Monthly Archives: August 2009

Holier than thou? The hat fits, actually.

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At John P. Boerschig Ranches, they ‘do have an organized Black Buck hunting package. This hunt is available at our Brackettville Ranch, which has excellent accommodations with all the comforts of home.’

Is it ethical to hunt feral pigs for fun? James Valentine thinks so.

He dislikes the idea of breeding blackbucks for hunting in a commercial hunting park. Or rather, as he put it, he doesn’t ‘get’ it. He invited hunters to ring in and explain the attraction. But of course no one was game to defend the blackbuck scheme; only a bunch of affable and reasonable sounding blokes pointing out that it’s fine to hunt pigs because they’re pests.

If I was hoping for some thoughtful teasing out of the ethical issues, I was disappointed. Evidently in a great hurry to stay friends with the affable, reasonable sounding blokes, he endorsed their hobby cheerfully, and seemed content that he’d identified the relevant ethical test. It’s moral to hunt pests. In fact he decided, though I suspect he was being facetious at this point, that it was also OK to hunt leopards, because it’s risky (leopards know how to sneak up on hunters from behind). They didn’t discuss hunting for food, though I’m confident that James would have approved of that too.

But it can’t be that simple. Continue reading →

Blood of the land

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Kens touching memorial to David Beeton made me think of the new Bob Dylan album, serendipitously titled, Together Through Life.

Those who know the album well will also know that it makes its way to its climax with the great artist at near full, awesome stretch in I Feel a Change Comin On, before he winds up the whole outing with the great belly laugh Its All Good.

I Feel a Change Comin On, which is a further sequel to the transcendent The Times They Are A-Changing, follows an earthy ditty called Shake Shake Mama, which is little more than a pallet cleanser after Dylans wondrous spiritual tilt This Dream of You. This Dream is the only song on the album written by Dylan alone, and is surely his most moving hymn since his hat tip to William Blake in Every Grain of Sand. It is superior, in my view, to Blowin in The Wind (as perfect a piece of work as that song most assuredly was and is).

To return to the point, This Dream sets the stage, after a quick shake up mama, for the climax that is I Feel a Change Comin On. This extraordinary song is itself resolved in two lines that I, like many others, originally heard as:

Some people they tell me

Ive got the blood of the lamb in my voice.

The line could not be delivered more perfectly, more powerfully, and yet, as Christians will know better than me, does Bob really say that the lord Jesus speaks through him? Whoa Bob! Steady on old chap. That is a line humans dare not cross in their own name. I instinctively shrank at the same time as I thrilled to the sound of the delivery.

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Amazing fact # 743: Nominal share prices

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Nominal and Real Share Prices

To the right are a couple of graphs of nominal share prices on the American stock market.

What is odd about them?  The fact that there is such a strong nominal anchor for share prices.  Though the price of goods and services tends to keep going up reflecting inflation or down reflecting productivity growth, shares just get ‘split’ into more shares to keep their nominal value stable and their real value falling.

I guess it makes sense that share prices don’t fall to tiny amounts like 0.1 cents or rise to huge amounts, like $10,000, but i’t's pretty weird that there is such stability through time.

Weirder still, there should be no expectation that small companies have low share prices and large companies have higher prices (since the difference in capital value could be taken up as more shares at the same price). But there’s a strong and stable relationship, as you can see from the chart below.  Bug companies have high share prices and smaller ones have smaller ones.

These graphs are behind a paywall here in William C. Weld, Roni Michaely, Richard H. Thaler, and Shlomo Benartzi, ”The Nominal Share Price Puzzle”, Journal of Economic PerspectivesVolume 23, Number 2Spring 2009Pages 121142

Share prices and company size

Adam Smith is to Markets as Jane Austen is to Marriage

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For those who’ve read the essay below and have no desire to re-read it, my apologies.  I never posted it at the time out of deference to the original publisher – the AFR.  However with a couple of years having passed, I thought I’d post it here. It is below the fold and I occasionally want to link to it – as I do now. Continue reading →

Adios Kyle

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I cannot really understand how such a talentless and unlikable person as Kyle Sandilands ends up earning m$4 per year. But then, I am not part of the Idol or 2dayfm demographic. I would rather listen to the ABC or watch the SciFi channel.

