A great column by Krugman. Shock and Awe For Americans who care deeply about Israel, one of the truly nightmarish things about the war in Lebanon has been watching Israel repeat the same mistakes the United States made in Iraq. It's as if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been po...
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Big Pharma is in a bind. A big bind. As James Surowiecki explains in this excellent piece there are some really big problems looming for pharmaceutical companies. And like the saying about banks, when the problems are big enough, they're our problems, not just the companies'....
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I went hunting for pieces by one of the worlds really good economic journalists, James Surowiecki of the New Yorker (author of the truly teriffic best seller The Wisdom of Crowds). This nice piece on net neutrality reminded me that I have seen the issue discussed around the pl...
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This is what it looks like. Only it's bigger - even bigger.
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I vaguely remember wondering if Skandar Keynes - who played Edmund Pevensee (the bad child who gets saved by the others) - was related when I saw the credits. Running into his name again in an unlikely context here , I asked Google if he was related to JM Keynes, which he is -...
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The following opinion piece first appeared in New Matilda. Comments welcome. Many economists are fond of saying that a country can have relatively high employment or relatively low inequality - but not both. The argument runs like this. Good employment outcomes can only be ach...
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An interesting piece by Stephen Koukoulas on the extent to which our inflation numbers are being driven lower than they otherwise would be by the falling price of Chinese imports. It's over the fold and was reported in Crikey and on Henry Thornton The focus of most analysis of...
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One for Nicholas! As soon as I could safely toddle My parents handed me a Model; My brisk and energetic pater Provided the accelerator. My mother, with her kindly gumption, The function guiding my consumption; And every week I had from her A lovely new parameter, With lots of...
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One of the less attractive qualities of Melbourne is its inferiority complex vis a vis Sydney. I know that to my parents' generation they're very different cities, but I've always been skeptical that they're that different. But there are clearly differences. It may be a clich©...
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This match really looks like being the crux match of the Wallabies' 2006 campaign. Perhaps if we do win here then the final Bledisloe will get all the headlines, and if the Boks get their act together then winning in the Republic has traditionally been a hurdle for Australian...
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Yesterday's Crikey mail included a comment by Michael Pascoe about the seemingly endless stories about corporate shonks being able to retain profits from their dodgy dealings. He writes: One should always be wary of suggesting another legal penalty to Laura Norder-crazed polit...
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Long time reader, first time poster. Ken has kindly invited me to join the exalted ranks of posters at Club Troppo, so I thought I might briefly say hi and introduce myself. Floating in a google cache somewhere under a pseudonym is the remains of my former blog, which featured...
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D.H.LAWRENCE :GENIUS OR JOKE? A paper delivered at the annual general meeting of the D H Lawrence Society at the Julian Ashton Art School annexe at Georges Heights, Mosman on Sunday 20 July 2006. My theme is from Joseph Conrad and his tale, The Shadow Line: Only the young, he...
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I once put on a comedy sketch at my hall of residence - Burgmann College - whereupon the staff tutor, Robin Bell said to me. "That was good Nick. Surprisingly good". Ditto this piece by P.J. O'Rourke on Adam Smith. It draws contemporary lessons from Smith without doing anachro...
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People speak about their 'bullshit detector'. I reckon I've got one of those as well as a 'preciousness detector'. Where bullshitting is a particularly (though obviously not exclusively) male vice, preciousness is a particularly (though obviously not exclusively) female one. W...
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Curtesy of a piece in Crikey today I discovered a terrific writer. I guess it won't be news to many Troppodillians but in the course of making some 'what is the world coming to' comments about the media (to which I can only respond 'what indeed, and what did you expect?') she...
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It seems hard to believe but the 2006 NRL season is already at round 20. Only 7 games to go before the finals. And what an interesting final 7 rounds it is going to be. The only side that does not have a chance (mathematically) of making the final eight is South Sydney. There...
