As I tweeted: I was gripped by this 2 hour intellectual brawl Would Ezra articulate compelling reasons for Sam Harris to rise to self-reflection? Or would Sam keep him at bay with his magic “I’m just after timeless scientific truth that scales” wand? Anyway, you may not be as...
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Setting aside the question of evidence, there’s a serious problem with the contention that Syria carried out the recent chemical attack in Douma. It requires us to accept not only that the Syrian government is evil but also that it’s comically stupid. It was on the point of li...
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Beauty, Job Tasks, and Wages: A New Conclusion about Employer Taste-Based Discrimination by Todd R. Stinebrickner, Ralph Stinebrickner, Paul J. Sullivan [I'm sceptical that there's no discrimination in jobs where beauty doesn't generate a dividend for the employer, but what wo...
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Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship , by Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin Jones, J. Daniel Kim, Javier Miranda - #24489 (PR) Abstract: Many observers, and many investors, believe that young people are especially likely to produce the most successful new firms. We use administrative d...
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[caption id="attachment_31852" align="alignleft" width="800"] Actual picture of the Universal Basic Income idea[/caption] In my latest column for The CEO Magazine I take aim at the idea of universal basic income (UBI). The column uses the insights of the always terrific Peter...
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As some of you will have noticed, the Greens released today a policy that borrows heavily on my own proposal "Central banking for all: A modest proposal for radical reform" now available in a number of versions, though this is probably one of the clearer more compelling presen...
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After exhaustive discussion, I've been deputed to inform our readers of Troppo's plastic bag policy. We're in favour of single-use plastic bags. In fact, we're making them compulsory. I was recently in Book Grocer and was refused a plastic bag, though they were prepared to giv...
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Too much wit outwits itself Folk saying quoted by Hegel [1. Quoted from memory.] I stumbled upon this extraordinary exchange between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein, late the night before last and though, I was supposed to be going to sleep, I couldn't stop till I'd finished it. I'd...
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Saving Lives by Tying Hands: The Unexpected Effects of Constraining Health Care Providers Abstract: The emergency department (ED) is a complex node of healthcare delivery that is facing market and regulatory pressure across developed economies to reduce wait times. In this pap...
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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="504"] Can this moustache save the world?[/caption] A friend asked me on linked in for my comment on this grand lecture by Jeremy Rivkin. I reproduce my initial reaction and then a longer set of comments I offered after having listened...
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Countries increasingly rely on independent fiscal councils to constrain policymakers’ discretion and curb the bias towards excessive deficits and pro-cyclical policies. Since fiscal councils are often recent and heterogeneous across countries, assessing their impact is challen...
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From the moral panic division of ClubTroppo. Early Evidence on Recreational Marijuana Legalization and Traffic Fatalities Over the last few years, marijuana has become legally available for recreational use to roughly a quarter of Americans. Policy makers have long expressed c...
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Herewith a newspaper column on central banking for all, published in the Age and SMH today. Note: the bit in the brackets in the first paragraph is as submitted but Fairfax edited it out. They also headed the piece "One way to deal with the banks: cut them out of the equation...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpVcsRVwF8s&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=events_2018&utm_content=randomists_event_recording Robert Solow once referred to the law and economics scholar Richard Posner as writing books the way the rest of us b...
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We examine whether exposure of men to women in a traditionally male-dominated environment can change attitudes about mixed-gender productivity, gender roles and gender identity. Our context is the military in Norway, where we randomly assigned female recruits to some squads bu...
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Brexit is the main political issue in the UK, competing with sex for the attention of the public. It is a daily gamble whether the news headline is about some politician fondling a knee 55 years ago or a row over Brexit. For the last 18 months, the debate in London has been su...
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https://youtu.be/PX4B6e0wnV8 Above is my presentation to CEDA's Outlook conference in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. I came after a McKinsey's consultant talking about digital disruption which is always a fun thing to present or listen to because there are lots of 'wow' momen...
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Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks C'est La Vie! (Opening Night) Over a career spanning more than 30 years, Max Angély has enjoyed a celebrated career as a caterer and event organiser. Today, it’s all hands on deck for Pierre and Héléna’s nuptials in a breathtaking...
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Humanity is at a high point. What our ancestors dreamed of is slowly becoming a reality: a world without hunger in which the vast majority of mankind live peaceful and long lives. We are not there yet, but in Europe, East Asia, Latin America, and even in Africa (our cradle), m...
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Posted in Politics - national, Politics - international, Life, Philosophy, History, Education, Literature, Society, Religion, Economics and public policy, Science, Political theory, Information, Ethics, Cultural Critique, Inequality, Social Policy, Democracy
Below is an extract from a recent academic article setting out – rather laboriously I have to say – three 'theories' – I'd rather call them 'ways of seeing' what banks do in our financial system. One approach sees them as financial intermediators meeting the needs of those who...
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