One of the most widely accepted tenents of tax theory is that it is most efficient to tax immobile factors of production such as land. Such taxes cannot be avoided, and so they do not distort behaviour. Consequently, most economists would argue that an annual land tax is prefe...
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I can't think of a single song of his that is a really big favourite of mine. But has there ever been any big star who was more of a genius as a dancer? Surely not. Not even Fred Astair comes close.
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This plane is a very fast plane. It has flown from New York to London in 1 hour 54 minutes 56.4 seconds , which is more than I can say I have done. All of which reminds me to ask Troppodillians why, when the big supersonic passenger planes failed, there weren't a few supersoni...
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Australia is in the midst of a flat-screen TV crisis, says Clive Hamilton . Driven by an insatiable desire for "stuff", we spend more time chasing money and less doing the kinds of things that would really make us happier and more fulfilled -- spending time with friends and fa...
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I read Disgrace before seeing the film; thanks to that, once again , the film didn't have much impact in its own right. It was well made, as expected, and faithful to the novel. So the principal interest was in judging its merits as an adaptation, discovering small points of d...
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Troppo's Paul Frijters, too self-effacing to push his work on Troppo, has a new paper on the effect of the internet on quality news content. I discovered it on a newsletter of new papers. Looks interesting, so I'll have to have a closer squiz when I get the time. Is the Intern...
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[caption id="attachment_8804" align="alignleft" width="417" caption="Like Fred Reinfeld says, White's next move is "one of the most beautiful ever played on the chess-board.""] Click diagram to see the game[/caption]
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Several years ago I posted a graphic plotting countrys GDP per head against mean lifetime and drawing attention to the tragic loss of life in southern Africa, mainly due to AIDS. There is a fantastic data visualisation tool called GapMinder that tells this story and other stor...
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I subscribe to Learn out loud's newsletter and so receive lists of books that you can get audio files of to podcast to yourself. You generally have to pay for these files, and because I have more than enough ways of spending my time including listening (well trying to listen)...
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From UK PC world . A new type of PC which is incorporated into a conventional three-point plug is being released in the UK. The Plug Computer is based on a platform developed by US semiconductor firm, Marvell. The device squeezes a 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of DRAM, 512MB of NAN...
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The article on Social Liberalism is: http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/winter09/links/argy.pdf Any comments welcome.
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Not everyone enjoyed my recent post about PoMas -- post-materialist consumers who live modestly but spend up big. Some readers were particularly irritated by the comment about food intolerances. For example, Galaca says : I can’t help feeling this is yet another article sneeri...
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Andrew Norton, from the Centre for Independent Studies, kindly invited me to submit an article for the Policy magazine. It relates to the choice between classical Liberalism and what I called Social Liberalism. The link to the article is : http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/winter09...
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Why does Toyota's humble hybrid drive some people into a rage? Around 2005-2006, journalists started writing about " Prius rage ", " Prius envy " and "hybrid hatred". According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , it started in California where the state allowed solo Prius drivers...
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A perfectly good player. Meets grandmaster rated opponent. Things end happily, for everyone except the perfectly good player. A very nice combination. White to play S Zagrebelny vs A Ponyi 16. ? See game for solution.
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Behavioral Assumptions and Management Ability: A Tentative Test Date: 2009-06 By: Benito Arruñada Xosé H. Vázquez The paper explores the consequences that relying on different behavioral assumptions in training managers may have on their future performance. We argue that train...
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British Airways chair Willie Walsh has asked the company's 40,000 employees to work unpaid for a month to save the company and their jobs. The airline made a £401 million loss for the year ending in March. This seems to be due primarily to higher fuel prices, but partly to dec...
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Are you appalled by McMansions, $4000 barbeques and luxury four wheel drives that never leave the bitumen? Does Clive Hamilton's book Affluenza strike a chord with you? Do you dream of downshifting to simpler lifestyle but feel you can't afford it? If so, you could be a PoMa -...
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Complexity has been something that thoughtful souls have worried about regarding consumers. For a couple of decades policy makers' first instinct in dealing with problems in the consumer market has been better disclosure. It can't do any harm and may do some good. Once you've...
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Paul Krugman has an article on the need to stay the course - Paul Krugman makes a few telling points against the proposition that Obamas fiscal package now needs to be gradually pulled back. The Fed is raising the monetary base: does this risk a resurgence of inflation? The mo...
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"Australia has very few anarcho-capitalist bloggers like Paul Staines of Guido Falkes [sic] fame, reformed raver libertarians with an eye for scandal (and another on the latest market moves)" writes Christian Kerr . Instead of breaking stories, he says Australia's political bl...
