Around the Traps 31/10/25

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• gross national product on chalmers-was-right Thanks Nick
• Adil Cader on star-power-soft-power-australia-s-celebrity-diplomacy
• Joel Williams and Nicole Hill on fish-stocks-off-icy-heard-island-bounced-back-when-illegal-fishing-stopped-and-sustainable-fishing-continued
• Elliot Stein on shock-normal-australia-s-progressive-patriotism
• Greg Jericho on so-its-goodbye-to-lower-interest-rates-to-be-honest-the-rba-was-always-looking-for-an-excuse-not-to-cut
• Stella Huangfu on higher-than-expected-inflation-report-dashes-hopes-for-further-rba-rate-cuts
• Mark the Graph on the-q3-inflation-surprise , the-price-of-stability

OZ Climate

• aemo-turns-to-battery-inverters-for-world-first-trial-of-running-big-grids-with-no-synchronous-generation
  
• aemo-turns-to-battery-inverters-for-world-first-trial-of-running-big-grids-with-no-synchronous-generation
  
• cheaper-home-batteries-is-a-great-start-but-it-must-avoid-repeating-rooftop-solar-mistakes
  
• wind-hits-record-share-of-150-pct-of-state-demand-as-fossil-energy-shrinks-to-just-1-5-pct-of-total-generation
  
• big-batteries-dominate-booming-grid-connection-pipeline-as-solar-storage-hybrids-also-make-their-mark
  
• industry-pitches-plan-to-ensure-landowners-are-not-hit-with-costs-of-dismantling-wind-and-solar-farms
  
• wind-and-solar-hit-new-peaks-amid-storms-and-heatwaves-rooftop-pv-shines-in-southern-states
  
• prices-fall-sharply-in-september-quarter-as-renewables-surge-batteries-displace-gas-in-evening-peaks
  
• why-the-middle-matters-its-no-longer-about-targets-its-about-the-cost-of-getting-there
  
• forget-subsidies-solar-battery-hybrids-can-deliver-incredibly-competitive-power-for-big-industry
  
• finally-batteries-and-solar-for-renters-and-apartment-dwellers-are-here
  
• its-been-a-bad-few-months-for-battery-bidding-algorithms
  
• Michelle Ward et al on queenslands-forests-are-still-being-bulldozed-and-new-parks-alone-wont-save-them
• Mark the Graph on why-no-one-is-building-new-coal-plants-in-Australia , the-mirage-of-return-to-cheap-power , australias-energy-betrayal-from-abundance-to-austerity
• Graham Readfearn on climate-risk-heat-deaths-fact-despite-coalition-thinktank
• Justine Bell-James on labors-environmental-law-overhaul-a-little-progress-and-a-lot-of-compromise

Northern America

• Brad De Long on chaos-monkey-trump-tomahawk-missiles-and-the-art-of-sanewashing , the-state-of-trumps-trade-war , and-people-were-worried-about-biden-losing-mental/cognitive-step , yes-ai-is-a-bubble-but-it-is-a-bubbleplus
• Nicole Foy on immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will Thanks Nick
• Quico Toro on no-kings-and-the-echo-of-venezuela Thanks Nick
• institutional economics on self-containment-and-the-long-run-failure-of-economic-statecraft
• Danielle Hewitt and Noel King on ice-protests-chicago-broadview-pastor-pepper-spray
• Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Stern on trump-news-judges-warning-martial-law
• noahpinion on trumps-energy-policy-is-incoherent-and-self-defeating , bring-back-liberal-nationalism
• Kruggers on the-rise-of-renewable-energy , no-ronald-reagan-didnt-love-tariffs , the-hunger-games-begin , how-we-lost-the-trade-war , too-cruel-too-soon
• Tyler Cowen on are-new-data-centers-boosting-electricity-prices
• Zack Beauchamp on republican-fuentes-carlson-owens-trump-antisemitism-civil-war , trump-business-boycott-democracy-resistance
• Garret Van Dyk on how-a-sewer-socialism-revival-could-see-zohran-mamdani-become-new-yorks-next-mayor
• David Graham on 2026-midterms-trump-threat
• J Michael Luttig on trump-third-term-authoritarianism
• Andrew Prokop on trump-economy-polling-bad-worst-inflation-prices
• Jonathan Chait on trump-obamacare-shutdown-fight-healthcare-subsidies
• Fintan O'Toole on the-lingering-delusion-107-days-kamala-harris
• Jeet Heer on the rush to war with Venezuela , andrew-cuomo-bigotry-mamdani
• Michael Scherer et al on trump-officials-military-housing-stephen-miller
• Tom Nicholls on trump-nuclear
• Eric Schliesser on no-despotic-kings-but-maybe-constitutional-monarchy
• Jordan Rubin on james-comey-grand-jury-motion-lindsey-halligan-trump

