Club Troppo

My brother and I both tried quite hard not to be economists. And we both failed fairly miserably. He's been busy producing some interesting graphs concerning the two intergenerational reports.

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Not only is life tough but you try finding a parking spot in a busy shopping centre. Whenever I do I can usually find some place where they could have fitted an extra parking spot. And pretty obviously if theyd have done so I could park there. Well actually I couldnt. If there...

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Who said this? Though it sounds paradoxical to say that . . . to prevent ourselves from making the wrong decision we must deliberately reduce the range of choice before us, we all know that this is often necessary in practice if we are to achieve our long term aims.

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I've just been to see Hairspray - a cinematic version of a Broadway Smash - well I don't know if it was a box office smash but it won lots of awards. It's a musical set in Baltimore in 1962 about rock and roll and a plump girl who takes a rock and roll show by storm with her e...

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For a fair while I've been interested in things like who appoints and pays for auditors of public companies and whether we've got it right (given that the information provided by auditors of companies for instance is a public or quasi public good when produced and firms have a...

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I'm generally in favour of free trade. So are quite a few economists who have reputations for being against it - even though they are not. At one point Keynes, who was a strong free trader argued (I think in the context of England being constrained by fixed exchange rates) tha...

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I've just become aware of bot blogging curtesy of these three links to posts I've just put up. I guess they're part of the escalating SEO war. Anyway, if you look below the fold, my hope is that some geek will have explained what it's all about, whether and the extent to which...

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Well, the speculation in my previous post was essentially spot-on. The High Court has ruled in Roach v Electoral Commissioner (reasons for decision published late yesterday) that Australians have a constitutionally guaranteed right to vote in federal elections, flowing from se...

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From today's Crikey! The NSW hospital crisis and an ALP hackette Alex Mitchell writes: In today's front pages is the story of a female emergency patient miscarrying in the toilet of Sydney's dysfunctional Royal North Shore Hospital after being neglected by staff for several ho...

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Apropos the discussion of a few days ago, Stephen Fry - yes that Stephen Fry - has some interesting observations on his blog about the iPhone. Apple is now doing what we all (well almost all) wish Microsoft would have done, which is to at least make beautiful things from its p...

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I'd like to know what's wrong with all the studies using different methodologies that find a link. Intuitively I find that using a hand held in a car is distracting at least when I'm dialling. It's all in the paper from the looks of it, but I won't get round to reading it and...

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(This is the third and last in a series of posts exploring Australian federalism (the first part is here and the second is here ). I've been struck by the seeming popular lack of interest in Australian federalism, not only judging by the lack of public outrage at John Howard's...

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What a slimy, condescending, pox-ridden excrescence is ABC's Media Watch program. And Phillip Adams isn't far behind, judging by his response to Helen "skepticlawyer" Dale's complaints about his characterisation of an interview with her that apparently never took place ("chill...

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The Central Bank is supposed to target inflation - and providing price stability is vouchsafed help if it can to keep growth ticking along. There's a lot of loose talk about how central bank action 'underwrites' risky moves by financial operatives. But creating more liquidity...

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In a story in Today's Crikey! , Guy Rundle raises a subject dear to my heart about which I am, alas, ignorant. Why are so many of our planning regulations negative - the most obvious being height restrictions, when what we really want from regulation is collective action to ma...

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What have these two men got in common? And who the hell is the guy on the right anyway? Find out at a seminar I'll be leading tomorrow, Tuesday 25th September from 12.30-1.30pm in Seminar Room 4, on the 1st Floor of the J.G. Crawford Bldg - the Public Policy School adjacent to...

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Mungo MacCallum has an article in today's Crikey which tends to take a similar - entirely pragmatic approach to the Parliamentary snarl that occured last Thursday. I happened to see edited highlights of it on "Order in the House" which confirmed all my previous feelings on the...

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My daughter has a dilemma! Should she replace her aging iPod nano with a new generation iPod nano or with an iPod Touch. I'd heard that Apple were producing an iPhone without the phone but I'd not watched the promo until my anxious daughter showed it to me. Watching it you can...

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Like many of you I saw this on facebook: Graham Young is fighting attempts to expel him from the Liberal Party this Sunday. This is Graham's article on Ambit Gambit from July describing the situation and why the party is seeking to throw him out. I hope Graham gets the result...

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Nelson: "Order the signal, Hardy." Hardy: "Aye, aye sir." Nelson: "Hold on, that's not what I dictated to Flags. What's the meaning of this?" Hardy: "Sorry sir?" Nelson (reading aloud): "'England expects every person to do his or her duty, regardless of race, gender, sexual or...

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