance de la littérature économique:

He knew very little. Even within the English tradition he knew very little of the great monetary writers of the nineteenth century. He knew nothing about Henry Thornton; he knew little about Ricardo, just the famous things. But he could have found any number of antecedents of his inflationary ideas in the 1820s and 1830s. When I told him about it, it was all new to him. (...)
And, you know, I don’t want you to get the impression that I underestimated him as a brain; he was one of the most intelligent and most original thinkers I have known. But economics was just a sideline for him. He had an amazing memory; he was extraordinarily widely read; but economics was not really his main interest. His own opinion was that he could re-create the subject, and he rather had contempt for most of the other economists. (...)

Dead Aid

2009-04-12T16:05:00.009+02:00

Interview de Dambisa Moyo, l' "anti-Bono", dans le New York Times:

Forty years ago, China was poorer than many African countries. Yes, they have money today, but where did that money come from? They built that, they worked very hard to create a situation where they are not dependent on aid.

Deux autres interventions, filmées celles-là, pour Forbes et le Cato Institute.

Multiplicateur pour rire

2009-03-13T17:14:00.002+01:00

Le Wall Street Journal démonte le "multiplicateur" keynésien en une formule lapidaire:

While he's in the U.K., perhaps Mr. Geithner should also ask his European counterparts whether any of them have ever seen a 1.5 Keynesian "multiplier" in the wild. That's the idea -- promoted by Mr. Summers -- that every $1 of deficit spending yields $1.5 in economic growth. If that were true, Italy would be the richest country in Europe, instead of merely one of the most indebted.

Divergences au sein de l'école keynésiano-collectiviste

2009-03-13T16:44:00.002+01:00

Les Etats-Unis veulent dépenser. L'Europe veut réguler. Il y a de l'eau dans le gaz entre ces deux-là.

2008-09-28T16:43:00.004+02:00

Le site de Reason publie l'avis de 10 économistes sur les mesures de sauvetage décidées aux Etats-Unis. Morceaux choisis:

The plans are creating a bad precedent—perhaps the worst precedent since the New Deal.
Brian Caplan

The bailout is a terrible idea. It transfers a huge amount of wealth to people who do not deserve it. It will generate enormous incentives for creative bookkeeping as the investment houses and banks try to rid themselves of any assets they do not want.
Jeffrey A. Miron

This is socialization of the banking industry, plain and simple.
Frederic Sautet

The actions taken over the last year and the pending bailout of Wall Street have not and will not help. They have made and will make the economic situation much worse. This is the exact same approach that took us into the Great Depression. There is no reason to expect the correct solution from the same people who created the crisis in the first place and who until very recently thought the economy was strong and that there was little or no chance of recession.
Mark Thornton

Gestion

2008-09-25T17:21:00.006+02:00

L'entreprise la plus mal gérée? L'Etat, pardi !

When you, Joe Citizen, spend frivolously and default on your loans, the bank takes your house. When the government spends your tax dollars frivolously, it simply cooks the books to cover its excesses. When the books are left in ashes, the government just takes more of your money, or it prints more money, leaving the money it hasn't already taken from you devalued.

Guilty feeling ?

2008-01-29T16:29:00.000+01:00

Un syndrome récurrent sur lequel les psychothérapeutes devraient se pencher un jour: comme George Soros avant lui, le richissime Bill Gates culpabilise et vire à gauche :

(...) In a system of capitalism, as people's wealth rises, the financial incentive to serve them rises. As their wealth falls, the financial incentive to serve them falls, until it becomes zero. We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well. (...)
The challenge here is to design a system where market incentives, including profits and recognition, drive those principles to do more for the poor.
I like to call this idea creative capitalism, an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities. (...)

Ou comment faire revenir l'Etat par la petite porte...

2008-01-25T22:30:00.001+01:00

Cartographie de la censure étatique sur internet. C'est probablement le Maroc qui nous offre le cas le plus grotesque:

In August 2006, Google Earth has also been added to the list of censored major websites by Maroc Telecom without giving any justification for it. However, and according to the BBC, Google Earth was blocked "so that people cannot look from above into the grounds of the king's sumptuous royal palaces."

2008-01-25T17:48:00.000+01:00

L'échec du Protocole de Tokyo est incontestable. Et cette fois, il sera difficile de revenir en arrière:

The presentation of Kyoto as the only course of action has raised the political price of admitting its defects, not least because it would mean admitting that the non-signatories may have been right in practice, whatever their motives. Its advocates invested emotional as well as political capital in the process, making it difficult to contemplate the idea that it is fatally flawed. Its narrow focus on mitigating the emission of greenhouse gases (in which it has failed) has created a taboo on discussing other approaches, in particular, adaptation to climate change. Failure to adapt will cost the poor and vulnerable the most.
For the past fifteen years, it has given the concerned public an illusion of effective action, tranquillising political concern. This has been, perhaps, its most damaging legacy.

