Take a gander at this series of photos showing the VW Phaeton Factory in Dresden.
Then consider for a moment why Germany is the worldâs numberone exporting nation, and weâre just digging up coal to flog to China.
(Via Jwalk)
A post on Catallaxy reminds me that some people are proposing technological solutions which do not involve modifying energy use or production.
The post over at Catallaxy talks in particular about putting a giant mirror in space. This is a bad idea because of the solar wind, which would keep pushing it out of place (the L1 lagrange point, to be exact).
I anticipate that the next two steps of moving Club Troppo to its new home will take place today. I’ve copied the files and database as of about 10 minutes ago to the new site, and in a few moments I’ll be asking the current host to redelegate the DNS for clubtroppo.com.au
What does this mean? Disruption! Club Troppo may not be accessible or only partly accessible for some of you for some time, but it’s unlikely to be more than a few hours.
In order to minimise the disappointment of not having comments move from old host to new host, I’d ask everyone to hold off for the moment, and I’ll be freezing some of the posting / comments things where possible.
Thanks everyone for your patience at this time!
ADDITIONAL: You can go straight to the new site through this temporary link address.
UPDATE 2pm CST: The transfer is still in progress. Currently I am talking to the new host about the database transfer, as we have so many comments it proves difficult to actually import them all in one go. This means that the comments are broken for now.
Oh, one other thing, the old host is now automatically redirecting to the temporary address until DNS is properly propagated. Thanks everyone.
UPDATE 4pm: Database tribulations are occupying most of my attention at the moment, in particular the curious mystery of why all our apostrophes have gone wonky. I suspect character set troubles. The site may go up and down a few times in the next couple of hours, sorry.
UPDATE 5pm: Looks like DNS reallocation is well underway, with things failing in all sorts of exciting ways. It should come good in a few hours.
UPDATE 30 Jan 12pm: It looks like DNS has fully propagated and that everything is working. There is an outstanding problem with old apostrophes being turned into various symbols – this seems to be due to the old server storing everything in a swedish character set. I’ll be looking for a way to neaten that up, but for now everything seems to be working.
Welcome back Club Troppo!
In a letter to the Australian published today I raise two distrinct issues – both controversial.
The first is whether Work Choices and Welfare to Work offers the ONLY way of boosting labour force participation or whether, as I believe, there is an effective alternative. This is an economic issue best left to academics to debate in another context (I spell out my economic argument in a forthocing journal article. New Matilda will have a brief summary of my views in its next issue).
The second issue starts with the premise that there is a viable alternative which can produce similar employment outcomes but with a different set of winners and losers. It then asks: which distributional outcome is more compatible with Christian values?
I know nothing about theology so I am hoping some Club Troppo bloggers will be able to throw some light on this second issue. The text of the letter follows below.
“The Editor,
Tony Abbott concedes that Work Choices will allow some employers to “threaten people’s income growth” but he says the legislation is compatible with Christian values because of its capacity to create and save jobs (Abbot to tackle Rudd on faith, The Australian 27-28 January 2007).
I am no expert on theology but there is a chink in Abbott’s logic. Few economists doubt that Work Choices will be positive for the job market – but few also doubt that there are effective alternative ways for governments to create and secure jobs, such as through social investment of the kind which improves the capability, mobility and productivity of workers.
The difference between the two courses of action choice is simply distributional. In the case of Work Choices, the cost of job creation is borne entirely by our most vulnerable low-paid workers. Under the alternative, the cost is borne by better-off taxpayers. Which of these distributional outcomes is more consistent with Christian values, Mr. Abbott?
Mr. Abbott may be right to think that there are more votes in Work Choices than in a policy which requires higher taxes but that has little to do with ‘morality’.
End of letter.
As usual a vintage performance from Krugman on Milton Friedman. Appreciative, critical, fair and informative. Enjoy.
One of the themes of what passes for my ‘professional life’ in economics has been this. We’re a small country and it’s a big world. Now that might not be news to you â it’s certainly wouldn’t appear to be news to any of the politicians or officials that are endlessly intoning it as a clich©.
But often something else happens in those subtle moments when we have to choose between one of two competing and apparently similarly attractive principles. We’ve also got this penchant for thinking of ourselves as an outpost of civilisation in Asia. Continue reading
Hello everyone;
The Big Move is underway. The first step is backing up the site and upgrading to Wordpress 2.1, which is currently underway. Part II will involve pointing the domain name to the new host, then Part III will be importing the old site to the new site.
You’ll probably all get sick of these little notices, but I just like everyone to know what’s happening.
Cheers!
Update: Trickier than I thought. Some of the themes and plugins are required manual work to get them to play nice. Things will be on and off at patchy intervals tonight – please bear with me!
For no particular reason I happened upon and then started reading the Economist’s guide to business etiquette in various great cities in the world. Reading this one on Paris was a little like visiting there again – so I post it over the fold for your amusement and reverie. Then I thought I’d post the equivalent advice on visiting Sydney. It’s all over the fold. Continue reading