Six years ago I posted the note below as part of Abbotsford Convent. I'm doing so again today to raise money again. Only there's already an offer on the table to match anyone's donation. I'm doing the same for any donation you might make, so for every dollar you donate, I dona...

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[caption id="attachment_34804" align="alignleft" width="1920"] Thanks to @followbenwhite for making this photo available freely on @unsplash 🎁[/caption] Troppodillians will know that I organise a discount Crikey subscription every year. But this year I'm also supporting Inkl ,...

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[caption id="attachment_34359" align="alignright" width="460"] Yuan Yuan (YY) Liu. Doing her bit for a better world[/caption] This June I was approached by Yuan Yuan Liu who wanted to discuss funding of scholarships for disadvantaged people with me "as you are the best economi...

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From Twitter . Till now I’ve organisd a TROPPO GROUP CRIKEY SUBSCRIPTION for around 50 I advertised I was doing renewals on Twitter and Troppo a month ago and got about 1 or 2 takers Now someone else wants a renewal If I can get some serious buy-in I’ll rinse and repeat If not...

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If these kinds of things existed in my country, I wouldn’t need to be running for President to fix everything up. Elizabeth Warren The only thing that didn't leave a nasty taste in my mouth last year was the food. Barry the hypothetical troll from last year (He's been debunked...

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What's at stake in monetary policy? The most obvious answer is "jobs and growth" – to coin a phrase. The idea is that, by meeting its target of low and steady (2-3%) inflation, the RBA tries also to keep us as close as practicable to full employment. But, as we've realised sin...

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If only I'd been alive to get to one of these events. Nelson Mandela Last year's second dinner was perhaps only matched by Lincoln's Second Inaugural. Nicholas Gruen Lying Nick Gruen is a total lightweight. TOTALLY FAKE ECONOMIST. Begged me to let him clean the ashtrays on The...

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If you'd like to be in this year's submission to Crikey for a group submission, please email me on ngruen AT the domain formerly known as gmail (and still known as gmail). And please spread the news far and wide using all the means – inane and otherwise – at your disposal.

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https://soundcloud.com/britishacademy/the-redescription-of-enlightenment Last night, having read a fantastic essay (pdf) by the great historian of revolutionary and pre-revolutionary America Bernard Bailyn, I made my way to the lecture series in honour of Isaiah Berlin where t...

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Troppo is getting ready for the singularity. That's the period during which Ken, Don, David and I put our feet up and Troppo just runs itself with KenBot, DonBot, DavidBot and MeBot doing all the work. Commenters put their feet up too and just pig out on scones, cream and zero...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzvOjcGifOM&t=12s&spfreload=10 My 60th Birthday party was a blast. So as not to wait another decade till the next one, I thought I’d do it annually. But to disguise the naked egotism of it I decided to raise money for a Good Cause. And the cause...

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Some time ago I was written to by an Australian University asking me to become an Adjunct Professor in Journalism. This is an honorary position so, (paradoxically) it's not much of an honour! In any event, this is how the letter I received begins. The University’s 2012-2016 St...

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="778"] Exactly why George Pell's face should come up on Googling "Crikey" is anyone's guess, but I for one would like people to stop being mean to him. After all, he didn't ask to travel First Class representing the world's religion of po...

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Economics is famous for its idea - it's better to call it a methodological assumption of some economics - that self-interest is what drives people. But something just as evident about people - and much more unique to our species - is people's tendencies to form stable patterns...

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I am seeking a lawyer to run an Adverse Action case connected to the recent Fair Work Commission verdict that found systematic breaches of procedures and procedural fairness in the University of Queensland's actions against me following my research on racial attitudes in Brisb...

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Lateral Economics has had occasion to compile a list of free, freemium and cheap services to help run your one person micro or several person small business. I post it here for your interest and because it may be useful to you. The latest service I discovered to my delight was...

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I have a reminder from a dentist to go see him so he can check his handiwork putting a cap on one of my teeth. From memory this took four visits and cost several thousand dollars. He seems like a good dentist. Anyway, I'm sure he's following good practice in sending me the rem...