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This is Tony Harris's latest column. But I wanted to add by way of introduction that Tony removed a great joke from it - which I've resurrected for Troppodillians. Namely "The one good thing about Phillip Ruddock's recent setbacks is that the egg on his face improves his pallo...
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Courtesy of Slashdot, World Firefox Day calls for little old people like me - and you - to spread the word about Firefox - the open source webbrowser. It works well and has a range of features like tabbed browsing that are terrific. Microsoft is trying to catch up and seems to...
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Rex Ringshot, nice guy, one time solo blogger , now blogmeister for Labor First, a self styled 'grass roots' attempt to renew an ALP that could do with some renewing, has asked me to draw your attention to a Labor First function to launch their 'good branch handbook' on the 4t...
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I've always been interested in the motives which drive people to achievements of various kinds and of the sociological and rhetorical descriptions thereof. Keynes would have described his own motives as public spirited, though I don't think he would have denied the gratificati...
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When I last pointed to something I'd read which was of interest Rafe wrote "Thanks for Club Troppo Ken, where would we be without access to these great pieces that other people find. Thanks Nicholas!" Well, thanks Rafe. Here's another great piece in today's Age - on the relati...
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The following letter was published in the Canberra Times today. I sent it because I am very concerned about what is happening to political freedom in Australia. Am I being paranoic or do others share my concerns? Text of letter follows. Both Brian Toohey ("Eroding State power"...
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Despite the thousands of words written about the latest Costello versus Howard circus, I'm still at a loss to understand why it actually happened. One minute Costello was giving every appearance of waiting contentedly for the PM's retirement announcement, to the extent that ma...
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Well, were to start? With an expletive you say? Been there done that! More productively, let's start with the quick wrap: First, the media seem to have taken leave of their senses, and frankly I think that a lot of the criticism directed at the Wallabies by the Sydney papers w...
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A month or so ago I watched a video of an excellent and terrifying report on 4 Corners on youth suicide focusing on the story of one young boy who was good at everything, loved by all, with lots of friends. He got prodigious scores. Then at the age of about 16 he discovered th...
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Some of you will remember that John Singleton made a fortune by setting out to irritate his TV audience with his ads, the 'where d'ya git it' ad being the paradigm case. I listen to the ABC's Philosopher's Zone program not because it's particularly good (it's not) but because...
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Spam email is the bane of my life. At one time a few years ago I was naive enough to leave my real CDU email address when commenting on blogs. Of course, it was harvested by the spammers and the number of spam emails I get in my work inbox has been spiralling upwards ever sinc...
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Looking at the debate on my earlier thread on 'moral rights' I reached for a column I wrote early last year on counterfeit goods. I thought it was posted here previously, but couldn't find it. So here it is. I think it's relevance to Ken's comment on my post is clear. I can't...
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Magnificent n'est pas? From Cassini. Explanation: Soft hues, partially lit orbs, a thin trace of the ring, and slight shadows highlight this understated view of the majestic surroundings of the giant planet Saturn. Looking nearly back toward the Sun, the robot Cassini spacecra...
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Who is this man and what is he up to? The French have a doctrine of the 'moral rights' of an artist. I don't know many of the details but it protects them against certain kinds of bowdlerisation of their works and (I think) is also the platform on which artists generates some...
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I remember an email which Rory Robertson sent out to his mailing list a short while after the Great Event when everything changed and it became appropriate to torture and detain people for years without trial in that war we're fighting against the Geneva Conventions - sorry -...
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Those sixties were fun! A while back I posted on Rolf Harris's amazing song Sun Arise. Well in the process of doing so I downloaded a couple of additional files which intrigued me. One was called "Rolf Harris with The Beatles - Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.mp3" and I've appende...
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Big Brother is unquestionably garbage. It adds nothing to our understanding of a complex world. Nor does it enrich our lives with stories of timeless quality. By all accounts, it is an excruciating blancmange of meaningless banter, Benny Hill-style ribaldry and, now, low-level...