Europe

• Sergey Popov on sanctions-on-russia-have-failed-to-stop-the-war-so-far-will-trumps-latest-package-be-any-different
• Mark Pierce on partition-trap-awaiting-ukraine-s-territorial-settlement
• Mick Ryan on military-training-lessons-ukraine

Asia

• small precautions on the-great-reckoning-of-the-china Thanks Nick
• Sanchari Gosh on japan-s-hawkish-turn-under-takaichi-tests-india-s-balancing-act
• Anas Iqtait on israel-s-annexation-of-the-west-bank-has-been-occurring-for-decades-20251024-p5n53y.
• Amin Saikal on the-leader-most-capable-of-governing-a-future-palestinian-state-is-languishing-in-an-israeli-jail
• Amy Chew on sham-election-offers-no-end-myanmar-s-suffering
• Ben Murphy on icj-tells-israel-to-let-un-aid-flow-into-gaza-but-uns-own-failures-throughout-the-war-loom-large
• Jennifer Kavanagh on america-shouldn-t-pivot-asia
• Shathie D'souza on india-china-detente-real 
• Robert Walker on asean-s-dealmaking-trump-shows-promise
• Sarah Roy on what-day-after-for-gaza
• noahpinion on economic-ideas-for-takaichi-sanae

Wonk

• Luke Slawomirski and Nick Gruen on will-we-ever-learn-only-by-building-learning-systems Thanks Nick
• Sarah Majdov on in-a-world-obsessed-with-innovation-what-if -most-of-it-isn't-real Thanks Nick
• Tim Harford on the-wrong-kind-of-maths
• Hannah Forsyth on death-and-capitalism-part-2-of-4
• Sean Illing on enshittification-cory-doctorow-amazon-google-facebook
• noahpinion on our-age-of-kings
• Tyler Cowen on agustin-etchebarne-on-milei-and-the-election , trump-and-the-americas
• Brad De Long on competition-civility-and-the-discourse , on-the-faux-puzzlement-of-dan-davies
• Juan Ferrero on javier-mileis-victory-in-argentinas-midterm-elections-is-also-a-win-for-trump
• Penny Wong on confronting-danger-zombie-united-nations
• Chris Dillow on some-costs-of-remilitarization
• The conversable economist on imf-lessons-about-industrial-policy-from-korea-and-brazil
• Tilman Ruff on if-the-us-resumes-nuclear-weapons-testing-this-would-be-extremely-dangerous-for-humanity

General

• Pamela O'Neill on samhain-the-true-non-american-origins-of-halloween
• Konstantine Panegyres on a-2-000-year-history-of-chucking-a-sickie

Climate

• Phillipa Collin et al on climate-change-is-a-crisis-of-intergenerational-justice-its-not-too-late-to-make-it-right
• skeptical science on controversial-methane-metric , fact-brief-evidence , ClimateAdam-can-solar-halt-the-desert , new_research
• essays concerning on mind-the-spark-gap
• Thomas Newsome and William Ripple on in-2024-the-climate-crisis-worsened-in-all-ways-but-we-can-still-limit-warming-with-bold-action
• Alexander Baker and Liz Stephens on hurricane-melissa-is-a-warning-why-violent-storms-are-increasingly-catching-the-world-off-guard
• Stephen Townsend and Alan Pearce on yes-cricket-is-a-contact-sport-we-have-safety-gear-but-we-need-to-do-more
• ocean acidification on tiny-ocean-organisms-missing-from-climate-models-may-hold-the-key-to-earths-carbon-future

