My Weekly Studying for September 1, 2024

by Brad Templeton, Forbes, August 21, 2024.

Excerpt:

The numbers imply Caltrain was burning about 25 million gallons of diesel yearly. However at present, Caltrain has round 590,000 boardings/12 months and a mean of 24,600 on weekdays. Meaning 3.5 gallons of diesel per boarding, on common, which is equal to 4 gallons of gasoline. Every spherical journey thus burned the equal 8 gallons of gasoline per individual. A 30 miles every method spherical journey in a automobile with the common load of 1.5 folks, which is much less that one gallon per individual in a Prius, and a pair of gallons per individual in a big SUV. Even when every passenger got a private Hummer H2 to drive, they might solely burn 4.6 gallons for that spherical journey. If diesel Caltrain had been a automobile, it could be class as one of many heaviest polluters per passenger.

by David Inserra, Cato at Liberty, August 29, 2024.

Excerpt:

Brazilian courts have now formally threatened to close down X (previously Twitter) in Brazil as a result of X is not going to silence or present info on people essential of the present authorities, together with people residing in america.

And:

Additionally, now there are rumblings that Brazil could also be focusing on Starlink and SpaceX, that are solely partially owned by Elon Musk. If true, this may imply that different unrelated US firms and buyers are being hit by Brazil’s judicial authoritarians.

by Timothy Taylor, Conversable Economist, August 29, 2024.

Excerpt:

Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) is basically unknown at present, however he was a extremely distinguished economist again within the day: as one instance, he was energetic within the disputes that led to the founding of the American Financial Affiliation again in 1885. In July 1893, he revealed an essay on “The Drawback of Financial Schooling” for the distinguished (each then and now!) Quarterly Journal of Economics. The essay argues that there are fundamental insights of economics–well-known as of 1893–which can be largely unknown or ignored by most of the people. What I discovered thought-provoking was that various these insights seem equally unknown to a lot of the general public, in addition to to many policymakers, right here within the third decade of the twenty first century.

And from Newcomb:

Earlier than such a factor as financial science was identified arose the idea of the “stability of commerce.” The elemental doctrine of this principle was that commerce was advantageous or disadvantageous to a nation in accordance as the worth of its exports exceeded or fell wanting the worth of its imports. Accordingly, within the nomenclature of the time, an unfavorable stability of commerce or state of credit score meant one during which the imports had been alleged to exceed the exports, and a good stability the opposite. A direct corollary from this view was that commerce between two nations couldn’t be advantageous to each, as a result of the values which every exported to the opposite couldn’t each be higher than these acquired from the opposite. …

For a century and a half the doctrine entertained and taught by economists is that there might be no commerce between two nations which isn’t advantageous to each; that males don’t purchase or promote until what they obtain is to them extra beneficial than what they provide in trade; and that what’s true of the person man is, on this respect, true of the nation. And but the mixed arguments of economists for 100 years haven’t sufficed to alter the nomenclature or modify the concepts of economic nations upon the topic. … The phrases ” favorable ” and ” unfavorable,” as utilized to the supposed stability of commerce, nonetheless imply what they did earlier than Adam Smith was born. We would effectively tremble for the political destiny of any statesman who ought to publicly keep that our exports would, in the long term, considerably stability our imports, it doesn’t matter what coverage we adopted; and that, if this equality may very well be disturbed, the benefit could be on the aspect of the nation which imported the higher values.