Club Troppo

UPDATE, 24 December: Many thanks for the nominations so far. We have enough to get started on, but would love to double the number. Therefore, we’re extending the deadline to 10 January! But please post your nominations sooner rather than later, so we can get on with the judging.

UPDATE: Only about twenty nominations so far. Last year at the same stage we had more than a hundred. Would any bloggers reading this be kind enough to spread the word!

On Line Opinion and Club Troppo are again collaborating to compile an anthology of the best Australian blog writing. From your nominations our panel of judges will select forty to be republished at OLO over the course of January. The judges are: OLO’s Chief Editor, Graeme Young; Helen Dale from SkepticLawyer; Ken Parish, Nicholas Gruen, and myself from Club Troppo; and possibly one other blogger. (Continued)

For the third year running, On Line Opinion and Club Troppo are collaborating to collect an anthology of Australian blog posts from the previous year. The first handful have now been published at OLO; by the end of the month the collection will grow to about forty articles. For an idea of what to expect, have a look at last year’s collection; for some background on the event, and a discussion of blogging in general, see the introductions from
2006 and 2007. (Continued)

HT 3 Quarks

In The Know: Do You Remember Life Before The Segway?

IPART is the independent economic regulator for NSW. It oversees regulation and conducts pricing reviews in industries such as electricity, gas, water,taxis and public transport.

IPART recently completed a review of pricing for RailCorp’s rail pricing provided under the CityRail brand - essentially the rail network around Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong. In this post I consider whether IPART is the right place to decide these rail pricing outcomes and conclude that as currently set up it is not.
(Continued)

In affluent societies, consumption is about creating identity rather than meeting human needs, argues Clive Hamilton. And to reinforce the point, he invites us to "consider the semiotics of the potato today". According to Hamilton, today’s shoppers can choose from 15 varieties of organic potato with shapes and colours "carefully selected to appeal to different market segments." While it was once just a starchy staple, the food has now become a lifestyle accessory — a way of telling other people who you are.

One of Hamilton’s big themes is that "consumption no longer occurs in order to meet human needs; its purpose is now to manufacture identity" (p 95). Some critics think this claim is exaggerated. In an article for Overland, socialist writer Tom O’Lincoln scoffed: "as if people buy potatoes only to look cool" — a response Hamilton dismisses as hopelessly naive:

Unattuned to its subtle methods, O’Lincoln seems oblivious to the subversive effects of marketing. It is true that, not so many years ago, a potato was just a potato. But consider the semiotics of the potato today. Despite its ordinariness, consumers now demand much more than a mere vegetable. The varieties, shapes and colours are carefully selected to appeal to different market segments. Blemishes have been bred or selected out. Potatoes are promoted by supermarkets as part of the ‘fresh food’ that discerning and health-conscious consumers will want to buy. Vegetable sections have special lighting to highlight the ‘natural’ colour and palatability of potatoes. For many, the type of potatoes they buy is an expression of their lifestyle and the way they see themselves. So we can go to an organic vegetable shop and select from around fifteen varieties of potato knowing that whichever we choose we will be treating our bodies as temples. The marketing of the vegetable has been designed to elevate it above that of the modest tuber O’Lincoln still sees. Buying potatoes will not make you cool, but it can make you a lot of other things. And potatoes are the most mundane of fresh foodstuffs. If we turn our minds to the fruit and vegetables surrounding the potato, the semiotics become even more complex.

(Continued)

Paul Krugman points to a discussion on the prospects of the kind of financial meltdown (pdf) we’ve just had at Jackson Hole in which, most of the economists were in fawning agreement with Saint Alan Greenspan.  As Krugman says “Larry Summers, I’m sorry to say, comes off particularly badly.”

In another episode at Harvard, Larry Summers, musings on the inadequacies of women were both stupid and arrogant.  I have  nothing against the kind of issues he raised being raised, but it turned out (at least from the little reading I did at the time he did his thing) that his comments were in addition to being highly inflammatory, pretty half baked.  Anyway he paid dearly for his faux pas and left his post.

Anyway, Krugman’s comment reminded me to tell Troppodillians that I was listening to this interview with Summers (mp3) and was simply amazed by one cute little feature of his speaking style. On several occasions the interviewer tries to interrupt him to inject some new question into the conversation or steer him away from some topic when she’s had enough. Now journalists interrupting can be rude and annoying.  But this one isn’t particularly bad. And interrupting is a very normal and legitimate way of signalling various things in ‘real time’ between two people in a discussion. Providing it’s not too constant it is not particularly rude and it’s efficient and helpful in steering the communication. Further, in an interview the conversation has elements of a ‘performance’ where there are time limits to get through the material that the interviewer seeks to, so additional licence should be given.  Of course if the interruptions are repeated, stupid, rude or whatever, the interviewee has every right to complain and ask to be allowed to finish his answer.

Anyway in the face of probably about four or five such interruptions from a reasonably competent and pleasant interviewer, Summers just kept talking, simply refusing to respond to a word she said until his majesty had got off his chest whatever it was that was on it.  Comes of an an aggressive, arrogant prat.  Pity.  It will make him much worse at his new job than he’d otherwise be.