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From the 'obvious when pointed out' department comes this idea for powering ships. I've thought about this myself for ages, and wondered why sails were not put on ships as a matter of course. I presume they wouldn't add a lot of power, but surely modest sails would pay for the...
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I remember being at the national press club at about the time that Paul Keating had announced a further sell-down of the Commonwealth Bank. The trajectory was virtually the same as Telstra. From memory C1 was an initial float of 30% of the equity (ostensibly to 'pay for' the t...
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Given the failure of Dr Troppo to become a regular on this site, (he always seemed a bit dodgy) I thought I'd ask a question for light relief. Why are those shoes with canvas tops and rubber sole called Plimsolls (in Britain anyway)? The answer, and an interesting story from t...
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With federalism hotting up as an issue below the fold and here is Rory Robertson's piece from the Oz on how the states have not had the revenue windfall that they're supposed to have had from the GST. While I agree with Rory's argument, one thing that should be mentioned is th...
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Well, although for family reasons I am obliged to say that the soccer world cup is far from over, nothing stops me from pointing out that a) it is stating the obvious to say that the refereeing in that game is an absurd relic of the pre-television age, b) I would rather watch...
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Yes folks! Guusball is over and back to the real thing. Melbourne hosts the third State of Origin with the series at one game a piece. Will we be marvelling the mighty magic of the Maroons? Or will be saying bravo as the Blues return to their belligerent best? The beer is cold...
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(Well not really). I heard an excellent talk by him on ABC radio perspective last Friday and emailed him requesting the text - since the ABC only had the audio when I looked. (It's there now) He indicated that it was from his book and sent me the link . It's a good short peice...
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Peter Botsman who runs Australian Prospect sent subscribers an email a day or so ago inviting people to check out and buy aboriginal paintings. Some of them looked good to me so I offered to post them up on Troppo for him - if you're interested please click on the relevant lin...
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Paul Monk's essays have been gracing the pages of the AFR friday review for a while now. I read them when I see them and am rarely disappointed. But I particularly liked this review essay on the biography of Bertrand Russell by Ray Monk (I don't konw if he's any relation). It'...
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Here's a fascinating abstract from the National Bureau of Economic Research (US) Working Paper. Investor expropriation¢â¬âalso known as self-dealing or tunneling¢â¬âtakes such forms as excessive executive compensation and perquisites, transfer pricing, insider trading, self-...
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In what can become a regular feature with your help, welcome to the first 'pun watch'. Please feel free to put some of your favourite puns in the comments section below. Meanwhile, Chris Caton takes out the inaugural award. Not necessarily a truly great pun, but it tickled my...
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Courtesy of Slashdot (I think) I came across this interesting article reporting arguments that string theory has been the death of physics, or rather that it has basically taken it down a blind alley. Though many disciplines have suffered from 'physics envy', none less than ec...
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Last night was Cracker Night in Darwin, when every bogan fucktard blasts the hell out of their neighbourhood until 3 or 4 in the morning. It's also V8 Supercars weekend, when the self-same fucktards spend all day watching gas-guzzling hotted-up family cars circling round and r...
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I must confess I've been somewhat baffled by Fretilin claims over the last few days that former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri enjoys an immunity from prosecution as a parliamentarian. There certainly isn't any such immunity in the Timor Leste Constitution . The only relevant pr...
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Here's an interesting abstract from the excellent Brookings-AEI joint centre on regulation suggesting that if real estate markets were regulated nationally to provide transparent listings, the real estate market - and in particular the market in real estate agents would be muc...
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I had a free Village pass to the movies which expired tonight so went to see Wah Wah . I don't recommend it - but then again it's not bad. Like a lot of movies these days it has excellent acting. It's consciously serious and 'art house' rather than going for the ratings. It's...
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New Matilda is running a fairly standard piece [subscription required] about the inadequacies of GDP as a measure of wellbeing. It all goes off in the predictable directions - we're getting richer but no happier, we're getting more selfish, less community minded, we're running...
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