Monthly Archives: September 2005

What, me blogging?

Posted on September 30, 2005 by Scott Wickstein

Old time Troppo readers who actually liked my stuff can get their fill at my new blog here. (Blogger is a really sound platform these days.)

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Sydney pub night 9 Oct

Posted on September 30, 2005 by Tony Harris

Nicholas Gruen is coming to town next weekend, Sunday Oct 9. It is a long way from home so he might appreciate some convivial company. What if we make this an opportunity for a bloggers night out? How about the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

A tax on people we don’t like

Posted on September 29, 2005 by Nicholas Gruen

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I find the Australia Institute’s latest effort (pdf) particularly irksome. It uses data from Roy Morgan to describe the drivers of four wheel drives as unusually aggressive, lacking in community mindedness … Continue reading →

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Homo Dialecticus Part Three: Why Adam Smith thinks markets are conducive to virtue

Posted on September 29, 2005 by Nicholas Gruen

The story in the two posts so far in which some foreshadowing of what’s to come is snuck in. Smith’s great work in sociology and psychology The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) shares a deep logical symmetry with his (now) … Continue reading →

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Interpersonal comparisons of welfare – and another go on income redistribution

Posted on September 28, 2005 by Nicholas Gruen

Here’s a favourite economic journalist – Samuel Brittain – dispatching the idea that economics shouldn’t make interpersonal comparisons of welfare. He’s spent most of the column – engagingly titled “Truth, bullshit and economics” hopping into the more extreme relativist claims … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy | 2 Comments

House prices

Posted on September 27, 2005 by Nicholas Gruen

As readers of an earlier post will know, I’ve become interested in the arguments that suggest that greater deregulation of land usage could improve land usage and in the process lower house prices to the great benefit of those trying … Continue reading →

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A couple more links on our friends across the Tasman

Posted on September 25, 2005 by Nicholas Gruen

Crikey outlines how much more engagement there is in political campaigning over there. And Tim Colebatch says some things that are similar to my own thoughts about the upshot of the NZ elections – namely that the power of incumbency … Continue reading →

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