http://clubtroppo.com.au Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:42:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As Krugman points out, the situation in the US is a pretty sad sight, with the lamest of lame duck presidents fiddling while the economy burns. This is a pretty ridiculous situation. Why not do what they do with buildings and start using them before they are officially ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/21/why-the-presidential-interregnum/ It seemed like a nice idea to me, but I got talked out of it - by Clive Crook - whose explanation of the problem I rather enjoyed. I think choosing Hillary would be a mistake. Not because of Bill. . . . they are not exactly chained together. Equally, if ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/21/hillary-for-secretary-of-state/ By the end of the 1950s American car makers were losing market share to cheap European imports. Volkswagen's Beetle, Renault's Dauphine and the Fiat 600 were all cheaper, more fuel efficient and easier to park than full-sized American cars. By 1959 imports had captured almost 11% of the ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/21/the-car-that-didnt-explode/ The Ships From Imagination to the Blank Page. A difficult crossing, the waters dangerous. At first sight the distance seems small, yet what a long voyage it is, and how injurious sometimes for the ships that undertake it. The first injury derives from the highly fragile nature of the merchandise that the ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/20/a-prose-poem-by-cavafy/ I've been reading an interesting - and much too long - paper by Paul David on the historical origins of 'open science (pdf).  It is fascinating and deserves a more serious post than this - but I don't have the time.  What's prompted this rush into cyberprint is finding a ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/20/the-origins-of-open-science/ A few weeks ago our usual uplink became flakey and we had to switch the AARnet for our server uplink. This meant we had to take ads offline. Those issues seem to have stabilised, and with my exams over, I felt it was time to switch back. http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/20/switched-uplinks-so-ads-are-back/ Set out by yours truly on BNET here. http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/20/some-impromptu-thoughts-on-the-economy/ The question arose on Organizations and Markets, which industries will be next to hold out their hands for bailout money? Will the massage and sexual favours industry be there in line? A column in Slate shed some light on this topic. It seems that the high end of the industry may ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/19/keeping-their-peckers-up/ From today's Fin: As had been the case a month earlier, the papers sent out to members of the Reserve Bank Board the Friday before their most recent meeting on Melbourne Cup Day contained a recommendation that the cash rate be lowered by 50 basis points. However, whereas RBA Governor Glenn Stevens ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/19/reading-the-rba-minutes/ Today's Financial Review column. Eminent economist Brad Delong despaired at news of George Bush’s second electoral victory four years ago: The American political system . . . appears incapable of setting out the central fiscal [or budgetary] policy issues in ways that give voters a chance to make informed judgments . . ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/18/independent-fiscal-policy/ Peter Boettke makes a point about the role of tariff protection in the US leading the transition from the Great Crash to the Great Depression. In the context of the Great Depression, one has to remember that after the stock market crash in 1929 market corrections were set in motion. ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/18/some-economic-commentary/ Nicholas Gruen received an email today from a distraught reader who couldn't sign up because his name is Irish. Consequently his email contains an apostrophe. Apostrophes are perfectly legal characters in email addresses. But Wordpress, for reasons known only to the bozos who write it, doesn't use any well-tested or well-known ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/16/another-modest-example-of-how-wordpress-is-total-rubbish/ 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.  Accordingly if ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/16/occasional-media-relations-work-anyone/ THE Victorian State Parliament has resumed sitting. In the front row there is an empty seat normally occupied by my husband, Theo. He remains in self-imposed exile, accused of a crime so awful that it is a struggle for me to fit inside my head that his name (and mine) is ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/16/extracts-from-an-open-letter-from-rita-theophanous/ I wrote about the Paul Woolley centre for capital market dysfunction a while back. It may not surprise you that Wolley is continuing to get attention, not least in Prospect Magazine.  Well worth a read. http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/16/finance-big-bloated-and-dangerous-part-two/ Many people have drawn false parallels between “protectionism” and “deficit hawks”. Whereas a retreat from protectionism generally causes pain to many people (and calls for a compensating device), a retreat from recession-driven deficits is an unmitigated bad thing for everyone. See piece by knzn in http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/11/deficit-hawks-a.html There is a desperate ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/16/need-for-more-fiscal-stimulus/ The Bishop of Harare, Rt Rev Dr Sebastian Bakare, will be in Australia from 20 November to 5 December with a circuit in NSW including Sydney, Nowra, Goulburn, Wagga Wagga, , Dubbo, Tamworth, Coffs Harbour, and Gosford. These matters are not on my normal beat but it seems that ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/16/a-visitor-from-zimbabwe/ Barrie Kosky is a big hit with people who are vastly more knowledgeable about theatre than me.  He's very big in Europe.  So maybe he's just the ticket.  My two exposures to his theatre have been strikingly similar.  At the end of something I went to at the Sydney Opera ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/15/another-thirty-minutes-with-barrie-kosky/ These are difficult times for liberals. The mood around the world is turning against them. Politicians find it easier to blame crazy economists and greedy managers for financial turmoil than to understand and fix their own mistakes. Free-marketers still have the evidence of economic history on their side, but they ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/15/capitalism-down-but-not-out/ Is there any left wing version of this? Is there any Australian version of it? Perhaps Alan Jones' malevolence comes close on the Australian right. Given the prominence of these guys, it's scary. Then again, perhaps it shouldn't be taken too seriously. Like 'World Championship Wrestling' which is ... http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/11/14/the-game-has-begun-obamas-recession/