Club Troppo

From Martin Wolf We have three alternatives: liquidation; inflation; or growth. A policy of liquidation would proceed via mass bankruptcy and the collapse of a large part of the existing credit. That is an insane choice. A deliberate policy of inflation would re-awaken inflati...

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Sydney Morning Herald 29 May 2009 An abattoir worker has been jailed for eight years for raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter and then blaming his crime on her wearing short skirts around the house. The man, who cannot be named as it would identify his young victim, tried to se...

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But then I would say that wouldn't I? Lawrence Lessig quotes an Australian economist explaining why free access to public goods isn't 'socialism', it's 'civil society'. Lessig's piece is below the fold. Et tu, KK? (aka, No, Kevin, this is not "socialism") May 28, 2009 5:57 PM...

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A triffic little service , allowing you to have a peek in 'real time' as we say, at the state of Sydney traffic. Click on one of the bright green diamonds. (Apologies if this is old news and you know all about it).

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I put quite a bit of effort into my two pieces o n Adam Smith in Ross Gittins' column while he was on leave and got quite a lot of positive feedback about them. So when I was asked to talk to an excellent conference organised by the indefatigable Fitzgerald siblings of QUT - P...

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The speakers were taking questions, and a member of the audience asked whether mandatory superannuation contributions had helped to insulate Australia from the GFC, by promoting saving and reducing borrowing. The keynote speaker, one David Gruen from the Treasury, replied that...

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Steve Keen recently produced an interesting (and sobering) look at the Australian real estate market entitled " Lies, Damned Lies and Housing Statistics ". In it, he takes issue with a number of fairly widely held perceptions, among them that housing affordability is now back...

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With John Quiggin proposing bets on the respective labour market performance of the US and Europe counting prison populations, t he Dutch are closing jails for lack of prisoners . Poor cuties. (HT: Michael Neilson )

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Penélope Cruz? You decide. I saw Elegy last night. It's been around for a while but hadn't caught my attention, mainly because I haven't been paying much. These comments will be of interest only to readers who have seen the film, and might spoil it for someone who still intend...

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[caption id="attachment_30918" align="alignright" width="580" caption="Artist concept of Kepler in space. Credit: NASA/JPL"] [/caption] From Universe Today The checkout and calibration phase for the Kepler spacecraft has been completed, and now the telescope will begin one of...

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The definitive experiment, February 2008 Here's the picture to accompany my comment on Nicholas's post about big things. My point is just that, as a design dictum, 'bigger is better' does not supplant 'all things in proportion'. Malcolm Oliver, no doubt the undisputed authorit...

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HT Gizmodo and Joshua Gans

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From Crooked Timber Jon Mandle On her show last night, Rachel Maddow provided a genuine service. [tip: TPM ] She reviewed Bush Administration claims about the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq (with clips) and ran that alongside a time line concerning the use of torture. This too...

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I was struck by Krugman's column on greenhouse . I've been working myself up into a lather of pessimism on greenhouse. Not only is this a really really hard problem to solve, but the way we're going about solving it is just so awful from so many perspectives, it's hard to innu...

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David, Cate and Andrew in happier (very recent) times - from SMH It's always sad when heroic high achievers begin to lose their powers, still more when they fail to age gracefully and succumb instead to bitterness and envy. But so it seems to be with David Williamson, once sai...

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Andrew Leigh asks : "are smokers more likely to vote for parties of the right (because they believe in individual liberty) or parties of the left (because they tend to be poorer than non-smokers)?" The answer in the United States is that smokers are more likely to vote Democra...

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Many years ago, as we were looking at a scrum in a rugby game being played in Towoomba of all places, a friend of mine commented that it looked like the quintessentially British institution! The other wise observation I have for you is that political think tanks on both sides...

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