Chanson du Québec

2007-12-23T21:19:00.000+01:00

Mes Aïeux - Dégénération

Ton arrière-arrière-grand-père, il a défriché la terre
Ton arrière-grand-père, il a labouré la terre
Et pi ton grand-père a rentabilisé la terre
pis ton père, il l’a vendu pour devenir fonctionnaire

Et pi toé mon p’tit gars, tu sais pu c’que tu vas faire
Dans ton p’tit trois et d’mi ben trop cher, frète en hiver
Il te vient des envies de dev’nir propriétaire
Et tu rêves la nuit d’avoir ton petit lopin d’terre

Ton arrière-arrière-grand-mère, elle a eu quatorze enfants
ton arrière-grand-mère en a eu quasiment autant
Et pi ta grand-mère en a eu trois c’tait suffisant
pis ta mère en voulait pas, toi t’étais un accident

Et pi toé ma p’tite fille, tu changes de partenaires tout l’temps
Quand tu fais des conn’ries, tu t’en sauves en avortant
Mais y’a des matins, tu te réveilles en pleurant
Quand tu rêves la nuit d’une grande table entourées d’enfants

Ton arrière-arrière-grand-père, y’a vécu la grosse misère
Ton arrière-grand-père, il ramassait les cents noires
Et pi ton grand-père, miracle, y’est devenu millionnaire
Ton père en a hérité, il l’a tout mit dans ses réers

Et pi toé p’tite jeunesse tu doé ton cul au ministère
Pas moyen d’avoir un prêt dans une institution bancaire
Pour calmer tes envies de hold-uper la caissière
tu lis des livres qui parlent de simplicité volontaire

Tes arrières-arrières-grands-parents ils savaient comment fêter
Tes arrières-grands-parents ça swingnaient fort dans les veillées
Pis tes grands-parents ont connu l’époque yé-yé
Tes parents c’tait les discos c’est là qu’ils se sont rencontrés

Et pi toé mon ami qu’est-ce que tu fais de ta soirée
Éteins donc ta T.V. faut pas rester encabané
Heureusement que dans vie certaines choses refusent de changer
Enfiles tes plus beaux habits car nous allons ce soir danser

2007-12-22T23:40:00.000+01:00

Dans la liste des cadeaux de fin d'année: Globalization de Donald J. Boudreaux.

2007-12-22T22:46:00.000+01:00

Dans la série "Il faut avoir les moyens pour être socialiste", le cas du français Jean-Pierre Chvènement:

Le fondateur du MRC, ancien député-maire de Belfort, bénéficie en effet de deux appartements à loyer modéré, l'un dans sa ville et l'autree dans la capitale.

2007-12-20T17:48:00.000+01:00

Aurait-on atteint un "pic pétrolier" ?

Pas vraiment :

(...) The world produces about 85 million barrels of oil a day, according to the International Energy Agency. Global energy demand is expected to rise 55% from 2005-2030. Peak oil theories abound that new discoveries are not keeping up with oil usage. But it's significant that the new demand also is fostering big new discoveries, largely from the very countries where demand is growing most. (...)

2007-12-18T21:01:00.000+01:00

Aux-Etats-Unis, les riches ne paient pas moins d'impôts qu'avant. Bien au contraire :

(...) it is true that the top earners have increased their share of total income. Yet, as the nearby table shows, the rich showed more rapid gains in reported income shares in the 1990s than in the first half of this decade. The share of the richest 1% jumped to 20.8% of total income in 2000, from 14% in 1990, but increased only slightly to 21.2% in 2005. (...) By this measure, the Clinton years were far worse for "inequality." Notably, however, the share of taxes paid by the top 1% has kept climbing this decade -- to 39.4% in 2005, from 37.4% in 2000. The share paid by the top 5% has increased even more rapidly. In other words, despite the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003, the rich saw their share of taxes paid rise at a faster rate than their share of income.

Auto

2007-12-18T20:59:00.000+01:00

Les Indiens en bonne place pour la reprise du constructeur automobile Jaguar.

Climat

2007-12-18T20:50:00.000+01:00

Pour bien se vendre, un journal ne doit pas faire dans la nuance :
Réchauffement = Apocalypse.

2007-12-17T21:41:00.000+01:00

Une bourse d'options climatiques ?

2007-12-17T20:36:00.000+01:00

Une économie forte passe par une fiscalité et des services publics réduits.
La preuve par... Sim City:

Banal though it may be, I remember playing SimCity 2000 as a teenager on my computer. Every time I tried to set up a high-tax, high-service economy within my city, my economy, followed by the city itself, stagnated.

