Club Troppo

I'm a fan. He was the editor of The Economist's excellent "Economics Focus" for a good while. He may even have been nice enough to have been the person who decided to write up some of my work for the world. Anyway he went off to Atlantic Monthly where I think he still writes s...

Continue reading →

Peter Martin rang me yesterday morning because he told me he was going to write up my ideas on regulation, though we didn't talk as long as both of us would have liked because his commitments at the time, and my subsequent commitments meant we couldn't speak again. Journalism...

Continue reading →

Here is a piece published in the AFR yesterday. I. Just as Marshall McLuhan argued that, in media the medium was the message, one can say something similar about style and substance in politics. The style is the substance or at least comes to determine it. The political histor...

Continue reading →

I've heard it attributed - perhaps apocryphally - to John Maynard Keynes the line that a legal training is a form of brain damage. I couldn't find it on google when I last looked, so I don't know if he said it. But is it true? Well I have a legal training - of sorts - and duri...

Continue reading →

We're only about 3 or 4 subscribers away from 50. If anyone wants to jump on board - this is your last change to email me on [my first name] AT gruen DOT com DOT au.

Continue reading →

In a recent post critical of a CIS article on New Zealand by Phil Rennie , Nicholas Gruen expressed "disappointment" that the author "cherry picked" to "make favoured points in line with the author's priors". Today there is an article by Professor James Allan in The Australian...

Continue reading →

A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, James Farrell, Gilmae, Darlene Taylor and Saint. Politics Australian David Tiley brings grossness into sharp focus with a post titled anyone seen Fido lately? Ken Lovell and Bridget Grea...

Continue reading →

"At a personal level, few people are as charismatic, capable and ruthless as this mixed-race political phenomenon." Read all about it .

Continue reading →

Thanks to Ross for permission to post what he calls his 'sermon to the Rudd Government' delivered as: NEW DIRECTIONS IN ECONOMY POLICY, a talk to the Economic Society evening seminar, Sydney, Tuesday February 26, 2008 It occurs to me that, as the journalist of the panel, the m...

Continue reading →

A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, James Farrell, Gilmae, Darlene Taylor and Saint. Politics Australian Yes I know some people whinge about excessive coverage of the Apathetic Youths , but this image about the Rudd govern...

Continue reading →

( posted for Jessica by a proud and biased step-parent who thinks it shows a fine clarity of observation and expression for a 13 year old ) First I would paint a dark grey sky that looked like it was about to cry. Then there would be cracked and old red stairs that led up to a...

Continue reading →

I hope Nicholas keeps writing here at Troppo now that he's rightly famous and important . Then again, I don't necessarily envy someone who must respond with grace and patience if their advice, like that of Ross Garnaut, is relegated to "input" status when it's politically inco...

Continue reading →

I've been in touch with the US vendor of laptops Portableone from whom I purchased a Fujitsu laptop about four years ago. They're a good crew so if you want a laptop, buy it from them and you're likely to save money on the inflated prices here. They don't like the Toshiba's sc...

Continue reading →

I've always wondered. I don't much like his stuff, while acknowledging that the early work was interesting. And I guess you get marks for creating an icon - Ned Kelly. The Kelly series is very compelling. But, though I wouldn't rate my views on the subject as particularly wort...

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, James Farrell, Gilmae, Darlene Taylor and Saint. Politics Australian Shaun Cronin regrets that there are as yet no grounds for sacking the NSW government : All Iemma is guilty of is gros...

Continue reading →

A week or so ago I was rung by the NSW Unions and asked to speak to the Unsworth Committee which is looking at the NSW's proposal to privatise retail and generating assets in the NSW industry. They wanted me to speak on the AAA rating. I said I wouldn't oppose the privatisatio...

Continue reading →

[caption id="attachment_30542" align="alignleft" width="654"] Firbank College from the air (You could probably tell that it was "from the air" - but this is Club Troppo boldly going where no stakeholders' expectations have every been.)[/caption] I spent the day - well the firs...

Continue reading →

Some loyal Troppodillians might recall a post of mine from the dim dark past celebrating my having downloaded a great track which was the Beatles singing 'Tie me kangaroo down, sport' with Rolf Harris, complete with specially written lyrics. "Don't ill treat me pet dingo, Ring...

Continue reading →

Odnyam Odsuren as the young Temudjin So Mongol has lost out to The Counterfeiters in the Oscars and I'm aggrieved. Mind you, Mongo l was the only nominee in the Best Foreign Film category that I'd seen or indeed knew the first thing about, so I'm slightly biased. But I loved i...

Continue reading →