I am also the kind of person who likes to question the source of public outrage, especially when there is the kind of one-sided moralistic media frenzy that we have seen over the past week.

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The White Album Concert: A Club Troppo Premium Gold Star Review

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Technically speaking it was a tricked up cover band knocking out a few old Beatles numbers for a bunch of grey haireds on a nostalgia kick.  But for those of us actually living the nostagia kick in Hamer Hall this evening, we were living the dream.

It was the Beatles’ White Album, played live in Melbourne’s home of classical music Hamer Hall, with a group of some seventeen musicians, including brass and strings, two drum kits (with two drummers), harmony vocalists and of course the essential mix of guitars, bass pianos and keyboards, and led by Aussie rock star/singer/guitarists: Chris Cheney (The Living End), Tim Rogers (You Am I),Phil Jamieson (Grinspoon) and Josh Pyke.

1177_beatles_white_album_concert_series

It’s a funny old album The White Album. If you’re familiar with it you’ll know that there’s some absolute freckle kicking rock numbers randomly interspersed amongst jaunty English music hall tunes, pretty ballads, gut wrenching blues and experimental gibberish.  George Martin was reputed to have said “Are you really sure you want to put all of these songs on the Album lads?  I’m sure if we selected the half of them that were the best, it would make a very fine album indeed”. (or words to that effect).  He was told to sod off, and the White Album was released in all it’s patchwork quilted glory. Continue reading →

What Next for Turnbull?

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Turnbull’s decision to go all-in over OzCar on the basis of a single email is now clearly recognised as one of the greatest all-time blunders in Australian political history. He was just too eager; he fell for the oldest of all human flaws — wishful thinking.

In fable terms, Turnbull’s character is the Lion — brave, bold and brilliant. But he does not seem to have about him an Old Fox to stay his hand. An Old Fox would have been whispering that it would be unwise to read to much into the email, unwise to bet everything on Grech, unwise to rush in. In such situations there’s more to be made from innuendo. More to be made from playing “small stack poker”.

I am no Fox and no Lion, but I imagine that at this point a Fox would tell Turnbull to take it on the chin and quit. The great man who fails greatly can still be great. But to deny your own mistakes, when they are plain for all to see, will hamstring you forever.

If Turnbull quits, he has a chance to come back in future, having taken his lumps. If he stays on, the electorate will do to him and Liberals what he cannot do to himself.

Quitting in disgrace and returning in triumph is as old as politics. There are swings and roundabouts; there are tides in the affairs of men. Turnbull’s tide is ebbing, and he should follow it out to sea for a while. Otherwise he will be stranded on the unyielding rock of government intransigence, under the unforgiving sun of an unamused electorate.

The Dave Beeton Special

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dave and Jess and PCG 183I think the Dave Beeton Special, hereafter known as the DBS was the greatest concession Dave ever made to how things actually are in the world.

Consequences were not his strong point which meant that every moment came to him as a sort of surprise. This genuine innocence and delight in the simple things like food or a clean house used to win ladies over in the smoko trucks at work and his cleaning lady cried when he left as far as she was concerned his condition as she called it, mainly had to do with his inability to do any cleaning. But he could clean. Spotless clean. He even helped me clean other people’s houses with one hand in plaster after he’d smashed it working as an apprentice diesel fitter. And we never had any complaints. On the home front he would clean conscientiously to please me. His style was unique and it was lucky we usually had a large verandah, you see DBS housecleaning mandated all the furniture be out of the house. So there it would be all over the verandah and Dave inside ‘jus’ finishin the moppin’. The weekly DBS major house clean was a furniture moving half day event and it was a sparkling Dave who presented the sparkling house with DBS delight.
Continue reading →