2007-12-17T20:20:00.000+01:00

Democracy is not the goal :

Democracy is not what people want. Democracy is not the cause of prosperity. Freedom (of speech, religion, the press, and yes, TRADE) is the cause of prosperity and frankly, prosperity and freedom is what people want.

Democracy is not freedom; democracy is the tyranny of the majority. When the majority is free to oppress the minority, nobody is free, because in some aspect of their life, everybody is a minority.

2007-12-16T21:55:00.001+01:00

La religion écologique.

Brésil

2007-12-15T19:03:00.000+01:00

Le Sénat brésilien refuse le renouvellement d'une taxe sur les transactions financières qui représentait 10% des revenus de l'Etat.

Northern Rock

2007-12-15T18:51:00.000+01:00

Velléités de nationalisation en Grande-Bretagne:

The UK government is out of practice when it comes to nationalisation. For the past 20 years, the trend has been to sell off, rather than acquire assets.
The government is drawing up plans to nationalise Northern Rock, the stricken UK bank which yesterday announced the immediate departure of chief executive Adam Applegarth, as uncertainty surrounding its future mounted.
Nationalisation is looking like an increasingly realistic proposition for the bank, as the number of its potential buyers has diminished.
"There are people looking at this in great detail," admitted one government official yesterday. "But in practice, something like this hasn't really happened before, so precedent is no guide."

2007-12-15T18:43:00.000+01:00

Vénézuela: il faut avoir les moyens pour être un vrai socialiste...

Journalistes : deux poids, deux mesures

2007-12-15T18:25:00.000+01:00

Drôle de médias: la destruction de radars de vitesse est assimilée au terrorisme, le massacre de civils innocents est mis sur le compte d'un anodin acte de rébellion.

Economie

2007-12-15T18:10:00.000+01:00

Bien choisir l'université de ses enfants ? Visitez son département Economie :

In looking at colleges for my daughter, one of the things I do is to drop into the economics department and get into a conversation with one of the professors. Part of the reason is that "economist" is in some ways an ethnicity--I have things in common with other economists that I don't have in common with most other people, making it easier to talk with them and get them to talk with me.
A second reason is that I want to know how tolerant the college's culture is of intellectual diversity. Economics as a science is neither right wing nor left wing--there have been good economists who were socialists, good economists who were extreme libertarians. But it is, in a very real sense, its own ideology.
It is almost impossible to be a good economist and accept traditional conservative arguments against free trade--because those arguments depend on not understanding economic ideas worked out nearly two hundred years ago. It is almost impossible to be a good economist and accept common left wing rhetoric about "people not profits" or the equivalent--because a good economist knows that the argument on the other side isn't about profits as an end in themselves but about profits as part of a signaling system that results in benefits for people. (...)

Climat

2007-12-15T12:19:00.000+01:00

L'activité humaine n'est pas la source principale du réchauffement climatique, loin s'en faut.

La conférence de Bali travaille sur des données dépassées :

Three Stages of Knowledge and the IPCC

Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:

1985–2003

Old ice core data led us to strongly suspect that CO₂ causes global warming.

2003–2007

New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting CO₂. No evidence to suspect or exonerate CO₂.

From Aug 2007

Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming. CO₂ no longer a suspect.

The IPCC 2007 report (the latest and greatest from the IPCC) is based on all scientific literature up to mid 2006. The Bali Conference is the bureaucratic response to that report. Too bad that the data has changed since then!

Ecole Autrichienne

2007-12-15T11:59:00.000+01:00

Podcast avec Pete Boettke (George Mason University) sur les origines et les principes de l'école autrichienne d'économie.

Illusion monétaire

2007-12-15T11:53:00.000+01:00

Europe : sur les manipulations monétaires et le contrôle des Banques Centrales par l'Etat.
Etats-Unis : manipulation de la masse monétaire et des taux d'intérêts à l'origine de la crise financière et de l'inflation.

2007-12-14T15:56:00.001+01:00

L'enregistrement de CD sur un ordinateur bientôt jugé illégal aux Etats-Unis ?

Big Brother

2007-12-10T20:49:00.001+01:00

Le Canada a de bonne raison pour limiter la liberté d'expression...
De quoi donner la nausée :

The Supreme Court has ruled that the government may limit free speech in the name of goals such as ending discrimination, ensuring social harmony, or promoting gender equality. It also has ruled that the benefits of limiting hate speech and promoting equality are sufficient to outweigh the freedom of speech clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the country's bill of rights incorporated in the country's constitution.