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The people at Abbotsford Convent asked me to pen a 'shout' for their fundraising campaign. I'd recently been on a tour of the place, and though I'd been there before and wandered around curiously, on the tour I was transported by a Big Idea, though those who've read my stuff h...

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Lamest April Fools' Day joke so far today . There must be better efforts out there. Just post 'em as you find 'em. Please. I could use a bit of ROFLMAO today. Update (9:41 EDST) : I wish I'd taken a screen shot. The current version of the linked post seems to me to have had so...

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Well here we are at the beginning of another year trying to get things in order. And I've got two bits of spring cleaning (OK so seasonal metaphors are dominated by northern hemisphere geography - I guess I'm doing summer cleaning). Having been slack in not having my checkup f...

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I know three people who say they're quite strongly affected by the weather. They dislike rainy, overcast or muggy days and like fine ones that are not too hot or cold. Me? Well I agree, but while I can enjoy a nice day, I have no feeling of a bad day weighing me down. I've jus...

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I'm heading off overseas with my 15 year old son. Turns out the cheapest way to get to the US, where we're spending most of our time is via China. And, in case you're interested and didn't know of it, Flightfox is a great way to pay people who know what they're doing to do lot...

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Dear Nokia, I hear you have fallen on hard times. I have two product suggestions: 1. Make a mobile that is purely a telephone 2. Make a phone in the shape of a pen The two could well be combined. 1. Pure phone There are countless millions of older people who would appreciate a...

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Malware is slowing down my Mac :( For a month or so I had a small Bing sponsored magnifying glass appear over all graphics. Then it went. But now, whenever I'm on a news-site I get a 'Discovery Bar' appearing at the bottom of my screen. It only appears in Chrome which I use as...

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Our language is changing all the time and is probably changing faster than at any time in its history. We now tweet things and Google them and have LOLs AFAIK. In any event there are some things our language is stubborn about. It doesn't like innovation deep in its operating s...

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This is an email I received earlier today from Karen Mahlab - and I offered to reproduce it here for the delectation and contribution of Troppodillians everywhere. The winner of the competition will be flown steerage to London for a weekend at Buckingham Palace with the royal...

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Economists love tradeoffs. Indeed, their basic model of the world breaks down where such tradeoffs don't occur. Lucky for them since the world really is full of tradeoffs. If you want more carrots, you'll have to do with fewer of something else. Here they're substitutes. But,...

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As some readers may have noticed (assuming you can access us at all), the performance of Troppo is still distinctly dodgy despite Jacques shifting from his original choice of Wordpress web host. Its name was WpEngine and it provided next to no service during the day in Austral...

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I just came across an impressive philanthropic venture that nevertheless felt the need to articulate its 'values'. I won't go into it at any length here, but the more I think of formal articulations of values the less impressed I am. So many organisations do it that perhaps it...

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The 1950s saw Australia's Italian Renaissance which now leaves its traces in the tourist traps of Lygon St. Well they're not too bad, but if you wanted to go to a good Italian Restaurant you'd have to know what you were doing to get a really good one in Lygon St. But things ha...

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Regular Troppodillians will have observed occasional attempts by me to get something regular going on Troppo regarding films. None have come to anything. Anyway, I've just completed a couple of deadlines and have a couple of free film passes obtained last year which only last...

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I've been asked to pontificate on this subject on national radio on Sunday night. My main message will be that yes, manufacturing will be smaller than now and will generally follow the trend it's been following and that that's fine. There's not much that's special about manufa...

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Having promised myself that I'd buy a Mac when they brought out a netbook sized MacBook Air, I did just that about nine months ago. I got forced out of Macdom many yearsafter I began on a Mac in 1986 I've been meaning to write a review of my experience FWIW but haven't got rou...

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This year my accountant got sent accounts which as far as I could see involved writing the totals of a spreadsheet into the tax return and pressing 'send'. OK, it might have been a bit more than that, I don't really know, but what bugs me is that the documents she got indicate...

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I'll be making a few overseas trips in the next little while so will be catching up on some movie watching. I've just discovered 475 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc. so that's been a boon. However unfortunately a lot of them are on YouTube and/o...

