Hi all, I was going to take a breather from the crikey annual group subscription this year, but couldn't help myself. I'm beleaguered with people asking me if I'm doing it again. Because it's not hard to do I'm doing it again. Please email requests to join in with your name an...
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Two years ago I posted a bleg asking for tips on buying an ultralight laptop. I ended up getting an ASUS U2e which has not been particularly good. Anyway, it may have been Vista that was the problem but it's a pretty underpowered machine - with a 1.07 Ghz Intel Core-Duo proces...
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A nice piece on how political coverage gets sucked onto the nihilism of race-calling. HT Brad Delong: George Packer: The Top of Our Game : David Broder had a devastatingly unremarkable assessment of Sarah Palin in the Post the other day. Her speech at the Tea Party convention...
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The New Yorker has just produced this profile of Paul Krugman . In it we read the following passage. It isnt that freshwater types believe that actual people are perfectly rationalthey just believe that making that assumption enables a more rigorous economics than is possible...
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It is surely elementary that the collapse of the financial system in 2008 caused a huge downturn in private debt and that public debt was forced to get into the act to help prop up demand. If one combines the sum of private and public debt, Australia will look high relative to...
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In December 2009, the official ABS Labour Price Index was running at about 3% per annum. This represents a continued trend decline in private sector wage rates (although less so for the public sector). Wage rates refect the subdued labour market. In September 2009, about 26% o...
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Regarding the Australian government's attitude to the war in Afghanistan, Hugh White had this to say on Lateline last night: I think they understand perfectly well that continuing to support the United States there is fairly important for our alliance management, but I don't d...
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One needs a full cost-benefit analysis (including all externalities such as secondary effects n health premiums) to form an intelligent view on whether to sell Medibank Private. In the meantime, it makes no sense to say that reducing the level of government debt quickly is ess...
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The Sydney Morning Herald has been trumpeting a study they supported by on the future of Sydney's public transport and urban structure. Beneath the being overly pleased with themselves, with we're above petty politics harrumphing there is a genuine effort to talk about the pol...
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Well it's not that beautiful, but then lots of bird's tails are not that beautiful. But make a few simple evolutionary rules and somewhere amazing things happen. Like this website on accommodation in Chester that thinks that if it republishes Paul Frijter's post on engineering...
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By Maggie Koerth-Baker . HT: Peter Martin
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I'm occasionally asked by local ABC Morning Show host Leon Compton to be a panellist on a Friday segment titled "3 Big Questions". It involves three local media or superannuated political luminaries musing about political and sometimes more general issues of the day. I was on...
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I always suspected that Tony Abbott was a sheep in wolf's clothing, a bit of a wimp when it came to the crunch. Now it's been confirmed. Abbott reckons that Peter Garrett should be charged with industrial manslaughter over the ceiling insulation debacle. But the truth is far m...
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As I travel the country preaching the great things about Web 2.0 it's great to see a really interesting Web 2.0 app being launched from sunny Melbourne. Well actually I guess it was launched while its creator was living in Sydney but he's just moved down to Melbourne where he...
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In addition to Chris Lloyd's contribution below, several other bloggers have already published posts on last week's Federal Court decision ( Larrikin Music Publishing Pty Ltd v EMI Songs Australia Pty Limited ) about copyright breach in Men at Work's iconic pop anthem "Down Un...
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In 1934 an Aussie school teacher wrote a little ditty about Kookaburras that was enjoyed and sung by school kids for decades. She made pretty much no money out of it all, as it was, and is, still legal for kids to sing a song at school without paying the composer, thank the lo...
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Posted in Music, Media, Law
Ever since I read his marvellous The Truth about Markets I've been a fan of John Kay - an economist who doesn't like to get too far away from reality. He's also not a zealot for any particular view of the world, except that pathetic kind of vagueness and pluralism to which I a...
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The global warming debate has morphed into Mondo Bizzaro. Rudd is capable of mounting a succinct and persuasive explanation of his emissions trading scheme but chooses not to do so, preferring to shift the electoral focus to subjects the pollsters tell him are more unequivocal...
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While we're waiting for Ken's dissertation on the ethics of forcing minors to watch the Prime Minister's appearance on qanda , here are a few comments on the program itself. [Update: more from Mark Bahnisch ] Kevin Rudd and Tony Jones looked like twins, both prematurely white,...
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Remember me? That grumpy old bloke who once obsessively spewed forth half-baked opinions here at Troppo? After being AWOL for some time a comeback of sorts seems imminent. I'm experiencing fitful urges to post, usually on very silly topics like whether Jen may have committed r...
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It is relatively easy for economists to debate efficiency issues e.g. when we discuss privatisation. But when we are discussing a host of particular economic issues - such as the distribution effects of labour market deregulation, or the role of health care, or the role of inv...
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The February edition of The Monthly is out, including Robert Manne's eagerly-awaited 'Comment' on Windschuttle . Windschuttle attacked Manne in January's Quadrant , saying that he should stand down from his position at La Trobe, then on Monday went on ABC radio's Counterpoint...
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I have been arguing here that America is different to other countries, and in particular that the right wing party (one can hardly call it conservative) is different. Here's some hard evidence. It is as Markos Moulitsas says, tragic. These are the attitudes of self identified...
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Serving it up to the hyperconnected generation I read The Dumbest Generation over Christmas, though it came out in 2008. It's a very satisfying polemic, as well as thoroughly researched -- to the extent that I'm competent to judge -- and its author Mark Bauerlein is a cut abov...
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William Hardy Wilson is a fairly well regarded Australian architect of the 20th century and is such usually afforded a few paragraphs in biographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias. These will mention in passing a few well regarded buildings and pay brief mention to an unreal...
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