La mode des grandes peurs

2007-12-08T00:34:00.001+01:00

Whatever you do, don't forget to panic

Loyers

2007-12-03T20:39:00.001+01:00

Encadrement des loyers, une très mauvaise idée :

Par principe, en tant qu’économiste, je suis contre toute mesure qui limite artificiellement la concurrence, sachant que la concurrence est bénéfique pour le consommateur. Or le loyer est un prix, et toute mesure visant à encadrer les prix se retourne contre le consommateur, ici le locataire. Généralement, toute mesure qui part d’un bon sentiment finit par se retourner contre celui qu’elle était censée protéger ou aider. Tous les pays qui ont encadrés les prix, notamment pour les produits de première nécessité, ont provoqué la pénurie dans les secteurs visés par le contrôle des prix.

Climat

2007-12-02T22:51:00.001+01:00

Se penchant sur la température des grandes villes, Bjorm Lomborg propose des solutions moins onéreuses et plus réalistes que celles prévues par Kyoto et les écolos intégristes.

Climat

2007-12-02T22:45:00.001+01:00

Le premier ministre canadien rejette le Traité de Kyoto.

2007-11-30T18:15:00.000+01:00

L'américain Walter Williams (Mason University) plaide pour la liberté de l'enseignement et le désengagement de l'Etat des programmes scolaires :

(...) Prayers in school, sex education and "intelligent design" are contentious school issues. I believe parents should have the right to decide whether their children will say a morning prayer in school, be taught "intelligent design" and not be given school-based sex education. I also believe other parents should have the right not to have their children exposed to prayers in school, "intelligent design" and receive sex education.
The reason why these issues produce conflict is because education is government-produced. That means there's either going to be prayers or no prayers, "intelligent design" or no "intelligent design" and sex education or no sex education. If one parent has his wishes met, it comes at the expense of another parent's wishes. The losing parent either must grin and bear it or send his child to a private school, pay its tuition and still pay property taxes for a school for which he has no use. (...)

2007-11-30T18:00:00.001+01:00

Réflexions de Tyler Cowen sur le mariage et son contrôle par l'Etat: Laissez-Faire Marriage.

2007-11-27T22:59:00.000+01:00

"Cool It", nouveau bouquin de Bjorn Lomborg.

Fête de l'Huma bousculée

2007-11-27T22:39:00.000+01:00

Fête de l'huma - Action Discrete

2007-11-24T16:55:00.000+01:00

Au Vénézuela, le contrôle des prix provoque des files d'acheteurs mécontents :

The lines for basic foods at subsidized prices are paradoxical for an oil-rich nation that in many ways is a land of plenty. Shopping malls are bustling, new car sales are booming and privately owned supermarkets are stocked with American potato chips, French wines and Swiss Gruyere cheese.
Yet other foods covered by price controls — eggs, chicken — periodically are hard to find in supermarkets. Fresh milk has become a luxury, and even baby formula is scarcer nowadays.
The government's price controls are also "totally divorced" from reality — in some cases below production costs — making it unprofitable for suppliers to sell their products at official prices, said economist Pedro Palma of the Caracas consulting firm MetroEconomica.

2007-11-24T16:26:00.000+01:00

L'américain Thomas Sowell, sur les niveaux de revenus et la mobilité sociale :

Anyone who follows the media has probably heard many times that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and incomes of the population in general are stagnating. Moreover, those who say such things can produce many statistics, including data from the Census Bureau, which seem to indicate that. On the other hand, income tax data recently released by the Internal Revenue Service seem to show the exact opposite: People in the bottom fifth of income-tax filers in 1996 had their incomes increase by 91 percent by 2005. (...)
The top one percent -- "the rich" who are supposed to be monopolizing the money, according to the left -- saw their incomes decline by a whopping 26 percent. Meanwhile, the average taxpayers' real income increased by 24 percent between 1996 and 2005.

2007-11-24T00:49:00.000+01:00

Qui s'occuperait des pauvres si l'Etat n'existait pas ?
A peu près tout le monde, mais ce n'est pas encore assez pour les esclavagistes :

But some people insist that individuals aren’t giving enough. To them, the answer is clear: Government needs to give more. But the only way this can occur is if Government first takes more to begin with, from each and every one of us. Entirely neglecting to notice that Government is itself, (by crowding out private charity) the root cause of the need for more charity, increasingly, it begins to appear that Government intervention is the only viable solution. But this solution is fatally flawed. What these advocates of intervention “see” is the government redistribution of incomes. What they don’t see is at least twofold: How that income would’ve otherwise been spent (the demand for goods and services creates opportunities for work) and how much more of that income would’ve otherwise been given to charities.

Climat

2007-11-21T22:58:00.000+01:00

La propagande sur le "réchauffement climatique" provoque des craintes légitimes dans les pays pauvres:

The new World Bank boss told us how he was in Africa during this summer's G8 summit in Heiligendamm. The torrent of television and press reporting on the summit caused open alarm among his hosts, for two reasons. First there were concerns that the new attention being paid to climate change would distract the rich world and institutions like the World Bank, diverting resources that might otherwise have flowed to developing nations as aid, or technical assistance. Secondly, they were concerned that the drive to minimise or mitigate climate change would lead to calls for the developing world to limit its economic growth.

