Club Troppo

When this was written for ABC Unleashed in June] the ALP ruled in Canberra and in all the states and territories, not necessarily wisely and well, but in some cases by wide margins. The situation in mid 1965 was very different. Menzies had been the PM for as long as many peopl...

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Since I lived in a group house with him, I've stayed in touch with David Evans and discussed various issues - mostly economic - via email with him. As a result I get the odd group email from him setting out his views on greenhouse in which he argues that an ETS is a stupid ide...

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Architecture of the Heart No's 1, 2 and 3. For more follow this link.

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Henry Blodget was a Merrill Lynch tech analyst during the tech bubble. A bubble he rode to fame and then to a Spitzer investigation and oblivion. In this piece in the Atlantic he gives a great analysis of what he thinks caused the current housing and debt bubble and draws the...

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I suggested Governments should be countercyclical investors in asset markets in a speech in 2002 (pdf) and now smarter people than me think it's a good idea. Like Nobel Prize winner Michael Spence and John Muellbauer of Oxford Uni and Martin Wolf who references the other two....

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The RBA minutes confirm two things that were discussed in the press at the time of their last meeting. It was on the 2nd Dec (that is a few months after it had become apparent that the world was facing the greatest financial crisis since the great depression and that the devel...

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It always seemed to me that it was hard to think of anything more Australian than having a long weekend for Anzac Day, or not putting one's hand on one's heart during the playing of the national anthem. But it's all changing and not only are the odd hands going on hearts, but...

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Today's Fin op ed follows up on some of the aspects of the fiscal stimulus that a bunch of us economists proposed the weekend before last. Do it now or pay the price In the 1980s Joe visited George, who had a temporary appointment in India. A last minute snafu when Joe was lea...

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Read all about it here , or over the fold. The US Naval Observatory operates 70 cesium atomic clocks. Credit: USNO If you ever feel like you need more time, here's some great news: you're actually going to get it. On December 31, 2008 a leap second will be added to the worlds...

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The one thing most people now agree on is that this global financial crisis is exactly that, that it is a crisis. It is very serious, historically significant in its size, global in its reach and at a time when countries are more vulnerable to global problems than ever before,...

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Time for more reflections on the financial crisis, starting with seeing whether my predictions of two months ago have come true, followed by observations on a new set of unexpected twists, and rounded off by a set of policy recommendations for how to reduce the severity of the...

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It's good to have the apology out of the way. It was such a horrible distraction, the failure to apologise such a monumental act of ungenerosity. Nevertheless, and despite its frequent tendentiousness, and despite its ridiculous lumping together of apologies to Muslims for the...

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What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn't anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What's the point of senators making laws now? Once th...

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Warren Buffett emailed this note to the directors of his company, Berkshire Hathaway on Tuesday after he heard that the U.S. Treasury sold $32 billion in 4-week bills at a yield of 0%: This should be bullish for Berkshire. With great foresight, I long ago entered the mattress...

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Qinghua Pei is being investigated by ICAC for allegedly trying to bribe a Year 5 teacher to write a favourable report on his son, and improve the boy's prospects of getting into a selective high school. What is the appropriate reaction to this? Here are a few to choose from: 1...

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A wry look at the arguments that are mounted to defend the bailout of the US car industry. Strictly speaking, a part of the US car industry that is failing, not the robust part that is doing OK. "Too big, too important to lose". The same could have been said of the US piano in...

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HT: Slate, via Paul Krugman

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One of the things George Akerlof was thinking about as he wrote his famous paper on the market for lemons was the market for low skilled labour. The idea that lemons avoidance is a big part of the story of poor demand for low skilled workers has always struck me as very powerf...

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In a world rapidly sinking into a grand funk, with nothing going right for overpaid CEOs, for US Auto workers, for the climate, for climate scientists, for denialists, for the US (apart from Obama), for the sales of SUVs and large cars, for the US, UK and Europe, for Afghanist...

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