Smart Links 20 May 2012

Paul Summerville • May 19, 2012

Tags: Africa, Canada, Dutch Disease, Economics, Environment, Yes

Commentary on the morality of climate change, complexity economics, ending the recession, the end of old Africa, and the good, bad and ugly of resource based economics.

Little things add up.

London Review of Books -- What is the rational response?
For the benefit of anyone who has spent the past decade or so on a different planet, the most frequently asked questions about climate change on this one are as follows. Is it getting warmer?

We have discussed the work of Eric Beinhocker on the evolution of economics before. This video is more evidence of its importance, start at 4.30. This is where the future of economics lies.

youtube -- Eric Beinhocker: Complexity in Economic Theory
Eric Beinhocker, Senior Fellow at McKinsey and Company, is the moderator to this session on complexity in economic theory at INET's Bretton Woods Conference on April 10, 2011. Brian Arthur, Ian Goldin, and Thomas Homer Dixon speak after him.

Krugman on the need to end austerity.

New York Review of Books -- How to End This Depression
The depression we’re in is essentially gratuitous: we don’t need to be suffering so much pain and destroying so many lives.

Evidence that old Africa is dying out by saving its children.

Economist -- The best story in development
Africa is experiencing some of the biggest falls in child mortality ever seen, anywhere.

Resources, can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

Globe and Mail -- Shrugging off Canada’s competitiveness shortfall
Canada’s competitiveness collapse since 2000 has attracted a deluge of attention and distress.

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Twin Virtues: Inequality of Outcomes & Equality of Opportunity©

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Ultimately, the most successful societies find the balance between the twin virtues of inequality of outcomes and equality of opportunity.

The new politics must marry the twin virtues of unequal outcomes and equality of opportunity.

When too few get too much everybody ends up with less.

Can it be that striving for equality of opportunity however imperfect the process not only benefits the individual but also creates benefits for the society as a whole that are unintended but wonderful?

Economics must be a 'moral enterprise' as much as politics claims to be. Economic outcomes need to be framed in terms of right and wrong not just efficiency if only because these often align in surprising ways.

My vision of Canada is that any Canadian child from a family of limited circumstance can expect to have a chance at lifetime of unlimited opportunities.

Tax policy should be founded on the principle of generating steady tax revenues sufficient to maximise environmentally sustainable economic growth in order to fund fair government.

Public policy should be designed to decrease inequality before the law and increase equality of opportunity.

Capitalism is not the problem; the problem is what we do with capitalism.

Content is always more difficult to argue than conspiracy.

Let the state regulate and the market operate (most things).

Welfare strategies are best designed as a hand up not as a hand out.

Political debate should not be fact free fighting.

Explanation lasts longer than eloquence.

Always favour empowerment over dependency.

The most enduring public figures are embraced for the causes they fought for and not the concept of themselves they hoped others would remember them by.

Find your voice and don't be the echo of somebody else.