Dommage ...

2007-11-21T22:12:00.000+01:00

Le site qui permettait de parodier les couvertures des albums de Martine a dû fermer ses portes suite aux pressions de l'éditeur Casterman.

UE

2007-11-20T22:21:00.000+01:00

Brought to you from the Propaganda Department : l'UE s'en prend maintenant aux enfants.

Liberty dollar

2007-11-20T19:29:00.000+01:00

Création d'un dollar parallèle pour contester le monopole de la Federal Reserve: le gouvernement n'est pas content du tout et fait charger le FBI.
A l'évidence, une réaction tout à fait disproportionnée.

Commerce international

2007-11-20T18:35:00.000+01:00

Aux Etats-Unis, la classe moyenne diminue parce qu'elle... s'enrichit :

The share of households with a middle-class income between $35,000 and $75,000 shrank from 33.8 to 32.8 percent. But it´s not because they become poorer, it´s because they become richer (...). On the contrary, the share of households making less than $35,000 was reduced even more, from 39.6 to 36.7 percent. It´s the share of households making more than $75,000 that is growing, from 26.5 to 30.4 percent.

L'expansion du commerce international a été un facteur déterminant dans cette évolution.

2007-11-18T23:56:00.000+01:00

Retour des mauvaises habitudes en Amérique Latine.

2007-11-17T00:03:00.000+01:00

France: essence trop chère ? Marchez, braves gens !

2007-11-16T23:51:00.000+01:00

Via Mateusz: un site pour redonner goût à la Belgique ?
http://www.beglium.be/

2007-11-16T23:33:00.000+01:00

Youtube et Dailymotion censurés en Tunisie.

2007-11-16T23:28:00.001+01:00

La question du confédéralisme est abordée au sud du pays. Le point chez Jean-Yves-Huwart.

2007-11-16T23:18:00.000+01:00

Sur Popular Science: les grandes inventions de 2007.

Pauvreté

2007-11-07T20:29:00.000+01:00

Bien qu'un milliard de personnes doit encore vivre avec moins d'un dollar par jour, la Banque Mondiale estime que le taux de pauvreté est passé de 29 à 18% de la population mondiale entre 1990 et 2004.

Carbon Catastrophe

2007-11-01T10:32:00.000+01:00

Via le Québécois Libre, un article de Lawrence Solomon sur les 4 dangers des "incitatifs verts" induits par le Protocole de Kyoto et le commerce des droits d'émission de CO2:

The first is the threat to the world's forests, especially old-growth forests which do not soak up carbon from the atmosphere. By seizing these forests, cutting them down, and converting them to carbon-intensive plantations, Third World governments and their cronies can cash in on carbon credits, to the dismay of the old-growth forests' inhabitants.

The second looming catastrophe, also caused by Kyoto carbon credits, again affects the poorest of the poor -- a widespread food shortage, accompanied by rising prices, as agricultural lands are turned to ethanol and other bio-fuels rather than nourishment.

The third and fourth environmental catastrophes involve the resurrection of large hydro-electric dams and nuclear reactors. Before the Kyoto mind-set took hold, these grandiose government-backed relics of yesteryear were struggling to get off the drawing boards of energy planners. With Kyoto's low-carbon chic restoring their respectability, and carbon credits making them less ruinous financially, both are back with a vengeance.

Fin d'une époque ?

2007-11-01T10:23:00.000+01:00

L'hebdomadaire anglais "The Economist", jadis le phare du marché libre et de la liberté d'entreprise, vire méchamment à gauche:
Why regulators should keep their eyes on Microsoft, and others

Doing Business 2007

2007-09-30T21:09:00.000+02:00

La Banque Mondiale publie son rapport annuel "Doing Business" et le classement fort attendu des économies les plus ouvertes au secteur privé.

La Belgique se place en 19° position. On notera un net progrès au niveau du délai moyen de création d'une entreprise. Dans les autres domaines par contre, notre pays stagne ou perd des points...

Feist , "1234"

2007-09-23T23:13:00.001+02:00

2007-09-23T22:30:00.000+02:00

"If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support."
Herbert Spencer (1851)

2007-09-23T22:23:00.000+02:00

Pour Megan McArdle, l'existence de la Belgique en tant qu'Etat paraît moins nécessaire depuis l'avènement de l'euro:

Now that the European Union has taken over the currency, as well as many of the trade and customs functions of traditional federal governments, Belgium as a state suddenly looks a lot less necessary. One wonders if the current era of economic integration (assuming it continues) might not bring increasing political balkanization.

