If you take an interest in the 'free trade versus protection' debate - which I've tried to use a rather more general formulation of in the heading above - and you are alive to the possibility that the debate might be about something rather than just the ranting of people who j...

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Cross Posted from Gov2.net.au . Its a truism that the public sector is risk averse and that thats one of the things holding up the adoption of Web 2.0 approaches and indeed quite a few Web 1.0 approaches. I dont think this is inaccurate, but its also too general a statement to...

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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="399" caption="Dr Gruen insisting that he only appear within photo borders which theme with his tie "] [/caption] Over a month ago I gave a paper at a conference organised by Brian Fitzgerald which I reproduced earlier on Troppo here . T...

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Michael Stutchbury addresses Rudds assault on neo-liberalism in The Australian, 28/7/09. Stutchbury has some good points to make but he is, like everyone else in The Australian, obsessed with the debt question and the justification for active (discretionary) government interve...

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From Universe Today Ice loss in Barrow Alaska from 2006 to 2007. Credit: US Geological Survey Last week the US government released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice that have been used to help scientists study the impact of climate change. The images were...

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I attended the third and final session in the public forum series Getting to Grips with the Economy , organised by the Whitlam Institute at the Riverside Theatre in glorious Parramatta. This one featured John Quiggin , Steve Keen and the confessed non-blogger Guy Debelle from...

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There is a thoughtful article in the Financial Times by Paul De Grauwe which is found in http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/478de136-762b-11de-9e59-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss It notes the big disagreement between two opposing camps on macro-economics (the Ricardians versus Keynesians...

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A late call on the departure of the distinguished scholar Leszek Kolakowski. A short obituary . Starting off as an orthodox Marxist in postwar Poland, Kolakowski became progressively disenchanted and his calls for a more democratic version of socialism led him into conflicts w...

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From Three Quarks : Here's the speech Nixon had ready in case things didn't go according to plan. "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there...

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James Morris is 15 years old, and he's bloody good at chess. He's just become an International Master . He's so much better than me, it's sad (for me that is.) But from all us patzers, congratulations James. I love it when people do something amazing! Should be encouraged!

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Chartered Secretaries Australia are putting on a show called a Public Sector Update in which I'm talking on Public Sector Innovation under the unnecessarily pessimistic title of "Can innovation in the public sector exist?" How to harness your intrinsic motivation to drive inno...

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I first learned how to work a computer on an Apple Mac. Marvellous things they were - I've still got my old Apple Mac 128K in my garage. I didn't want to learn on a DOS machine. It looked like the effort might be considerable and for the limited reward of rather clunky word pr...

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The Joy of Sachs By PAUL KRUGMAN The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits and its preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the c...

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I've got to say I wasn't expecting Ivanchuk's next move . But then I'm not Ivanchuk.

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You've got to hand it to them. What a great range of opinion they bring us on Fox News.

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Satisfaction 2.0. HT Craig Thomler .

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This book sounds like a lot of fun. A history of science with a touch of humour and a good flavour of the characters involved. Reviewed here . In order to structure his big, sweeping book about such issues, Mr. Holmes uses two exploratory voyages as bookends. The first, a trip...

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I've wondered why it wasn't coming. Maybe it is .

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In the July Monthly , Noel Pearson zeroes in on one of the key structural issues underlying the recent crisis; why did so many corporations (especially financial ones) act in a manner so disastrously contrary to their own self-interest? His short answer? "The cause of Greenspa...

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Christopher Joye rang me recently and asked if I'd sign a statement supporting a comprehensive financial system inquiry. I agreed for reasons that are explained in the statement. So did Joshua Gans, Stephen King, John Quiggin and Sam Wylie. In short, as people with a bit of no...

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Hi all, Apologies for not having posted here for a while. I've been flat out , but already have some posts I want to write - now to get the time . . . Meanwhile I would greatly welcome Troppodillian's views on which design(s) are best for the Government 2.0 taskforce - both in...

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Frank Devine passed away on Friday morning. He enriched the lives of many people, whether or not they agreed with his views on politics, religion or anything else. An early tribute can be found in The Australian, from Bernard Lane . The Weekend Australian tomorrow will carry s...

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About 10 days ago all State and Territory Attorneys-General agreed to enact uniform anti-bikie gang laws . The new uniform national regime will be modelled on the Victorian regime which is broader than three very similar laws recently enacted in South Australia and New South W...

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