Colin Hay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_7h0TzqFA8 I'm a big fan of Colin Hay, whom I saw on stage for the first time about three years ago. Hilariously funny and great songs. I particularly like "It's a beautiful world". The video above is a good clip showing how funny he is. It's i...

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Posted in Humour, Music

Accountability and transparency? Gunner government gets a Fail grade

The Gunner Labor government came to office last August promising to restore the trust of Territorians in government, after it had been shattered by four years of chaos, division and dubious or worse ethical behaviour by various members of the Giles CLP regime. Enacting and boo...

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Posted in Politics - Northern Territory

High wages are good for growth: jobs and growth

I've always thought that, if there's an economic driver for Australian culture it's the high demand for labour - exceeding supply a lot of the time - that applied in Australia from the convict period on and the resulting uppityness of workers - including convict workers judgin...

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Posted in Uncategorized

From the department of 'Wow!': Externalities of coal storage

Handle with Care: The Local Air Pollution Costs of Coal Storage . by Akshaya Jha, Nicholas Z. Muller - #23417 (EEE PE) Abstract: Burning coal is known to have environmental costs; this paper quantities the local environmental costs of transporting and storing coal at U.S. powe...

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Posted in Uncategorized

Status Goods: Platinum Credit Cards, Social Situations and Psychological Wellbeing

Status Goods: Experimental Evidence from Platinum Credit Cards by Leonardo Bursztyn, Bruno Ferman, Stefano Fiorin, Martin Kanz, Gautam Rao - #23414 (DEV LS PE) Abstract: This paper provides novel field-experimental evidence on status goods. We work with an Indonesian bank that...

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Posted in Economics and public policy, Business, Cultural Critique, Bullshit

An exchange on deliberative democracy

Below is a spirited exchange between me and Barry Jones on deliberative democracy which I reproduce with his permission. He won't be participating in any online debate because as he puts it I … confess to being a total abstainer where social media is concerned. I don’t want to...

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Posted in Politics - national, Political theory, Democracy, Sortition and citizens’ juries

Airport rail links should be a low(ish) priority

[getty src="483245425" width="507" height="338"] With airport rail links in the news in both Sydney and Melbourne, here's my recent column for The CEO Magazine arguing that most transport systems have higher priorities . Most people seem to love the idea of airport rail links....

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Posted in Economics and public policy

Weekend competition: Why (oh why?) aren't the Liberal Democrats doing better?

There's a lot I don't understand. We don't have enough space of a proper survey but let me give you an example. Pistachios taste better than hazelnuts. Much better. And yet hazelnut ice cream and gelato are much much yummier than their pistachio equivalents. As I recall someon...

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Posted in Politics - international, Economics and public policy, Cultural Critique, Employment

The Labor Share and Superstar Firms

The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms by David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence F. Katz, Christina Patterson, John Van Reenen - #23396 (LS PR) Abstract: The fall of labor's share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well do...

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Posted in Uncategorized

Ebony and ivory: Not such perfect harmony

Up from Slavery? African American Intergenerational Economic Mobility Since 1880 by William J. Collins, Marianne H. Wanamaker - #23395 (DAE LS) Abstract: We document the intergenerational mobility of black and white American men from 1880 through 2000 by building new datasets...

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Posted in Uncategorized

A short history of Australian bank hatred (plus extra Barbara!)

My latest column for The CEO Magazine sees Scott Morrison enjoying his move to the political centre via the new bank levy . I still haven't worked out whether this particular $1.5 billion a year bank liabilities tax is actually good policy. But it has at least some policy just...

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Posted in Uncategorized

American Film Festival

And yes, if you've not seen it, Annie Hall really is that good. It's a four and a half from me. Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks 20th Century Women (Opening Night) Dorothea is mother to Jamie and he’s growing up fast. It’s a challenging time and Dorothea decides s...

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Posted in Films and TV

MacBook Air Bleg

A long time ago I ran Windows 98 and at least every 24 hours, though often more often I had to cold reboot it to make it work properly. Now, nearly twenty years after this was largely fixed in the Windows world, I have the same problem with my MacBook Air. I bought a new one a...

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Posted in Uncategorized

Hoisted from comments: Copyright, the Google Settlement and torching the second library of Alexandria

One of the privileges of access to what we cool kids call the "back end" of Troppo is that when I write a long, long comment , in an old thread that has taken a new direction, I can make it the start of a new thread. As I'm doing here. Note that the comment originally arose fr...

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Posted in IT and Internet, Economics and public policy, Geeky Musings, Political theory, Intellectual Monopoly Privileges, Intellectual Property, Cultural Critique

Doughnut economics: The hole is greater than the sum of its parts

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="490"] Rene Descartes eat your heart out: The diagram that changed the world.[/caption] A friend wondered aloud on Facebook what I thought of Doughnut economics pointing me to this article by George Monbiot. My reply is reproduced below,...

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Posted in Economics and public policy

Upmarket Agitprop: Clive James on John Howard on Bob Menzies

An essay prompted by a friend recommending James' essay I think largely for its defence of Menzies as worthy of more respect he's been given by the left - which is a fair point. Cross posted from The Mandarin , which, to my surprise was interested in picking it up. In my view...

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Posted in Politics - national, History, Economics and public policy, Political theory, Cultural Critique

From the Department of “Why didn't I think of that": A natty idea to encourage scientific replication

An Economic Approach to Alleviate the Crises of Confidence in Science: With an Application to the Public Goods Game by Luigi Butera, John A. List - #23335 (PE) Novel empirical insights by their very nature tend to be unanticipated, and in some cases at odds with the current st...

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Posted in Uncategorized, Economics and public policy, Science

CEOs bridging divides: the OECD and the little people

The OECD is getting pretty serious about bridging divides - you know righting the world's injustices - that kind of thing. It's making a difference. It's probably thinking to itself "there's got to be change" - or thoughts to that effect. Why they even have a conference themed...

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Posted in Competitions, Cultural Critique, Bullshit

Troppo Quiz: what do these things have in common?

Answer given on or about Sunday. Now available in comments

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Posted in Cultural Critique

Making the central bank a people's bank

Some of you will have seen my article in the Saturday Paper. I can only tease you with 150 words from it here. Then you'll need to read it on the Saturday Paper's site. As the financial crisis continued wreaking its havoc in late 2010, Mervyn King, who, as Governor of the Bank...

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Posted in Economics and public policy