2007-09-23T22:01:00.000+02:00

Une Chine plus "verte" est possible. L'avis de Thomas L. Friedman, du New-York Times:

China’s Communist Party leaders are clearly wrestling with this issue. I could hear it, feel it and see it. I could hear it while interviewing government officials. They’ve always wanted a steadily rising G.D.P., which is essential for China’s stability and for the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party, whose abiding ideology is “G.D.P.-ism.”
But more and more I heard these same officials now saying they want a better environment and a higher G.D.P., because the air has become so filthy here, and the damage to China’s health, rivers, landscape, glaciers and even G.D.P. has become so severe, that the legitimacy of the communist regime, for the first time, is in some way dependent on making the air cleaner. And China’s leaders know it.

2007-09-13T20:26:00.001+02:00

Ecologie dévastatrice

2007-08-19T00:17:00.001+02:00

Constantin: "Le plus grand danger pour la planète ? Les écolos !":

(...) produire des biocarburants consomme de l'eau, et l'eau non salée est un bien rare sur cette planète. Comme souvent lorsqu'il s'agit de "prendre des décisions" pour "sauver la planète" et "tenir compte des générations futures", la réflexion sous-jacente en matière de biocarburants a été réduite à la portion congrue. D'abord, il y a le désastre du bioéthanol produit à base de maïs aux Etats-Unis, qui a eu pour effet une envolée des prix du maïs.
A présent, nos amis les écologistes réalisent enfin que, outre le monstrueux cynisme qui consiste à utiliser des céréales pour produire de l'essence alors que la faim dans le monde est encore un problème, l'augmentation de la production de céréales :
- nécessitera une déforestation, ce qui n'est pas idéal lorsqu'on cherche à augmenter l'absorption de CO2 par la biomasse
- consommera beaucoup d'eau, surtout si la production se fait à partir de maïs. En effet, cette plante est extrêmement avide d'eau. Entre parenthèses, le magazine The Economist avait, en 2005 déjà, attiré l'attention sur le rôle du secteur agricole dans les sécheresses qui frappent l'Espagne chaque été (...)
- ne résout pas le fond du problème, qui est l'utilisation de la combustion du carbone pour produire de l'énergie
- ne sera pas efficace tant que les marchés agricoles et les marchés liés (comme celui de l'eau) ne sont pas entièrement libéralisés afin que les prix reflètent la rareté des ressources employées.

USA

2007-08-18T23:40:00.000+02:00

Les Etats-Unis vireraient-ils à gauche ?
The Economist se pose la question tandis que le Parti Démocrate ne craint pas de produire des raisonnements totalement erronés sur les effets du commerce mondial et le rôle du gouvernement.

David Friedman

2007-08-18T23:24:00.000+02:00

Le nouveau livre de David Friedman est un roman... libertarien. Une partie est disponible en podcast, avec lecure par l'auteur himself.

Mythes

2007-08-18T23:15:00.000+02:00

Don Boudreaux est lassé des complaintes sans fondements sur la "concurrence" des pays à bas salaires et les "déséquilibres" du marché. Nous aussi.

Gauche & Droite

2007-08-18T19:04:00.000+02:00

Chroniques en liberté fait le point sur l'ouverture du Président Sarkozy (étatiste de droite) à certaines huiles socialistes (étatistes de gauche).
En résumé, la confusion des genres n'est pas une bonne idée:

(...) si la science économique n’est ni de gauche ni de droite, une certaine idéologie, explicitement ancrée à gauche et toute imprégnée de collectivisme, s’évertue à nier la réalité des lois économiques qui gouvernent les hommes. Et ces lois agissent depuis la nuit des temps du fait même de leur condition d’être mortel qui conduit à vivre et mourir dans un monde marqué par la rareté (du temps) et l’inéluctabilité des choix à faire (dans l'usage de ce temps limité). (...) comme tout clivage, le clivage gauche/droite apporte des repères structurant dans le paysage politique qui sont source de clarification et permettent les positionnements. Aucune évolution n’est possible sans repères, aussi conventionnels et arbitraires soient-ils. Car il faut ne pas avoir de culture politique pour dire qu’il n’y a pas de différences fondamentales - et fondatrices - entre les familles politiques de la droite et les familles politiques de la gauche. (...)