HT Kathy G.

	Charles Bingley is renting a house in Hertfordshire!
	Mrs. Bennet became a fan of Charles Bingley.
	Kitty Bennet can’t stop coughing!!!
	Charles Bingley is now friends with Mr. Bennet and Sir William Lucas.
	11 of your friends are attending Assembly at Meryton.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy is dreading this evening.

Etc

Nice to see some ideas I proposed a good while ago getting a bit more of an airing, namely governments running open market operations in assets other than their own bonds (pdf) in the process of managing the economy. I suggested that governments should purchase equities on a countercyclical basis because it both

1. made them money
2. improved macro-economic outcomes

Now the second of these rationales is gaining some support as people think about the role of government as a market maker of last resort.  Note several things about the subsequent discussion on Thoma’s thread.  Firstly the case has been made in terms of ‘targeting’ asset prices, in the way open market operations of the central bank target short term interest rates.  This is a determinate process. I don’t think you can know enough to target share prices.  In fact I think it’s batty when put like that. (Continued)

Tim Blair reports on Yvonne Ridley – the British journalist who converted to Islam after being kidnapped by the Taliban – who has won a case for unfair dismissal against the Islam News Channel. Earlier in the year she won nearly £14,000 in damages after winning a four-year unfair dismissal case against Arabic TV station al-Jazeera. She now works for Iranian-based PressTV.

Skepticlawyer blogs on the Gaza strip and Legal Eagle meditates on parenthood.

(Continued)

The IMF states the obvious (pdf) - even if we’ve not yet fully taken it on board.

First, and quite simply, governments should make sure that existing programs are not cut for lack of resources. In particular, central governments or sub-national governments that are facing balanced budget rules may be forced to suspend various spending programs (or to raise revenue). Measures should be taken to counteract the procyclicality built in these rules. For sub-national entities, this can be mitigated through transfers from the central government (suspending the rules for sub-national governments would not be appropriate as it will be difficult to reverse the suspension later.) In the U.S., for example, increased transfers from
the federal government would help states avoid cutting various spending programs.

Second, spending programs, from repair and maintenance, to investment projects delayed, interrupted or rejected for lack of funding or macroeconomi considerations, can be (re)started quickly. A few high profile programs, with good long-run justification and strong externalities, (for example, for environmental purposes) can also help, directly and through expectations. Given the higher degree of risk facing firms at the current juncture, the state could also take a larger share in private-public partnerships for valuable projects that would otherwise be suspended for lack of private capital.

Although people endlessly ask for predictions, they rarely really want the answers. It was only late – too late – in life that I realised that when people said, “We really want you to challenge our ideas,” they mostly did not. They wanted instead to be congratulated on their wisdom. Similarly, when they ask, “What is going to happen?” they seek reaffirmation and reassurance rather than insight into the future.

I’ve been rereading some parts of John Kay’s book The Truth about Markets which came out about three or four years ago. It’s a general discussion of what makes economies work well, and what buggers them up. I thought it was good at the time, but the bits I have re-read are really excellent. If you want a general introduction to economics it’s hard to go past it.

Anyway, in the light of a recent post by Damian Jeffree and because it’s a wise and witty column I’ve reproduced his latest column below the post. (Continued)

After uncomplainingly sitting through two episodes of Brideshead Revisited earlier this evening (even, I confess, with a degree of appreciation I didn’t feel on first viewing 25 years ago), the prospect of backing up for Mansfield Park was a bridge too far, despite the luscious breasts of Billie Piper.  ”I’m ‘chick flicked’ out for tonight”, I remarked to Jen casually as I retreated to the keyboard.

“How do you define ‘chick flick’?”, Jen demanded with a disconcerting edge in her voice.  I ventured a couple of half-baked observations before concluding that this might well be a question akin to “do my hips look big in this dress?” (not that Jen ever asks those sorts of questions).

Over to you, as they say at the end of all those bogus MSM “blogs”.   Is there such a thing as a ‘chick flick’?  Or is it just a sexist term of denigration used by sad middle aged farts like me to evade emotional engagement?  If there is indeed such a thing, what are the core attributes of a ‘chick flick’?  Are there films whose principal subject is human romantic/sexual relationships but which can’t properly be labelled ‘chick flicks’?  What makes the difference?

Time for a bit of economic navel gazing.

What does the global financial crisis mean for the state of economics in the early part of the twenty first century? Pass? Conceded Pass? Fail?

Well at the end of 2008, for all the talk of the ‘search for stability’ from economists we still do not have it, or anything like it. (Continued)

I feel quite angry with Pope Benedict message that “saving homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the enviornment” and that “God’s creation was about protecting man from himself”.

Even some of my own grand children, who are devoted catholics, feel that this type of comment may stir up hatred against homosexuals.

She asks me tell you that:

1. Stevo Rocks, and
2. She has bling!

Update: Bling evidence:

Nostalgia. It just gets better with age.