Sunday, December 05, 2004

new additions 12/5

Castles In The Sea: A Survey of Artificial Islands and Floating Utopias
James Lee surveys a number of historical and planned artificial utopias, including some libertarian ones.

The 'freest economies in the world'.
John Berthelsen of the Asia Times points out that the Cato Institute's 'economic freedom' index seems to have no idea of the reality of government intervention and market oligopoly in Hong Kong and Singapore.

1 comment:

Glen said...

The economic freedom article would be a lot more compelling if Hong Kong had been rated a 10 rather than 8-something. Or if the author had been willing to tell us which other country should have been rated higher. Nobody doubts that Hong Kong falls short of perfect economic freedom -- that's why it didn't get rated a 10.

The author says "anyone who has ever owned a car in Hong Kong can testify that prices are probably double anywhere on Earth." Er, no. Prices are lower than in parts of the UK and not much more than Germany or Norway. CNN says prices are "less than double" those of these countries: Germany, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Korea, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Japan.