Etatisme vs Anarchie

2007-08-16T22:49:00.000+02:00

Etatisme ou anarchie, l'exemple de la Somalie :

In a recent study I compared Somali welfare under anarchy to welfare under government using all key development indicators for which data allowed comparison. According to the data, of the eighteen development indicators, fourteen show unambiguous improvement under anarchy. (...)
As Tatiana Nenova and Tim Harford discuss in their World Bank brief, “Anarchy and Invention,” much of this development can be attributed to improvements in public goods provided better by Somalia’s anarchic private sector than by its former government.
Should we conclude from Somalia’s stateless improvement that it is a nice place to live? Of course not. But Somalia’s pre- and post-government performance highlights an important point about the desirability of anarchy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is simply not true that any government is always superior to no government. If state predation goes unchecked, government may not only fail to add to social welfare, but can actually reduce welfare below its level under statelessness. Such was the case with Somalia’s government, which did more harm to its citizens than good. (...)

2007-08-15T22:29:00.000+02:00

Aide internationale

2007-08-14T20:41:00.000+02:00

L'aide internationale accordée aux pays pauvres est contre-productive. Deux exemples récents:

Charity finds that U.S. food aid for Africa hurts instead of helps :

CARE, one of the world's biggest charities, is walking away from about $45 million a year in federal funding, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help.
Its decision, which has deeply divided the world of food aid, is focused on the practice of selling tons of American farm products in African countries that in some cases compete with the crops of struggling local farmers.

Gap-year students told to forget aid projects :

One of Britain’s leading charities has warned students not to take part in gap-year aid projects overseas which cost thousands of pounds and do nothing to help developing countries.
Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) said that gap-year volunteering, highlighted by Princes William and Harry, has spawned a new industry in which students pay thousands of pounds for prepackaged schemes to teach English or help to build wells in developing countries with little evidence that it benefits local communities.
It said that “voluntourism” was often badly planned and spurious projects were springing up across Africa, Asia and Latin America to satisfy the demands of the students rather than the needs of locals. Young people would be better off simply travelling the world and enjoying themselves, it added.

Suisse & Fiscalité

2007-08-09T18:37:00.000+02:00

La Suisse, courageux Petit Poucet bien isolé contre la maffia fiscarde zéropéenne:

"(...) Les arguments en faveur de l’uniformisation fiscale reposent en général sur une
conception erronée du fonctionnement des marchés et ignorent les effets négatifs
du poids fiscal de l’État et le rôle de la planification fiscale dans l’allocation
internationale du capital. Ainsi, la « concurrence équitable », telle que préconisée
par la Commission européenne au travers de l’uniformisation fiscale, n’est rien de
plus qu’une forme de protectionnisme. (...)
Face aux dangers impliqués par une cartellisation des fiscalités en Europe, la
Suisse continue de jouer un rôle essentiel. La dissidence éclairée de la Suisse
contribue de façon sensible à la préservation et à l’augmentation de capital
productif dans le respect des choix et des droits individuels, dans l’intérêt bien
compris de tous les Européens et de l’avenir de l’Europe. (...)"

2007-07-09T17:27:00.000+02:00

A côté de ces concerts "pour la planète" qui font tant de bien à l'environnement, le public commence à comprendre qu'on le prend pour un imbécile :

"The public believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested. The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,032 adults - interviewed between 14 and 20 June - found 56% believed scientists were still questioning climate change. There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found."

Et ce sentiment n'est pas prêt de faiblir: la publication par l'IPCC des commentaires et réponses sur son dernier rapport concernant le changement climatique met en lumière l'absence de consensus scientifique sur la question.

Enfin, le refus d'Al Gore de débattre avec les scientifiques qui ne suivent pas la ligne "alarmiste" démontre que le débat scientifique est loin d'être clos.

Les artistes et l'Afrique

2007-07-07T23:15:00.000+02:00

Les Africains à Bono: "Fuck off !" :

"That's Africa, and it's in desperate need of our help. Luckily, a few enlightened megastars from America and Europe have come to save it.
Curiously, not all the natives are grateful. Last month, world leaders and Bono met in Heiligendamm, Germany for the G8 summit to renew their commitment to increase aid to Africa. Vanity Fair's special Africa issue, edited by the man himself, hit newsstands with 20 celebrity covers, a gaggle of celebrity writers, and a conspicuous shortage of Africans. Meanwhile in Arusha, Tanzania, at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference, a group of the continent's intellectual elite issued a very different plea: stop flooding Africa with aid."

Le leader de U2 ferait-il de l'Afrique son principal fonds de commerce, au mépris de la vérité ?

"Why do aid organizations and their celebrity backers want to make African successes look like failures? One can only speculate, but it certainly helps aid agencies get more publicity and more money if problems seem greater than they are. As for the stars — well, could Africa be saving celebrity careers more than celebrities are saving Africa?
In truth, Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs, democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.
The real Africa needs increased trade from the West more than it needs more aid handouts. A respected Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda, made this point at a recent African conference despite the fact that the world's most famous celebrity activist — Bono — was attempting to shout him down. Mwenda was suffering from too much reality for Bono's taste: "What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?" asked Mwenda.
Perhaps Bono was grouchy because his celebrity-laden "Red" campaign to promote Western brands to finance begging bowls for Africa has spent $100 million on marketing and generated sales of only $18 million, according to a recent report. But the fact remains that the West shows a lot more interest in begging bowls than in, say, letting African cotton growers compete fairly in Western markets (see the recent collapse of world trade talks)."

