Club Troppo

But I would say that wouldn't I? From today's Age . IT'S crunch time at the Henry tax review. . . . The good news is that many of the ideas that will work are quite simple. . . . These good ideas may be simple, but they are also disturbingly big. None is bigger than destroying...

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I wish I had more time to look at all this stuff, which is very suggestive of interesting things. I have a proposal for you, micro-economic reform has been basically right in trying to make markets more competitive, but it's done some serious damage along the way, and one way...

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This is an interesting article about small banking in the US - the US have always had a thing about small banks and there are plenty of them around. A lot of them are trundling right through the crisis. They tend to know their customers better. This snippet of news from Austra...

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From Rory's newsletter I was in Canberra yesterday, presenting at the Federal Treasury and the Parliamentary Library. Over the past year, I've often been the most pessimistic person in the room. My second presentation yesterday, however, followed one by Dr Steve Keen (google,...

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There are currently three schools of thought on how best to address the current global crisis. One takes the view that it is all due to more expensive financing- not due to decreased demand. Peter Auer, Raphael Auer and Simon Wehrmuller want to rely exclusively on reducing the...

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Richard Hickox, 1948-2008 Another case of not appreciating something fully until you've lost it . I never met him, but spent many happy hours within metres of him, from my usual vantage point in Row B (the best value for money in the House), so I feel a certain bond. This was...

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This is a letter written by the ATO. Someone sent it to me. The letter is not addressed to me. I'm not joking or making it up Cancelling your Australian business number For your information and action We wish to advise you that your Australian business number (ABN) xxxxxxxxx m...

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Peter Boettke has written a piece to introduce the main elements of Austrian economics in ten points . The Science of Economics Proposition 1: Only individuals choose. Proposition 2: The study of the market order is fundamentally about exchange behavior and the institutions wi...

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Free riding is the engine of productivity growth. People see something and copy it. Clothes, business methods, recipes. But there are also things that deliberately prevent free riding. Copyright, Patents that kind of thing. Unfortunately we've pursued the metaphor of property...

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A special question was inserted in the latest Newspoll. It found that 56% of voters would be concerned if the federal budget were to go into deficit, as a result of further government spending in the new year. Women (64%) were the most skeptical about deficits, while men (50%...

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When Hunter S. Thompson returned to Louisville in the early 1960s, he found a city proud of its progress on race relations . "Racial segregation has been abolished in nearly all white public places", he wrote. But even though many of the legal barriers to desegregation had bee...

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One day last week I came into the office to find an email from my boss time-stamped 2:46am (and no, he wasnt in another time-zone) asking what, technically, is a depression. What follows is a slightly expanded version of my answer. There is a very old joke which says a recessi...

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Declaration of interest, the artist is my spouse, but don't let that prejudice you! Kilmeny Niland has produced a prequel to the best selling Aussie Night Before Christmas. The Aussie Day Before Christmas hot off the press, following two other books earlier in the year, Two To...

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Peter Klein at Organizations and Markets has pointed out that the US has a thriving auto industry that does not need to be bailed out. The US has one of the most vibrant, dynamic, and efficient automobile industries in the world. It produces several million cars, trucks, and S...

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Panic seized markets this week. Just one asset class is deemed safe: the liabilities of highly-rated governments. The price of a barrel of oil is below $50. The dividend yield on the S&P 500 is higher than the yield on US 10-year treasuries. The yield on short-dated US inflati...

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As Krugman points out , the situation in the US is a pretty sad sight, with the lamest of lame duck presidents fiddling while the economy burns. This is a pretty ridiculous situation. Why not do what they do with buildings and start using them before they are officially opened...

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It seemed like a nice idea to me, but I got talked out of it - by Clive Crook - whose explanation of the problem I rather enjoyed. I think choosing Hillary would be a mistake. Not because of Bill. . . . they are not exactly chained together. Equally, if Hillary were the best c...

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By the end of the 1950s American car makers were losing market share to cheap European imports. Volkswagen's Beetle , Renault's Dauphine and the Fiat 600 were all cheaper, more fuel efficient and easier to park than full-sized American cars. By 1959 imports had captured almost...

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The Ships From Imagination to the Blank Page. A difficult crossing, the waters dangerous. At first sight the distance seems small, yet what a long voyage it is, and how injurious sometimes for the ships that undertake it. The first injury derives from the highly fragile nature...

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I've been reading an interesting - and much too long - paper by Paul David on the historical origins of 'open science (pdf). It is fascinating and deserves a more serious post than this - but I don't have the time. What's prompted this rush into cyberprint is finding a skerric...

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