Club Troppo

As you know, despite spending millions on marketing to get the word out, our arts industry, for easily understood commercial reasons , doesn’t effectively get the word out about whether their products are any good or not. So for the cost of an hour or so’s outsourced, offshore...

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I'm no fan of moral rights, but there you are. Artists are, so perhaps I should change my tune. The Valuation of Moral Rights: A Field Experiment By: Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zürich) ; Christoph Engel (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) U.S. intellectual proper...

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On the assumption that everyone in the online universe has now viewed the video of a plain-clothes policeman dragging a United Airlines passenger off his flight (see below), a few brief observations about United's deeply evil nature failure of problem-solving skills. [youtube...

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A persistent modern fear is that artificial intelligence and robot technology will advance so much that smart robots will soon be able to perform many of the tasks that we humans currently earn our crust with. Since they will come off the production line in a matter of minutes...

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John Clark died yesterday, a very sad day, he will be greatly missed RIP. This is my all time favorite piece of satire. Am sure that troppo can come up with more. https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM

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Well I've been going on and on about it , but here's an academic paper contrasting the free rider problem and opportunity. Knowledge Properties and Economic Policy: A New Look By Antonelli, Cristiano (University of Turin) This paper explores the full range of effects of knowle...

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="395"] Themed pre-performance dinner The chefs at Arts Centre Melbourne have created a three-course meal and carefully chosen matching wines themed around Carmen ($75pp). It's easy to add a dinner when you book your opera tickets on our w...

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Cross posted from the Mandarin . This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fUDIucr2eo

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Choosing a Public-Spirited Leader. An experimental investigation of political selection By: Thomas Markussen (epartment of Economics, University of Copenhagen) ; Jean-Robert Tyran (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) In this experiment, voters select a leader wh...

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It's been true for some time that all that 'flexibility' everyone said was so important in the labour market was mostly flexibility for bosses. And it was flexibility that raised risks and inconvenience for workers. That's not a knockdown argument against it of course, but it...

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Cross posted from the Mandarin - my response to a tweet from Troppo's man in Geneva. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="550"] Is this a picture of a public good? Well not really, but then it is of the 21st century - or possibly the 22nd - it's too early to tell. I couldn'...

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[getty src="527045000" width="508" height="339"] My latest column for The CEO Magazine looks at how the automation deal is breaking down . Normally the deal in modern economies is that we accept that technological change and automation will screw up a bunch of people's lives,...

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Both of the players of this game are pretty good. In the illustrated position it's black's move. Black won the game, but only because white managed to resign in a won position. You can see the game here .

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Festival Website | Films | Schedule The Films Atlantic Atlantic tells the story of three fishing communities in Ireland, Canada and Norway who battle big business to maintain their traditional ways of life. ☆☆☆☆ ☆ IMDB A Date For Mad Mary 'Mad’ Mary McArdle needs to find a dat...

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Direct democracy and government size: evidence from Spain By: Carlos Sanz (Banco de España) Direct democracy is spreading across the world, but little is known about its effects on policy. I provide evidence from a unique scenario. In Spain, national law determines that munici...

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Cross-posted from the Mandarin We do have a few advantages, perhaps the greatest being that we don’t have a strategic plan Warren Buffett It's a common lament that, within organisations whether in the public, private or not-for-profit sector, boards and/or senior management do...

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[getty src="579024746" width="509" height="339"] My latest column for The CEO Magazine looks at Malcolm Turnbull's recent Snowy announcement and asks: isn't there a better way to make infrastructure decisions? The particular process I'd like to see around the Snowy announcemen...

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I've weighed in previously on the relentless emphasis on symbolism in the political prosecution of aboriginal issues in Australia. This isn't necessarily a criticism of aboriginal activists because, as I argued, they're working within the rules of memefication . I can add that...

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The NT News’ front page on Saturday is a vintage piece of Murdoch tabloid journalism – aggressively funny but without any meaningful regard for fact or fairness. Of course portraying any politicians as “bastards” is bound to meet with general public approval, especially when M...

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