Club Troppo

One of the more surprising newspaper stories of recent times was Peter Martin’s article of November 15 on OECD takes aim at Labor policies which quoted the OECD Economic Survey of Australia as saying that Australia’s unemployment benefits are too low. Along with a number of ot...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8y-_vaf6iY&feature=player_embedded Current developments in e-books and e-readers may end up having dramatic effects on the mainstream newspaper industry, about whose future I've been musing in recent days . A significant part of the problems bei...

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Anyone looking for a link between my post earlier today on the future of Fairfax and Paul Frijter's two posts on the Wikileaks saga need go no further than a story just published on both Fairfax sites: Rudd's revenge on US Kevin Rudd retaliates after diplomatic revelations abo...

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As predicted just a few days ago , Queensland-boy Julian Assange is now in police custody and has been denied bail pending his extradition to Sweden to answer allegations of having had consensual sex without a condom. In Sweden, American prosecutors will no doubt try to have h...

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Crikey boss and former Fairfax editor Eric Beecher published a scathing opinion piece about his former employer in yesterday's newsletter, in the wake of the sudden departure of Fairfax CEO Brian McCarthy . Of course, as a direct Fairfax competitor, we should take Beecher's op...

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There are some common elements between my recent post , which suggested a new asylum seeker assessment regime to take the place of universal mandatory detention during assessment, and proposals outlined last week by the Coalition Immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison in an a...

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John Foster has asked that I post a link to a paper he's recently co-authored (pdf) arguing for a different carbon regulatory regime to promote carbon abatement. I'm travelling and unable to subject the paper to any analysis, but it looks interesting. I hope you'll check it ou...

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Some readers may have noticed from the "sticky" permanent post at the top of Troppo's front page that we've revived the old Missing Link feature in two separate forms: a weekly themed digest by Don Arthur; a daily Twitter-based service compiled mostly by me and delivered via N...

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It's quite obvious, and has been so for a while, that the Chinese currency, the yuan, is undervalued. This is obviously of consternation to the United States, whom would desire a depreciation in their currency against the yuan - the policy is called beggar thy neighbour for a...

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It was billed as a debate over the size of government . But within the first few minutes Congressman Paul Ryan had changed the subject. Focusing "just on size entirely misses the point", he said, "We should not be asking how big should our government be, we should be asking wh...

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In this week's Missing Link Friday -- a brilliant idea for reforming the education system, old people, advice about grey hair and the need for teeth 2.0. Skinner Box kids "I was just thinking about schooling and I had a most brilliant idea", writes Joseph Clark . "If students...

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An article by David Mallard at New Matilda reflects on some observations (canards?) by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Judge (!!) about the allegedly malign influence of the Internet generally and social media in particular on the integrity of jury deliberati...

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Peter Timmins reviews the progress through the Senate (or rather lack of same) of a proposed limited "shield" law to protect the confidentiality of journalists' sources. As Peter noted, I gave evidence and made a submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee on t...

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Today is the anniversary of the battle of the Eureka Stockade. This is not a much remembered date. In fact, it was only brought to my attention by a letter in the AFR bemoaning the lack of recognition. This letter was penned by a Joseph Toscano of the Anarchist Media Institute...

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Letter to the Editor NT News: I don’t hold any brief for the CLP, or Labor for that matter (although I did a long time ago). However I have strong moral objections when I see someone’s reputation trashed unfairly. That especially includes politicians, a human sub-species about...

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As I've said before , if you want to understand Hegel, for goodness sake don't read what he wrote. You've got to find another way in. So I'm pleased to say that Alan Saunders has featured Hegel in his latest two Philosophers' Zones . I've not yet listened to last week's one ,...

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This is an article of mine that was originally published in the Melbourne Age on 29th November 2010. Saturday’s election of a Coalition government is unlikely to have much impact on Victoria’s economic direction. As The Age’s economics editor Tim Colebatch noted last Friday, t...

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Well, they’ve done it again. Queensland-boy Julian Assange and his band of merry journalists and IT-nerds have flooded the internet once again with sensitive information that embarrasses several governments, most notably the US, by releasing the content of several hundred thou...

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I couldn't agree more with FOI expert Peter Timmins about the latest Wikileaks "disclosures". I have no idea whether Assange is a rapist or not, but he's certainly succeeded in setting the cause of public sector whistleblowing back by a decade or more. The documents so far dis...

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Saul's recent column in the Age - I'm responsible for the headline (NG). For a country which accounts for less than 0.25 per cent (that is, less than one four-hundredth) of the world economy, Ireland has attracted a disproportionately large share of world attention over the pa...

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