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In the spirit of an earlier post addressing the French Film Festival, I'm now repeating my bleg, this time for the German Film Festival . Just to recap, this is an extract of what I said there . Film festivals are great things. Yet in my case I see them come, think “I’d like t...

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Bad back, sad sack. Yes, folks that's an inane family saying. Which brings me to the point of this post which is to say that my back is killing me. I have a bit of a scoleosis but am told by those in the know that it isn't a big problem or explanation for my back ache - which,...

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My blogging time over the last few days has been absorbed by creating a "social media presence" for my employer CDU Law School. It involves not only a blog but also Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn facilities. It's been something of a struggle to convince the powers-tha...

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Peach Home Loans gives part of its commission each year for each of its borrowers. Last year we gave money to an appeal for African Women as I know one of the people involved. We're likely to do the same again this year, but we're also sending out cards and one can nominate pa...

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I've been musing about the possibilities of updating Troppo's "look and feel" (although I haven't yet caucused with Nicholas and Don about it). What I have in mind is a more "newspaper-ish" arrangement, probably a bit like Larvatus Prodeo with the front page displaying a featu...

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I am about to make a trans-Pacific flight. Moreover I am doing this on a third world American Airlines plane that I am reliably informed does not have individual movies on demand. This is a fairly serious problem but of course to any Troppodillian it is more of an opportunity...

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Steven Jobs is perhaps the best CEO of the last hundred years. This may reflect my ignorance of other CEOs - which is bordering on the comprehensive - but my reasoning goes like this this: In identifying extraordinary talent, one has to guard against luck. How do we decide bet...

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Skype spamming seems to be on the up and up. I had about six people yesterday telling me they wanted me to add them to their contacts. I just got my second today. When I tell them I'm busy, they all seem fine with that, and don't keep bugging me - or most don't. But most want...

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A while ago I blegged in search of a new smart phone. Well disposed to Android I thought I'd buy Samsung Gallaxy II S which had had rave reviews . Anyway, some people expressed curiosity about how things would end up, but I ended up taking Neerav Bhatt's advice on the thread a...

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I'm thrilled to say that we raised over $30,000 for Africa. Troppo itself initially raised a little over $2,000 to which would have been matched the contribution I'd promised, but in the last day I also said to the fund raisers that if they could get some more funds in by refe...

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My first smartphone was an Apple iPhone. I'm rather proud of being a technology laggard - it's nice to have others at the bleeding edge. Anyway, just before doing the Govt 2.0 Taskforce I thought I'd better get a bit hip and get a smart-phone and only one appealed - the iPhone...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIDo1Oug6JY&feature=player_embedded Last Christmas, instead of sending gifts to its clients, the multi-billion dollar conglomerate that is Peach Home Loans sent them donations to Women for Women in Africa in lieu thereof. I found out about it bec...

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I'm trying to find the above mentioned person for a one off consulting job - for a friend's work, not Lateral Economics. Any suggestions?

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As the graph below shows, the proportion of men in full-time work has fallen over time. Every recession the proportion falls sharply and in each recovery it fails to bounce back to its pre-recession level. When I show people this graph they often offer explanations -- it's pop...

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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="640" caption="Cartoon purloined following Patrick's excellent advice @ comment 8. "] [/caption] As I've said at least once before, my own approach to economics could be described as looking for $100 bills on the pavement. I think they'r...

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When debating policy and strategy within firms for instance, the debate takes place as if the discourse will get us to truth or falsity. In fact our decision making is riven with biases, so an alternative to this would be to look for one's biases and to try to counteract them...

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I'm hunting round for a Canberra gerontologist for my 88 year old Mum. Any suggestions and reasons for those suggestions would be gratefully received. Very gratefully received.

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Adobe and me only barely get on. Their readers keep crashing. Anyway they've recently upgraded their reader and in chrome it displays pdf files very much as if they are html files - rather than bringing up the clunky old reader within the browser. All very nice. But there's a...

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For five years now (ages in blogosphere terms) Club Troppo and On Line Opinion have sponsored a showcase of Australian independent blogging, which we call Best Blog Posts of <year>’. With Christmas fast approaching, the time has come to launch ‘Best Blog Posts of 2010?. On Lin...

