Perhaps as long as twenty five years ago certainly more than twenty years ago I was in Venice, on a trip to touristy Murano and I bought a little statuette of an eighteenth century fellow sitting at his desk, wig atop his head, quiver in hand writing on a scroll, a vase of ink...
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From Crikey! McGauchie loves Sol, shareholders not so much Adam Schwab writes: It was certainly fun while it lasted. This morning, Telstra confirmed the worst-kept secret in corporate Australia, announcing that CEO Sol Trujillo was resigning his role and returning to the Unite...
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Regular readers won't be surprised that I had another crack at this topic. The time seemed right. From a column published today in the Age . Call it the audacity of hope. In the political playbook of George W. Bushs advisor and confidant Karl Rove, you go after your enemy wher...
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Last Sunday, on the same opinion page where John Hewson excoriated Peter Costello, Kerry-Anne Walsh wrote a piece defending Julie Bishop , and accusing her detractors of double standards. Bishop wasn't a bad performer. Yes, she made a few stumbles but the one that was most oft...
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If you go to this page on the BBC's website in the next few days, or if you arrive in the next month or so if you download this file (mp3), you will hear an extraordinary interview. It is with a softly spoken Canadian farmer. He euthanased his 12 year old daughter who suffered...
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Journalists are ranked as the least trustworthy profession according to a recent UK poll by Ipsos MORI . While 92% of respondents said that they generally trusted doctors to tell the truth, only 19% said that they trusted journalists. At 60%, even the "ordinary man or woman in...
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I had to laugh. Tips from Wall Street. Very funny. At just $16.47 it's a steal - no pun intended. We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky have also purchased Expect to Win: Prov...
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Apologies to Nicholas, who I've just discovered has already reviewed this film . But I know he'll be consoled by the knowledge that readers will appreciate his wisdom and sobriety all the more when contrasted with my naive gushings. ----------------------------------- I saw An...
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Here's today's column in the Fin. They say you should choose your parents wisely. Right now that makes me think of our car makers. Its so easy to put off upgrading your car, that just the anticipation of hard times can devastate new car sales. And this time its serious because...
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A friend send me this cartoon.
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I was underwhelmed I'm afraid. Here are a couple of good reviews which say the film is good. So go ahead and don't believe me. But for me this was (yet another) Hollywood film with good acting covering up a film that didn't quite do it for me. (Others include the other Kate Wi...
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Here is a piece by Mike Steketee on Superannuation . He lists all the horrific inequities noted by Darren Wickham, arising from our present superannuation arrangements. For example: contributions to super are taxed at a flat 15 per cent; this provides no tax break at all for l...
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Over at Penguin Unearthed . Extreme distributions 20 February, 2009 by penguinunearthed John Connor , CEO of the Climate Institute , made a speech today talking about bushfires. Ive been pondering one of his key points for the last two weeks, ever since the bushfires . Climate...
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And no exception here . CAMBRIDGE Capitalism is in the throes of its most severe crisis in many decades. A combination of deep recession, global economic dislocations, and effective nationalization of large swathes of the financial sector in the worlds advanced economies has d...
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Car theives steal cars but they steer away from cars that are worth nothing and they steer away from more recently made and more expensive cars that are fitted with anti-theft technology like engine immobilisation. The CIS prefaces its reporting of this pedestrian fact as foll...
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From finance industry newsletter The Sheet . It's nice to know that after swallowing all those bank guarantees Wespac are keeping on keeping on. If only the entire economy was a bank, we could just sail through the crisis. T he most profitable bank in the world may be Westpac....
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Richard Parker writes HT Mark Thoma . It's easier to unwind. Dear Mr. President, In a future two-volume work, I intend to deal with the relation of a President to economists. I will naturally urge that he listen to them attentively, and indeed with a certain respect and awe. B...
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Crikey! rang today wanting to publish something developed from yesterday's post Costello 1, Keating 0 . I obliged. Readers of the first may find it a bit repetitive, but I reproduce it below as a matter of record and also because it has a few additional thoughts on foreign inv...
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From Tuesday's Financial Review: The Australian Institute of Company Directors acknowledged last week that there have been mistakes made by company boards in setting executive remuneration. As feeble as this admission is, it is the only one shareholders are likely to see from...
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HT: 3Quarks . FORMER GITMO GUARD TELLS ALL Scott Horton in Harper's : Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Nee...
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I think Peter Costello gives a good account of himself here (reproduced below the fold). This will fill some with horror of course. It's difficult to understand what one is doing when one is deciding whether or not to allow a foreign takeover and if so on what terms. Costello...
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If at least one agency in the Victorian Government wasn't too flash at helping Victorians when the fire was raging , some true believers in there are making amends, using an embeddable panel, complete with a Google Map to notify the public of Bushfire Events as per below. The...
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So the economy has problems. Spare a thought for the citizens of New York where the bedbug plague is reaching crisis proportions with a 34% increase in official complaints last year. There are lots and lots of people who are having a devastating experience with bedbugs," said...
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The "Austrian" is Gerard Jackson who puts out weekly bulletins of opinion and commentary. This is his rejoinder to The Weekly article by the PM. He accuses Hayek of treating the market as a "game" "specifically a game of 'catallaxy'". Thereby dishonestly giving the impression...
