Club Troppo

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> Poos. We all do them (except Her Maj, of course). The trouble is, dropping Mr Brown and the kids off at the pool is nigh on impossible when youre enjoying the great outdoors. Yes, you can make like a bear and shit in the woods, but curling a log straight onto the ground feels a bit, well, dirty.

And on it goes – over the fold. (Continued)

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 repeat mistakes that exacerbated the Great Depression by giving in to our fears and phobias. IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard has a similarly blunt message. Above all, adopt clear policies and act decisively. Do too much rather than too little. (Continued)

In the last few months, the discussion of the future of newspapers has become a recurring topic in the media and online. Several common themes and arguments have emerged. The most common gripes are either that newspapers are being killed by bloggers, or that newspapers are being killed by failing to get their own news, relying on wire services instead.

The truth has little to do with quality, reporting or bloggers. It’s all about money.
(Continued)

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 number of issues for me, which there wasn’t enough time to pursue. I’m wondering if someone conversant in the topic can help.

What’s the ethical basis for a prohibition on usury? Obviously there is nothing uniquely Islamic about it. The doctrine was, as we all know, espoused by Aristotle and subsequently by the scholastics, and was the basis for anti-usury laws in Christendom until about the 16th Century. The original ethical basis is not hard to imagine. Usurers generally took advantage of a monopoly position as money owners and charged exploitative rates to poor people, often sending them to ruin. It runs in the face of our instinctive revulsion to seeing a man kicked when he’s down.

But it seems that Aristotle’s philosophical argument against usury was that that interest is unearned income. However, as Alfred Marshall pointed out, there is no essential difference in this respect between leasing someone a horse and lending him the money to buy a horse. In both cases income is earned by virtue of owning property. Marshall thought the anti-usury doctrine was essentially the same as the Marxist doctrine of surplus value. (Continued)

Brother John Pye was a well-known, widely respected Catholic missionary who died last week, aged 102.

Brother Pye spent 16 years on the Tiwi islands in the NT. He brought Catholicism to the islanders with what was perhaps modest success. The other religion he introduced — Australian rules football — was much, much more successful.

Ever since then the Tiwi islands have been sending generation after generation of footy legends to play all over the country.

If anyone deserves a special mention in the AFL Hall of Fame, it’s Brother Pye. Anyone able to put in a word with the headquarters?