Club Troppo

I attended a graduation last week, and submitted to my usual ritual of explaining, to everyone who asked, why I sat in the stalls in mufti rather than on the dais in academic regalia. Some of my colleagues inform me that they hate graduations, either because they are bored by...

Continue reading →

There's lots of crowing by opponents of the right in both Australia and the US that the right are in grave trouble. It always looks that way. And in Australia it does look like oppositions spend a lot of time out of power. But there's always a lot of luck involved. Howard was...

Continue reading →

I enjoyed the launch of the John Button Prize in Melbourne last 'Thursday night. After the event I retired to a restaurant Button liked in Little Bourke St - The Shark Fin with two of his three sons, two of his three wives and two of what may be three grandchildren and some ot...

Continue reading →

Thatcherism is just another word for neoliberalism, says Kevin Rudd . It's been almost two decades since Margaret Thatcher left office and her record has been obscured by mythology. Sure she took on the unions and sold off some public enterprises , but did she really " roll ba...

Continue reading →

I'm pretty downcast having read Glenn Stevens latest speech. It's on the usual topic - the economy, its past fortunes and future prospects. I don't read these kinds of speeches much because I'm not an 'economy watcher' trying to predict the next GDP numbers and I have a strong...

Continue reading →

When Ross Gittins asked me to write a couple of columns in his place as he went on leave I agreed and realised shortly afterwards that they would coincide more or less with the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments . So I decided I'd try to wri...

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

Not a show I watch I admit, but as Troppo's reality TV correspondent I read this piece from New Matilda "Reality TV Sh!ts In Its Nest" It's an expose of Ladette to Lady. I though it would explain how the girls were exploited in the sense of being deliberately set up to be type...

Continue reading →

I was once on a tram in Melbourne and got talking to the woman next to me. She asked what I was doing and I told her that I was down from Canberra for the day. I told her that I was advocating a particular policy. Being the son of an academic I was brought up to believe that t...

Continue reading →

From the US General Accountability Office. HT - an email from David Lian. The federal governments financial condition and fiscal outlook are worse than many may understand. Despite an increase in revenues in fiscal year 2006 of about $255 billion, the federal government report...

Continue reading →

I'm re-reading the Theory of Moral Sentiments . Some of it's great. Some of it, not so much. Anyway a well known phsychological phenomenon is they way that our happiness reverts to our mean level of happiness which tends to be determined more by our temperament than our circum...

Continue reading →

Full of relevance for our own brand of muddling through. Here's the column . Labours affair with bankers is to blame for this sorry state In Wednesdays Budget statement, Alistair Darling acknowledged that even on his optimistic assumptions a decade was needed to repair Britain...

Continue reading →

From Dani Rodrik's blog . Macroeconomics doesn't get much plaudits around now, but here is a real-life story that should hearten those who think the field is really broken. It concerns Andres Velasco, a distinguished macroeconomist who is currently the minister of finance in C...

Continue reading →

Reclaiming Americas Soul, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times : Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. So declared President Obama, after his commendable decision to release the legal memos that his predecessor used to justify tortu...

Continue reading →

I've had a few requests for more of these - so I'll pop them up when they're especially classy. Click on the link to the game Breyer vs J Esser to see the answer. And of course any day you want a fix, just go to Chessgames.com White to play Breyer vs J Esser 17. ? See game for...

Continue reading →

It's quite tricky to teach undergraduate law students about the Whitlam Dismissal. You have to cover it because it's the only example of exercise of vice-regal reserve powers of dismissal of an elected government since federation (at least at federal level; there's also Sir Ph...

Continue reading →

Australia's economy may be officially in recession, but Lateral Economics at least is doing its bit to reduce the effects. In addition to the research assistant Nicholas advertised for earlier this week, we also need someone with some web design and Wordpress backend experienc...

Continue reading →

On today's Science Show .

Continue reading →

[caption id="attachment_31877" align="alignright" width="332"] Our Cate, looking stunning just three minutes after giving birth to her latest accessory. Really how does she do it?[/caption] The night I got Kevin Rudd's email advising me that the Government had got its full res...

Continue reading →

And fair enough too. If someone is brain damaged perhaps they shouldn't be punished for bludgeoning their mother to death, after that is he had stabbed her, dug his hands into her face and on one occasion tried to choke her. But then you wonder why they're being convicted and...

Continue reading →