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I'm looking for a good web designer who can integrate a web presence with Facebook and Twitter and who also has a working familiarity with higher education learning management systems and in particular Blackboard. Can someone point me towards a suitable candidate?

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It is a nice thing that when you 'uninstall' a program on Windows, if you want to keep all your information, your profile etc, uninstall uninstalls the program but leaves lots of details about your profile in shape. It is not a nice thing however if you don't want this to happ...

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Yes folks as part of our relentless drive to leverage our world class infrastructure and skills to bring our readers to their personal delight point - and beyond, Subho Banerjee of PM&C emailed me (amongst others to tell me of the opportunities below). He assured me that anyon...

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I was a bit disappointed when we were in front and looked like winning by a point - at around the 25 minute mark? Why? Because my son was overseas on a school trip and he would have loved to have been at the Grand Final. So I was hoping St Kilda would have a Barry Breen to kic...

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Readers will know that I'm not a big fan of Tiger Airlines . Still, sometimes they offer the best time of travel or such large savings that you are tempted. And tempted I've been to travel back from Canberra to Melbourne tomorrow night. Having reflected on how stupid it if of...

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One of the more extraordinary things in life is the amount you can be charged by your mobile carrier on 'international roaming'. It's completely extraordinary with amazing stories of people downloading serious amounts of data - eg for a movie and getting back to find bills for...

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Hi all, I'm occasionally after people to help me make diagrams look flasher or more compelling than I have the talent, tools or time to do. I have one such task right now. It's probably not more than an hour's work right now but if you can do a good job of it I'm bound to have...

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Yes folks, it's on again! Well it's probably not on, but someone wants me to pontificate on tax reform as one of a range of issues in some 'vision' pieces. I get to paint my own picture. But I wanted to throw things out to the crowd. What things did Henry get right, what wrong...

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On a recent visit to Washington, or 'D.C.' as our aficionados (and efficionados) call it, I had my iPhone stolen. So I need a new smart phone. Here are my impressions of the market and I'd be happy to be corrected and/or have my knowledge extended with a view to deciding what...

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Andy Foulds is obviously a clever fellow. This image of economists is not new. I don't know when he did it but it's been doing the rounds for ages. Yesterday I had a great lunch with an economist and was amazed to be told that he didn't know of it. So for those who don't know...

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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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Down here in Victoria (well I'm not there right now but will return in late Jan) things have turned nasty as the Indian Government keeps pointing out when we kill another Indian. I'm not as concerned as some other people as to whether it's racially based violence. It's violenc...

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I'm dreadful at Christmas Cards. I don't think much of signing hundreds and having them sent off by a secretary, so if I do write them I try to write a bit on them, otherwise I can't see the point. I'm dead late this year again - though with a bit of an excuse - and the cards...

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My particular problem at the moment is which chess clock app to download. There are oodles of them. I've also downloaded a business card reader, but where do I find out which of what is often many competing apps are the best ones?

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One of the things that surprises me is that - with Google providing cloud competitors for Microsoft's other products, they don't provide a database, or what is the same thing only tailored, a simple small business accounting package. OK putting Microsoft in there is a bit of a...

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Does anyone else have the problem that their Google reader occasionally just loads up a little more than the Google reader logo and then, while it proudly dispalays a sign against a dull yellow background saying "loading" it does anything but. It just sits there. This has happ...

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Google docs is a Good Thing. It's not a great substitute for a rich client word processor or a spreadsheet, but both the word processing and spreadsheet parts of Google docs are great to have something simple in a cloud. Peach Home Loans and Lateral Economics operate from home...

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Australia's economy may be officially in recession, but Lateral Economics at least is doing its bit to reduce the effects. In addition to the research assistant Nicholas advertised for earlier this week, we also need someone with some web design and Wordpress backend experienc...

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Well it was a great success - last time I mentioned that I was after a research assistant I got about twelve applications in the space of a couple of days. Most of them were very good. Since then three people have done occasional work for us mostly very well. In the case of ea...

