Club Troppo

This immortal line - the key to the Republican nomination (With Mitt Romney having to play along to try to win the nomination) is from a column by Richard Cohen. It captures the spirit of the times, which I have said before is like the Soviet invasion of Hungary and Czechoslov...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1nHNtZ148I A few weeks ago I attended the latest F.H. Gruen lecture at ANU by the terrific English economist Andrew Oswald.* He's one of those economists who, in addition to being formidable in his (many) fields within the profession, is also a...

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According to most commentators, it was French politician René Lenoir who coined the term 'social exclusion' (l’exclusion sociale). But the idea that there is a disparate group of disadvantaged citizens who are excluded from economic, social and political participation is nothi...

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Herewith Bob McDonald's third instalment. As readers will note, I published the first instalment saying that at a superficial level Bob's argument seemed interesting and indeed persuasive. Since then people who've taken a closer interest in the debate and the issues have been...

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A commodities boom can temporarily boost government revenue, says Malcolm Turnbull . Mostly that's a good thing. But when governments respond by making non-temporary changes to the budget, we have a problem: If, rolling in a big cyclical surplus, a government were to cut incom...

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Herewith Bob McDonald's second post on fisheries economics. With Australia being the last 'settled' continent, the flattest and driest and without reliable streamflow from snow melt it is not outrageous to suggest its fisheries are unique. Until WW2 Australian commercial fish...

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We are in the middle of the electoral cycle, which seems a good time to give advice on which policies make good economics in the sense of being in the interest of the long-run welfare of Australia. My top 5 of do-able economic policies, some big and some small, that a governme...

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On a Background Briefing program on micro-targeting of political campaigning and advertising, I was being pressed by the interviewer. If people hate negative ads, if they degrade the reputation of politicians, why do they do it? I likened it to over-fishing where each fisher p...

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A few months ago, Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute asked me to talk at a function the Institute was holding on secrecy. I said I wasn't particularly well qualified to talk directly on secrecy regarding national security and foreign affairs, but I was happy to speak about...

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A lawsuit by the Koch brothers threatens the Cato Institute's reputation for independence When scholars at the libertarian Cato Institute came out against the Gulf War, Olin Foundation president William E Simon was outraged. The foundation ended up withdrawing its support and,...

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The Lord's Resistance Army and its leader Joseph Kony have been in the news for years (here's a 2006 story from the ABC's Foreign Correspondent ). But this week the issue went viral thanks to a video by advocacy group Invisible Children . With help from celebrities like Rihann...

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Many years ago my father used to respond to some of my wilder claims or flights of fancy by asking "if you're so smart how come you're not rich?" This amused him but I didn't find it very funny - and not just because it deflated my pretentions. I appreciate it more and more wi...

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"Make the media more accountable for their sins, and worry less about new technologies and freedom of speech". That's a one-line summary of Ray Finkelstein's Independent Media Inquiry . It argues for a new system of media regulation to apply to journalists, commentators and mo...

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Inaugurated on this day in 1861 , Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, is as popular as ever. Movies: America's 16th president features in two movies to be released this year. The first is a serious bio-pic by Steven Spielberg while the second is based on...

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A failure in the realm of ideas: It's crisis as usual for the left. Despite the global financial crisis, left of centre parties are struggling in the polls. Francis Fukuyama puts it down to a "a failure in the realm of ideas" arguing that: "The left has not been able to make a...

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A voice of reason from way out West speaks clear unvarnished truth. That the minerals Mother Nature once laid down in her youth, are the hope of teeming millions seeking sanctuary and jobs. Free Enterprise the means by which we’ll fill their starving gobs. We hear the message...

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Well not bird flu actually, but decoupling of median incomes and productivity growth. About as nasty an economic development as one could imagine. FROM THE OECD INSIGHTS BLOG Do workers reap the benefits of productivity growth? In the last twenty years of the 20th century, eac...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8urgvC0TR8&feature=related

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http://youtu.be/UmW1o6rzI7g The Canadians, who have a very strong IP regime have been put on the American's USTR Special 301 Priority Watch List. So they're getting going tightening up their IP for the delectation of the IP boosters. The Spaniards have already passed a SOPA st...

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I see there's a US nationwide campaign against private for-profit prisons. Maybe the campaigners are right. It's certainly easy to imagine ways in which the profit motive would work against the interests of prison inmates and the public interest in lower recidivism rates and s...

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