Club Troppo

Mike Steketee was one of several commentators echoing Turnbull’s point that the ETS is basically the policy that the Howard Government took to the 2007 election.

He infers from this that the poor old Liberal Party has been captured by a rump of reactionaries who have taken advantage of the party’s current authority vacuum. By this account, while he might have shared their views, Howard was too pragmatic not to recognise that public opinion favoured restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.

Given that the majority of the parliamentary Liberals are probably not climate change sceptics, and that a dozen of them might be knocked off in an ETS election, this makes the rage against Turnbull seem more irrational than it is. Furthermore, it lets Howard off the hook too easily. (Continued)

Steve Horwitz at The Austrian Economists is running a series of posts to show how the poor in the US have become better off over the last thirty years or so. This table shows how real wages have improved to shorten the time required to pay for some household goods. He notes that this understimates the improvement because it does not take into account the improved quality of the goods. 

The situation is much the same in Australia despite the complaints that “neoliberalism” has widened the gap between rich and poor.

Last week the Prime Minister made a plea to the House, for the members to vote in the national interest, not their party interest. Where are the members of the ALP who are voting in the national interest?

I appreciate that this has been posted before and nobody has to read it again, it is just for the benefit of new people and those who like to be reminded of the achievements of this remarkable man. Barzun’s work represents a major and pioneering contribution to cultural studies.

The sheer bulk of his output is prodigious, bearing in mind his teaching and administrative responsibilities. He wrote more than twenty books, edited a similar number and contributed countless chapters to others, plus journal articles, Introductions and Forewords for books by other authors.

(Continued)

It now looks as if Malcolm Turnbull is gone for all money as federal Liberal leader (a shame from my viewpoint).  Meanwhile, Rudd Labor is ramping up the rhetoric hinting at a double dissolution election.  But is that really likely? There are a couple of major factors suggesting otherwise, one legal or constitutional and the other political.

First, it’s by no means certain that the Senate’s failure to pass the ETS legislation next week would provide Rudd with a double dissolution trigger that would survive constitutional challenge.  The law on this area was laid down by the High Court in three decisions during the Whitlam government era (see especially the PMA Case and Cormack v Cope).  The relevant factors are well summarised in an article by Geoffrey de Q Walker at the HR Nicholls Society website:

(Continued)

Thanks to this furious sturm und drang going on in Canberra, Stateline has been pushed off the air for the week. I find this rather annoying. We have a satellite received here which lets me tune into the NT’s Stateline to get some flavour of home. I’d rather have that than another half hour of theatre.

Some things seem to need no explanation, but are not obvious at all on reflection and, if you wonder about them, suggest something of interest about the economic system. Consider the question of why the informal economy is so small, leading to the question of how much more productive the formal economy must be than the informal economy to make sense of how little informal economic activityy there is. See over the fold for the full argument.
(Continued)

Machiavelli says that fortune is like a woman (“she favours the bold”). Well it seems that fortune is a bit of a backstabbing so-and-so if your name is Malcolm Turnbull. After smiling on him throughout his entire professional career, she has utterly abandoned him this week.

I mean she’s had it in for Malcolm for months. Supposing there was such a thing as a “Premature Eulogy Index”, measuring blogs and columns like this one, declaring that a political figure was “dead” and dissecting their history. Malcolm’s PEI has been steadily rising and has spiked exponentially this week.

I’m not really sure what to make of it. In the past I’ve basically said he needed a wise old head to temper his boldness. Now I’d add that he needed to adopt a useful differentiating point to distinguish him from Kevin Rudd in the public’s eye. For instance, he might have adopted a carbon tax approach instead of cap & trade. He’d have been clearly different without ceding ground on the overall narrative of taking action.

Or maybe it never mattered. About a year ago Possum of Pollytics fame trotted out a series of graphs to demonstrate that primary votes follow the approval rating of the Prime Minister. No matter how popular or unpopular the Opposition Leader is, he or she lives and dies on the primary vote, and the primary vote follows the PM. Kevin Rudd is just too popular. Case closed.

And speaking of our Dear Leader, he’s spoiled for choice. Does he call a snap election to capitalise on the turmoil¹1. Just in Case: Pity the poor camera crew who will be standing guard outside the gates of Government House for the rest of the week. [↩]? Or does he wait until his CPRS legislation founders in the Senate and then go for the double dissolution brass ring? I imagine that even now the old warhorses and the young turks are busily thrashing it out.

In any case, Malcolm has done the political class a great service by giving them something novel to talk about.

From the State Government that brings car racing to our most idyllic park, turns nature reserves over to shooters, refuses to cap political donations, reneges on public transport promises faster than it makes them, and philanders while its health system burns, it’s nice to see a sensible decision once in a blue moon, even if it’s a no-brainer.

Despite very recent accusations that she was ‘stalling’ on the decision, the NSW Education Minister Verity Firth has approved a pilot ethics course for children in state primary schools.

In the existing arrangement, forty minutes of class time is allocated weekly to Special Religious Education (known to everyone as `scripture’), conducted by volunteers from various denominations. Currently children who opt out attend `non-scripture’, which involves reading, catching up with homework or watching a film.

The Federation of Parents and Citizens’ Associations of NSW proposed that these children instead participate in an ethics course, commissioned by the Association and developed by the Saint James Ethics Centre and UNSW philosophy professor Philip Cam. The first step would be a pilot, beginning `as a 10-part discussion-based program for students in years 5 and 6, covering issues such as truth and fairness.’ (Continued)

Bobby Cheng is pretty good on the Melbourne primary schools under 12 chess circuit.  In fact he’s pretty good on the Melbourne under 14, under 16 and a few other circuits.  With a rating of 2,200 not far from international mastership he went off to the world championships in Turkey and we thought he might do well.  But there are some serious players in the world under 12 championships, including Indian Vaibhav Suri with a rating in the mid 2,300s.  Anyway, in the last round Bobby had to beat Vaibhav and board 2 had to be a draw.  That’s what happened.  Bobby Cheng is world champion.

And for those of your with a pgn player, the the last game has a spectacular chess puzzle like ending. Download the pgn file of the last round here. You can then load it up on pretty much any chess software. Alternatively paste the following code into the window on this page.

[Event "WORLD YOUTH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2009 (U1"]

[Site "Antalya"]

[Date "2009.11.22"]

[Round "11.1"]

[White "Vaibhav, Suri"]

[Black "Cheng, Bobby"]

[Result "0-1"]

[WhiteElo "2344"]

[BlackElo "2202"]

[ECO "C05"]

[TimeControl "0"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Ndf3 cxd4 8.

cxd4 a5 9. Bd3 a4 10. a3 Nb6 11. Ne2 Na5 12. O-O g6 13. Qc2 Nb3 14. Rb1 Bd7

15. g4 Rc8 16. Nc3 Nc4 17. f5 Nxd4 18. Nxd4 Bc5 19. fxg6 Bxd4+ 20. Kh1 hxg6

21. Bxg6 Nxe5 22. Bh5 Bc6 23. Qe2 Bxc3 24. bxc3 d4+ 25. Kg1 Qd5 26. cxd4 Rxh5

27. gxh5 Nd3 0-1