Well it kept me in suspense until the last few pages. The speech is well worth reading and is here (pdf).
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The world's most inscrutable man? I'm probably completely wrong about this, so please help me improve on the analysis. 1. Windsor, Oakeshott and Katter do not want another election. They mean to enjoy the leverage the election outcome has given them. 2. They have consistently...
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Here's my article from last week's Fin which it placed below the headline "ALP sold itself short instead of selling its strengths". I've also done an interview with Michael Duffy on Counterpoint which was recorded last Thursday, but went to air last night. How did it come to t...
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I have often worried about whether promoting ‘efficiency” – in the economic sense – ensures maximum well being where it makes some people better off but others worse off - even if the Kaldor-Hicks criterion is fully met e.g. by ensuring those who gain from the policy could pot...
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We've just had an election in Australia which was basically very clean, at least as far as one can tell. It was negative. It was empty but there was nothing illegitimate about what either party did or said about the other. Over the pond it isn't so. The Republicans are revolut...
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One of the more extraordinary things in life is the amount you can be charged by your mobile carrier on 'international roaming'. It's completely extraordinary with amazing stories of people downloading serious amounts of data - eg for a movie and getting back to find bills for...
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It's time libertarians ditched their alliance with conservatives and Republicans, writes Brink Lindsey . In a piece for Reason magazine , Lindsey argues that libertarians should stake their claim at the centre of American politics and imagines a new swing constituency animated...
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It's easier to declare a film a work of genius than to figure out its secret. But I think in the case of Boy , it's balance. This film tempts you at the start to expect a feel-good movie, but ends up steering clear of sentimentality. There's menace and heartbreak, but it doesn...
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"Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not . . . So, I believe that what congress is going to do, also, is not to allow export bans to such a degree that it's Americans that get stuck to...
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Here's the breakdown of a Canb-Melb flight I just booked on the to be avoided at (almost) any cost Tiger Airlines. Ticket Fare AU 12.85 23% Airport Charges, AU 31.65 56% GST (if applicable) AU 4.45 8% Service Fees inclusive of Tax AU 7.2 13% Total Cost AU 56.15 100% Now 'airpo...
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I've thought for a while that the News Ltd stable of papers in Australia were stuck between two seperate models in the News Ltd empire when it came to political reporting. The old Murdoch model of cultivating the image of influence by backing winners, frequently supporting unp...
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Here are all the sponsors for the Australian Conference of Economists this year. All public sector agencies. Now economics is a discipline fundamentally about policy - or I think it is - so it's no scandal, but it's still pretty striking that there's not a private sector spons...
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As part of my duties as CDU's designated political analyst/commentator for NT electoral purposes, I've been delving into the interstices of the booth by booth results in the NT seats of Solomon and Lingiari . The results are quite fascinating, especially in Lingiari. Starting...
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="249" caption="Unlike my AS peer Mr Trask, I'm unlikely to publish a book on my crippled escapades to make a living"] [/caption] Possum's recent job plea has inspired me to do an experiment. Unlike him, I'm not explicitly seeking a job (...
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In The New Republic this week Richard Just shines the spotlight on Barack Obama's hopelessly contradictory position on gay marriage. He compares it to Woodrow Wilson's pathetic attempts to dodge the issue of women's suffrage by claiming it was an issue for the states. The issu...
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I recall having lunch with the late great John Patterson about fifteen years ago and amongst the things he said was if you get to choose where you work, always base your choice on the quality of the people you'll be working with. Which brings me to Andrew Leigh who has just be...
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. . . quoting us ;) Kaggle has a couple of competitions running right now which are generating their usual stellar results. From Andrew Gelman quoting our blog : The Elo rating system is now in 47th position (team Elo Benchmark on the leaderboard). Team Intuition submitted usi...
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If you look at this presentation I gave just after releasing the draft report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, you'll see me (at around the seventh minute) talking about how Web 2.0 turbocharges the ecology of reputation. As I did in this column of mine (one of my best IMO) I...
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Readers of this blog will know that I share Paul Krugman's view that the US Republicans are a crazy, scary bunch. And during the Howard years there were lots of people who argued that Howard was the same. Which is ridiculous. He was sympathetic to the Crazy Party of the United...
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When the boss wins the Christmas raffle it's customary to draw again, and I wish I could think of an excuse to offer the prize in the election tipping contest to someone else. But you have to hand it to Nicholas for getting the House of Representatives result spot on . Even if...
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