Climat

2007-07-07T22:49:00.000+02:00

Le blog "Prisonnier des politiques" recommande ce décryptage (non-dénuée d'humour) des peurs climatiques dont on nous abreuve depuis 50 ans. A lire absolument.

Liberté

2007-07-06T18:28:00.000+02:00

Rose Wilder Lane, grande figure de la lutte contre l'Etat et les illusions de la démocratie:

"It was once a sound word. It is a necessary word, because no other has its real meaning. Demo-cracy means, rule by The People; as precisely as monarchy means, rule by one (person). Demos, The People, was a fantasy imagined by the ancient Greeks, in their search for The Authority that (they imagined) controlled men. To this fantasy they attached the meaning of God, which always attaches to every form of Authority, and there are still persons who believe that "the voice of The People is the voice of God."
The People does not exist. Individual persons compose any group of persons. So in practice, any attempt to establish democracy is an attempt to make a majority of persons in a group act as the ruler of that group.
Consider this for one moment, not in fantasy, but as applied to your own experience in groups of living persons whom you know, and you will understand why every attempt to establish democracy has failed.
Of course there is no reason to suppose that majority-rule would be desirable, even if it were possible. There is no morality or efficiency in mere numbers. Ninety-nine persons are no more likely to be right than one person is.

Climat: Gore

2007-07-06T18:20:00.000+02:00

Al Gore profère beaucoup d'âneries:

"Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore can show sincerity in his plea for scientific honesty by publicly acknowledging where science has rebutted his claims."

Sur l'Himalaya:

"Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame."

Sur les glaces du Kilimandjaro:

"Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forests' humidity, previously moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine."

Sur les déserts:

"Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

A lire en entier.

Télé publique belge: 0 sur 10 en anatomie

2007-07-02T22:00:00.000+02:00

Sécurité sociale

2007-06-29T21:05:00.000+02:00

"Sicko", dernier pamphlet filmé de Michael Moore, suscite bien des réactions sur le net Outre-Atlantique:
"Santé: 45 millions d'Américains sans assurance privée"
"Universal healthcare is what's Sicko"
"Shticko"
"Who's really Sicko"
"Michael Moore's Shticko"
"The real skinny on socialized medicine"
"Health care beliefs and "Sicko""

Et qu'en est-il vraiment des 45 millions d'Américains sans assurance-santé ?

"Uninsured in America" répond en détail:

EDF

2007-06-29T20:44:00.001+02:00

France: monopole d'Etat mis à mal :

"La veille de l'ouverture du marché de l'énergie, prévue le 1^er—juillet, le Conseil de la concurrence a sommé EDF, jeudi 28 —juin, d'améliorer son approvisionnement des autres fournisseurs d'énergie en électricité de gros d'origine nucléaire. Cet accès plus facile au courant produit par les 58 réacteurs exploités par le groupe public doit, selon cette instance indépendante, permettre une "concurrence effective" entre les neuf fournisseurs qui vont se disputer les quelque 25—millions de clients d'EDF."

Immigration

2007-06-26T23:05:00.000+02:00

Philippe Legrain encourage l'Europe à ouvrir ses frontières aux migrants:

(...) Les immigrés ne sont pas les soldats d'une armée d'occupation, ce sont surtout des gens à la recherche d'une vie meilleure, attirés en Europe par la grosse demande en travailleurs disposés à occuper des emplois peu qualifiés dont notre société vieillissante et riche a besoin, mais que nos concitoyens, aisés et de mieux en mieux éduqués, ne veulent pas pour eux-mêmes. (...)

Climat: Sahel

2007-06-26T21:04:00.000+02:00

Des journalistes farfelus et un Secrétaire général des Nations-Unies se plaisent à mettre la tragédie du Darfour sur le compte du réchauffement climatique.

La science démonte ces idées reçues... le Sahel reverdit:

For the last four decades there has been sustained scientiﬁc interest in contemporary environmental change in the Sahel (the southern fringe of the Sahara). It suffered several devastating droughts and famines between the late 1960s and early 1990s. the climatology of these droughts is unresolved, as is speculation about the effects of land clearance on rainfall and about land degradation in this zone. However, recent ﬁndings suggest a consistent trend of increasing vegetation greenness in much of the region. Increasing rainfall over the last few years is certainly one reason, but does not fully explain the change. Other factors, such as land use change and migration, may also contribute.