Shorten and the cake

Three things emerged from qanda last night . The first was that Malcolm Turnbull is out of control, and thinks he can undermine Tony Abbott at will. So there's some fun in store. The other two are closely related. One is that, whatever Bill Shorten learned in his MBA at the Me...

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Posted in Uncategorized, Politics - national, Economics and public policy, Climate Change

Cutting through the bill of rights hyperbole

Like Canadian UQ legal academic James Allan , former NSW Premier Bob Carr is a vehement long-term opponent of a bill or charter of rights for Australia (or any State). A post on Carr's blog only last week confirms that his attitude has not mellowed: More judge-made law a fine...

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Posted in Law

A tough one

White to play G Grigore vs Holzke 25. ? See game for solution. about our puzzles

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Posted in Chess

Superstar CEOs: It doesn't surprise me and I doubt it surprises you . . .

From the NBER Reporter . One example of compensation data enabling much broader research is my research on "Superstar CEOs" with Tate. 3 The title refers to the fact that, in terms of compensation, but also in terms of status and press coverage, managers in the United States f...

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Posted in Education

To price but not to tax

In one episode of Yes Minister Hacker says something like "It seems the civil service just prevents governments from implementing the sovereign promises the government has made to the people" to which Bernard says "Well somebody has to". I'm a bit of a promises guy - I think i...

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Posted in Politics - national, Philosophy, Economics and public policy, Political theory

Missing Link Friday - 25 Feb 2011

In this week's Missing Link Friday: Why Ross Gittins doesn't want to hear you complaining about the high cost of living. Is there a connection between free trade and disability? Just how deluded are Americans about inequality? Who's to blame for American ignorance about climat...

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Posted in Missing Link

Why governments should not insure against disasters

I admire SA independent senator Nick Xenophon hugely. He's a rare combination of brains, enterprise and principle. I knew him at Adelaide University; he had all those qualities then, and he seems to have kept them intact over the quarter-century since. But I have wondered for...

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Posted in Politics - national, Politics - Northern Territory, Economics and public policy

Rupert's war on truth

Veteran econoblogger John Quiggin is the blogosphere's pitbull terrier. Once he gets his teeth into an issue he just won't let go. One of JQ's current worthy obsessions is the utter untrustworthiness of Murdoch's flagship newspaper The Australian (see here , here and here ): A...

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Posted in Politics - national, Media

Keynes, Smith and the positivists (Benthamites) and hyper-positivists (Neoclassicals)

Here's a cut and pasted Amazon review of The Macrodynamics of Capitalism: Elements for a Synthesis of Marx, Keynes and Schumpeter . It's a bit heavy and I've ignored the maths so can't vouch for it. I'm basically slapping it up here for my own future reference, but Troppodilli...

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Posted in Philosophy, History, Economics and public policy, Political theory

Chinese adding value to their exports

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Posted in Economics and public policy

Constraining infrastructure boondoggles

I was reading an article the other day that I can't now find, by a pollster whose name I can't remember (increasing age is like that). It dealt with Coalition strategist Mark Textor's highly successful four part 2010 campaign theme for Tony Abbott: stop the boats, no big new t...

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Posted in Politics - national, regulation

Useable knowledge in the army: The best comment I've read in ages

Foreword: I discovered this post - which I'd entirely forgotten about - the other day. It's a cracker, and because I wrote a comment on it, it's received some further comments on account of turning up in the 'recently commented on threads' list. So I'm sticking it on the front...

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Posted in Economics and public policy, regulation, Political theory

Meanwhile while we're minding our own business here on planet earth . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40&feature=player_embedded Christopher Monckton feels we could benefit from a few thoughts of his . . .

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Posted in Politics - international, Economics and public policy, Climate Change, Political theory

The double blind sector of the economy

Steve Randy Waldman is onto something in this post . In the previous post , I identified government, health care, education, and finance as the “asymmetric information industry”. Arnold Kling makes an important point : [I]nformation asymmetry is that the sellers know what they...

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Posted in Economics and public policy

Huffing and puffing ... but still not getting paid

Last year Mayhill Fowler, one of the Huffington Post 's citizen journalists, threatened to stop blogging unless the Post started paying her . After a brief exchange of emails where Fowler explained she was no longer prepared to do her reporting for free, the Post' s founding e...

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Posted in Journalism, Media, Metablogging

John Kay on PPPs (or PFI's where he comes from)

Tony Blair was a classy politician when it came to the level of political talent he seemed capable of. How sad that like his political counterparts in Australian State Labor governments he and his Chancellor Gordon Brown established the kind of spiv financing that saw Greece g...

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Posted in Economics and public policy

Tolerance, acceptance and civility in the immigration debate

The ABC's Chris Uhlmann is undoubtedly correct in detecting in the actions of Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison a clear intent on the part of the Coalition to play the race/immigration/asylum card against Labor. It's a recurrent gambit in Australian politics, played successfully...

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Posted in Politics - national, Political theory

Missing link Friday - diversity, anonymity and libertarian train spotting

In this week's Missing Link Friday: Are conservative Christians the only oppressed minority not protected by university diversity policies? Bill Muehlenberg thinks so. An anonymous poster to Menzies House risks a Joe Klein experience . And Ayn Rand's sacred text, Atlas Shrugge...

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Posted in Missing Link

Asylum seekers and "hospital passes"

Jon Faine - the Alan Jones of the Left? In a Coalition government the Immigration portfolio can be a career-enhancing opportunity. A Minister with a bleeding heart reputation like Philip Ruddock can prove that he's just as capable of ruthlessly opportunistic bastardry as anyon...

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Posted in Politics - national, Law

Multiculturalism and Conservatism

I am overjoyed that the government has not just allowed to speak the word "Multiculturalism" but is now celebrating Australia's successful experience with it rather than sitting in silence as a disgruntled minority complain. Its not justt a feature of Australia I enjoy, but so...

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Posted in Uncategorized