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HT: Kieran Healy's Weblog
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If you're a blogger and you venture into government whether in the bureaucracy proper or as a 'staffer' you've got a problem. You can't keep expressing yourself as candidly as you might wish for fear of breaching the relevant public service code of conduct, of having some perf...
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Well bargain hunters fresh from your kills at Borders (they don't stand a chance when you've got those Troppo coupons in your hand) have we got a deal for you? The entire autobiography of Ben Franklin read by Ben himself. OK, well I lied about that last bit, it's really Greg H...
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The Harvard Open-Access Policies The goal of university research is the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge. We collectively take this to be a good. It is an essential part of our duties as faculty members to distribute the fruits of our scholarship as widel...
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Exciting stuff! Infrastructure For A Learning Health Care System: CaBIG In his proposal for a new cancer care policy in a data-rich future (Jan/Feb 09), Lynn Etheredge correctly notes that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has built the requisite infrastructure for a learnin...
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Take a look at the job advertisement below the fold . The pay is good, but not great by UK standards (though I guess you couldn't complain at the top of the scale). They do seem to have a rather comprehensive set of requirements for the right applicant. Anyway if you were thin...
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Billy Joel Masterclass Concert 2001 (Pt.2 of 12) Uploaded by denimel . - Watch more music videos, in HD! If you click through to the source, you'll find twelve of these segments from a 'master class' of 2001. And I'd never heard the song featured in this final segment. Billy J...
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Who doesn't like awards? When Alexander first went to school becoming Cool Kid of the Week was pretty much the major priority. After having earned the award a few times, resentment set in when Alex realised that the award seemed pretty randomly passed around and that in fact i...
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="800" caption="Will Longstaff's thoroughly spooky and fabulous Menin Gate at Midnight. If you haven't seen it in the AWM, go now, right now!"] [/caption] A very balanced and interesting article on the subject, even if it could have been...
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White to play J Klinger vs Blatny 36. ? See game for solution. I really don't want to turn this into a chess blog. So this is overdoing it a bit. Then again, I've been surprised at the number of people I encounter who enjoy these posts, so I won't feel too bad. Anyway I enjoye...
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Amongst others, I recently argued that the Federal Government should pay its bills within 7 days rather than the 30 that they were speeded up to with much fanfare as part of our efforts in fighting the recession. I don't think there's been any progress on that at the Federal l...
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Famous for his swashbuckling attacks, Mikhail Tal was one of the most talented players never to really hold down the world championship. He won it and held it for just a year or so in 1960. From Wikipedia I learned this: In 1960, at the age of 23, Tal thoroughly defeated the r...
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Google docs is a Good Thing. It's not a great substitute for a rich client word processor or a spreadsheet, but both the word processing and spreadsheet parts of Google docs are great to have something simple in a cloud. Peach Home Loans and Lateral Economics operate from home...
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In New Matilda Ben Eltham asks "Yesterday's GDP figures show the Government's fiscal strategy has worked, writes Ben Eltham. So why isn't Labor saying so?" Well yes, they do show that they worked (like some of us commonsensically suggested they would) and Labor is saying so. WTF?
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Yum. My favourite. I just got sent this by email from in inimitable Tim Harkowitz. Others please feel free to add to Troppo's stock of Jewish jokes in comments. There is a very pious Jew named Goldberg who attends synagogue every Sabbath. Every Sabbath, he prays: God, I have b...
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Well that's an overstatement, but there's been a long standing idea - going back to before Adam Smith that there's something 'good' about "making things" to use some words that have suddenly become very popular. In reaction against this the economic establishment is of course...
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I have a credit card with a limit of just $500 for internet purchases and other risky transactions from the CBA. It is often in arrears and I don't bother paying it because I'd rather pay the usurious interest rate when the amount outstanding is $100 or whatever. So they somet...
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Shit Box Cardboard crapper Click to enlarge Little Jack - Blue Little Jack - Pink In Stock £14.99 Shit Box In Stock £15.99 Show prices in Euros and US Dollars Next Day Delivery is available. Order by 4pm > Poos. We all do them (except Her Maj, of course). The trouble is, dropp...
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The statement below appeared in the AFR today, and I've been travelling all day so hadn't had a chance to put it up. In Paul Krugmans words, right now, knowledge is our only defence against catastrophe. A natural reaction would be to retreat into timidity. But that would repea...
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From Usury Condemned (1643) by John Blaxton At a seminar yesterday the speaker described his project as one of discovering the conditions for an economy without interest on loans. In other words, what would the financial system of the ideal Islamic state be like? This raised a...
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