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Here is a blog post devoted to what you Londonophiles have always wanted to do - share with Troppodillians your deep knowledge of London. Ill be in London from the 31st of March to the 2nd or 3rd of April and wondered if any Troppodillians can suggest a place to stay. Im tryin...

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I'm doing some research on IP and particularly on patents. As in other areas of economics we tend to debate IP according to well arranged protocols. There's a 'pro' and an 'anti' or a 'more' and a 'less' party with each accusing the other of not getting it. There's lots legiti...

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In a little over a week I'll be heading for Europe and back via Bejing. So I need around 40 hours of really good iPodian entertainment. Suggestions are gratefully received. In the spirit of reciprocity, I can tell you that " Not without you " on life matters is a wonderful thi...

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I have separate contracts for all of the above. Sounds daft to me. I note that TPG now has an 'all you can eat' mobile for $59.95 and it's an ISP and provides me with VoIP. But I get mobile broadband from Three, mobile phone from Optus and a basic phone connection from Telstra...

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My posting of a request for people interested in providing research assistance was the most successful bit of job advertising I've ever done.* So why not a little more? Peach Home Loans needs constant media relations work, and its hard to find people who are good at it. Accord...

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In an earlier colum n I outlined the problems of the cognitively challenged 'Tania'. Tania is not cognitively challenged because she's stupid. She is cognitively challenged because impossible demands are made on her cognitive faculties. That's what I argued with regard to the...

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Meet Nikita McBride. She's the daughter of friends of mine - Ken McBryde and Stephanie Smith who are the co-founders of the wonderful architecture firm Innovarchi . Nikita has recently been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes type 1. In January 2009 she's participating in the Juv...

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Someone who used to do some 'spot' research assistance for Lateral Economics has got a new job which means he can no longer do it. Anyone interested in doing occasional research assistasnce should drop me an email at ngruen AT lateraleconomics DOT com and after that add a DOT...

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Andrew Leigh writes to me and through to me to you gentle Troppodillians: With my ANU colleague Alison Booth, I'm presently doing some research on racial attitudes in Australia. As part of that, Alison and I are hoping to get a sample of Australians to do an Implicit Associati...

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I recently bought an ultra-portable computer which seems pretty good. It's an ASUS U2E. The installation of Windows Vista has given me new reasons to hate Microsoft, but I won't go on about that here. (I have uninstalled Office 2007 as 2003 is better and I'm seriously consider...

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Jacques is advising us that we should upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress. He may well be right, but Nicholas and I are nervous/remaining to be convinced. Apparently there are some potential security issues with the version we're currently running. Our concern is that j...

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I've been in touch with the US vendor of laptops Portableone from whom I purchased a Fujitsu laptop about four years ago. They're a good crew so if you want a laptop, buy it from them and you're likely to save money on the inflated prices here. They don't like the Toshiba's sc...

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Some loyal Troppodillians might recall a post of mine from the dim dark past celebrating my having downloaded a great track which was the Beatles singing 'Tie me kangaroo down, sport' with Rolf Harris, complete with specially written lyrics. "Don't ill treat me pet dingo, Ring...

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Anyone who wants to participate in Troppo's bulk subscription to Crikey! should email me on nicholas at gruenxxx dot com dot au - and remove those 'x's. If you subscribed last year you should get an email from me. Depending on numbers the cost will be as follows. 3 5 Annual Su...

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I'm having to do a lot more travel, so I want to buy an ultralight PC. I think I want to buy a Toshiba Portege R500. Here's a review . I'm also wondering what options I should choose. I understand it's available with a 120 Gig hard drive or a 64 K solid state memory if you pay...

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I am always happy to assist readers in distress. Recently I received this letter. Dear Dr Troppo, Despite a protective screen of refractor rays, my gulch has been invaded by a small army of talking tin cans with sink plungers for hands. The leader of these metallic looters say...

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Peach's longest serving employee is pregnant! Isn't that good! Well I think so and so does she. But she now has a problem. She's a vegetarian because she hates eating meat (not because she's strict about it on principle). But she's very very tired a lot of the time given her p...

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