Seen any great blog posts recently? Written something you want to share? I'm a bit tied up today so this week's missing link belongs to you. Post your links in the comments thread.
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From the Sydney Morning Herald this morning. Paris-style train plan for city Jacob Saulwick October 6, 2011 RAIL services on the north shore, inner west, Bankstown, Hurstville and north-west lines would operate as single-deck, high-frequency metro-style trains under a plan bei...
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I attended the Federal Government's Tax Forum in the last two days which was quite worthwhile. I was supposed to have two goes at the 'inner circle' where you got to talk, but one of these two goes was subject to Julia Gillard not wanting a go. Turned out - on the question of...
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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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The political fight over climate change policies continues to rage in our parliament, with the shadow minister for Climate Action apparently threatening a double dissolution of parliament if that is what it would take to repeal the current policies. The deeper question for ana...
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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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Many things are provided as public or collective goods that don't need to be. We don't need to provide hospitals or schools as public goods. We could provided them on a full choice, fee for service basis. But once we get to providing safety nets, minimum standards or free good...
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Martin Wolf has usually managed to moderate his inner interventionist. No longer, it seems. In his most recent column , he casts caution aside: "The time has come to employ this nuclear option [the printing press] on a grand scale." Not doing so, he says, would ensure a renewe...
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I think I listened to one of Martin Rees' Reith Lectures last year, but I listened to a couple yesterday and thought they were very good. I like a public lecture where the author skilfully throws of intimations of his own perspectives on life on the way to making his central p...
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Reading Tim Harford's excellent Adapt: Why success always starts with failure an idea occurred to me. He talks of the curse of the playpump - a photogenic aid strategy that appeals to celebrities and millionaires but which doesn't work. It's obvious that information about what...
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Clive Hamilton writes : Women's morality differs from men's. Feminist philosopher Carol Gilligan argues women are motivated more by care than duty, and inclined more to emphasise responsibilities than rights. They seek reconciliation through the exercise of compassion and nego...
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Well my track record isn't too flash. I predicted a Collingwood win last year for the first final - and they controlled the game and used their control to kick points rather than goals and then let the Sainters back in. Then I predicted a Sainters win in the replay, more out o...
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Cross posted from Inside Story Australians like to think of themselves as egalitarian, and in the past Australians also liked to believe that we had a relatively equal distribution of income and wealth. As early as the 1880s, visitors to Australia apparently remarked on the gr...
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Spoken like a true utilitarian: "If we really want the greatest happiness of the greatest number, we should be electing psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes", writes Roger McShane (via Will Wilkinson ). I love you so much ... that I'm going to ruin your life: Tigtog on the...
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The two finals for the oval ball codes do not just share a weekend this year. Two of the finalists - Collingwood in the AFL and Manly in the NRL - have the undisputed status of being "the team everyone likes to hate" in their respective leagues. Yet they are far from similar c...
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I was all set to fulminate against the evils of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in the wake of the Federal Court's verdict against Bolt and publisher News Ltd in Eatock v Bolt . And then it turns out the the Bolt case is not, after all, the perfect opportunity to...
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Here's the David Solomon Lecture I'll be giving at the Brisbane Museum of Modern Art in an hour's time. I Whether or not I can speak with sufficient insight to be worthy of giving the David Solomon lecture, I possess at least one qualification. I have known David for over thir...
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Someone familiar with Russian totalitarianism once asked how George Orwell understood it so well without ever having experienced it. It was pointed out that Orwell had been to Eton. Paul Krugman asks how could the guardians of economic orthodoxy all suddenly come out in favour...
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I've been struggling to articulate my objection to little strategic set pieces which appear before policy proposals. They typically take the salient challenges from conventional wisdom - for instance right now that we're facing potential environmental catastrophe, sovereign de...
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The devil in the title is our oldest enemy . Not the hoofed and horned one, but rent. Rent is gains in excess of what is required to mobilize a factor of production. The term comes from land as gains accrue to ownership with no relation to the merit or exertion of the owner. F...
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