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Like Australians generally, bloggers are donating generously to the Victorian bushfires relief appeal, over at John Quiggin's place and LP . And this morning news here in Darwin praised the old diggers at Darwin RSL for raising $20,000 over the weekend, while earlier news reve...
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Economic conservatives never really trusted Richard Nixon. Faced with rising inflation the president resorted to price and income controls declaring: " I am now a Keynesian in economics ". Almost everyone agrees that his timing was terrible. As Keynesians struggled to make sen...
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It's pretty easy to touch a nerve with bloggers, says cartoonist Gary Trudeau . Since most of them are not getting paid, he says that narcissism is the only explanation for what they do. Trudeau is the creator of Doonesbury , a popular syndicated comic strip. And last year his...
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I've just been to see the film, and I'm afraid I wasn't impressed. It is of a piece with 'Doubt' which is very well acted but has a slick and ultimately superficial script. I had no idea what the film was about but somehow by osmosis I took in that it was a Good Film and I wan...
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A column published today in the Age. Its all shoulders to the wheel on the fires. Or is it? On the weekend, Google, the largest internet company in the world and (how can it be?) one of the most agile offered Victoria a helping hand. It was turned away. The Country Fire Author...
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="262" caption="Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos displays the Kindle 2 e-book reader at an event Monday."] [/caption]" They don't have the right to read a book out loud. That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law " Paul Aiken, ex...
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I often wondered why The Tragedy of the Commons was such a recent article. After all, it's not as if the idea is especially difficult or new. Sometimes an obvious idea does the rounds and gets put in in asides and so on but someone has the chutzpah to write it up as their own...
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The most recent column in the Fin. We wont criticise Kevin Rudd for his Christmas break, but it was ironic that on the first day after his months leave he could only say, The government stands ready to take whatever action is necessary in the future. This must have been import...
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STOP PRESS: $55 last day! Offer closes Tuesday 24th February 2007 (told you!) Now Closed. Hi all, It's on again this year - with our group subscription running out, it's time to resubscribe - if you want to. The amount you'll pay is a function of how many takers we have. Here'...
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Right now we're trying to reduce savings (increase consumption) in the short term before doing the opposite in the long term. So far so good. How might one use the tools of 'behavioural economics' to help. Here are a few ideas - none of which will surprise readers of this blog...
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I should emphasize at the outset that my participation in this Inquiry is strictly in a personal capacity and that the views I express here should not be interpreted as being those of my employer or any of its executives. In the last few months it has become increasingly appar...
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An interesting debate has kicked off on executive remuneration in Economists View It is not yet clear how Obamas proposals on executive remuneration will pan out. It may include a $500,000 cap on salaries for financial institutions receiving aid - subject to a reporting mechan...
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Today's Column from the Fin: In a stand-up routine, Woody Allen is about to be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. His life passes before his eyes. The childhood in Kansas, swimming, fishing, eating cat-fish with gingham clad sister Mary-Lou. Does this sound like Woodys childhood to...
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Adam Smith had this idea that 'commercial society' made a lot of things better, particularly improving the politics and mores of earlier social structures. As I outlined i n a post long ago , he was particularly keen on the way in which the nascent capitalism of his day distri...
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A really first class post from John Quiggin.
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Brad has a category 'utter stupidity' on his blog. If any of us were as smart as Brad, we might chance one ourselves on Troppo.
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Geraldine Doogue had an interesting interview yesterday with Walter Russell Mead ( a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations). He's recently written an essay for the Foreign Affairs journal entitled: "Change They Can Believe In: To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their...
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Lateral Economics is conducting a survey of bloggers and other sites that are trying to encourage debate in the oz-blogosphere and more generally. Im afraid I can't tell you the client it's confidential. However Im hoping that anyone who does or has run a blog, or been involve...
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" The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge." Paul Krugman. The rest of his impassioned column below the fold. Of course Australia's economy is not in the kind of dire straights the US one is in (at...
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John Clarke, living national treasure, is on ABC radio national again. On poetica this weekend, or downloadable here .
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Turnbull has now upped the ante. At the political level, Australia is now fighting (a) an aversion to public sector deficits and (b) the appropriate choice between taxation cuts v/s other forms of spending. During the Howard years every household wanted to go into debt, while...
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My daughter Anna (just turned 15) really hurt her big toe last week the nail was half ripped off and it took a day or so before the pain died down. I was talking to her and said that althought it sounded pretty pathetic coming from me who was not feeling any pain, she should t...
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Ever rung a hospital or medical practice for advice and been told that they won't give you advice unless you come in. For private practitioners this is partly a way of making money - they get to see not just the whites of your eyes, but the colour of your money. But the rule i...
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[caption id="attachment_7102" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Palestine-Israel Journal"] [/caption] I grew up in a household that was quietly but staunchly pro-Israel. This was of course (and still generally is) the default position in the west. Most Australians would h...
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Yes, Ned the Bear is back. Again. After an exceptionally busy 2008, Ned now has time on his paws, so much time, in fact, that he has started his own blog , where Ned will attempt to appear daily. (Well, Monday to Friday, at least.) Of course, on particularly cranky days Ned wi...
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Fiscal policy has become the subject of an intense ideological warfare among economists. Over the long term - i.e. over the business cycle as a whole - economists do not agree on whether the structural budget should aim for a surplus or a deficit. This is understandable as sev...
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