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• even-the-easiest-data-requests-can-require-some-effort
  
• hey-philip-larkin-i-dont-get-what-youre-saying-here
  
• the-stated-purpose-of-a-program-is-not-always-the-same-as-its-real-purpose
  
• no-this-is-not-the-most-unpredictable-race-for-mayor-that-new-york-city-has-seen-in-decades
  
• the-war-war-and-the-electoral-benefits-of-running-more-moderate-candidates-for-political-office
  
• the-last-time-it-seemed-to-people-that-the-country-was-coming-apart
  
• studying-sex-ratios-is-just-a-lot-harder-than-you-think-effects-are-tiny-and-variation-is-large
  
• Kaiser Fung on ten-pie-charts-are-you-worried-yet
• Freakometrics on what if we finally focused on prevention
• Tyler Cowen on a-new-critique-of-rcts

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• n
• anecdotal value on dan-wangs-breakneck-review Thanks Nick
• Andrew Gelman on reading-like-its-1937
• Tyler Cowen on what-to-watch

vox wonk

• public-rd-and-brazils-agricultural-revolution 
  
• leading-firms-are-falling-behind-developing-east-asia
  
• multi-issuer-stablecoins-threat-financial-stability
  
• flawed-rationale-behind-americas-reciprocal-tariffs
  
• how-tariffs-hurt-ones-you-love
  
• africas-domestic-debt-boom-new-evidence-african-debt-database
  
• political-polarisation-drives-talent-away-evidence-spains-health-sector
  
• insuring-labour-income-shocks-role-dynasty
  

No rate cut

 The last quarterly CPI was released yesterday and it was not good.

Here are two views:

• Greg Jericho
• Stella Huangfu
• Mark the Graph

I am in the latter's camp. although electricity rebates finishing was one of the reasons the rise was broad based. Thus a rate cut is off the cards.

I must add a caveat. There is a possibility it may have been a rogue number. this happens in statistics. Glenn Stevens when governor had not one but two rogue numbers!!

One other thing from november we get monthly CPI numbers which are done in the same way as the quarterly numbers. Indeed the ABS head Dr David Gruen ( this man is seriously intelligent. He has a PhD in both Physics and Economics) told someone we will get history for monthly numbers going back some two years or more.

although this is great we won't know about the seasonality of the figures. Thus my guess is the RBA will continue to rely on quarterly figures which they will calculate as they have shown themselves to be conservative or timid depending on your point of view.

At present the cash rate is 3.6%. In my view at best if inflation falls in the future it can only fall to 3.25% which is seen as the neutral rate. It can only fall further if the government pull their finger out and rid itself of the structural budget deficit.

Whoopsy.

I should have added the Fed has cut their cash rate by 25 basis points yet their trimmed mean rate is similar to ours. Bad move

How Capitalism thrives and when it doesn't

 Harry Littman is a legal eagle and so has been very busy since Trump became President again.

In this he talks to Kruggers, Stephanie Ruhle and our own Justin Wolfers. Justin has just given the Boyer lectures and he talks again on the topic here.

How law intercedes with economics and thus why institutions are so important to healthy capitalism.

It is Fantastic to listen too.

A couple of things

 Palestine

Amin Saikal has a reasonable piece on the palestinian mandela. Israel will never release him although his trial was highly dubious. They simply do not want the palestinians to have a decent leader.

Although Trump has 'vetoed' Israel fully annexing the West Bank. In essence this is meaningless. Israel keeps on taking land piece by piece. Stolen property by Israelis of palestinians ps the major problem. It is not just the Nakba. 

Ukraine

The major problem Ukraine has always had is mainly the USa but also NATO give them resources sso russia cannot beat then BUT also they cannot beat Russia. This was initially due to Biden's timidity and now it is Trump's stupidity. Ukraine's use of drones is breath-taking.It is also building some very useful missiles.

Trump and a third term

It won't happen. It is against the constitution as even Barret confirmed and he is in clear cognitive decline now and it will get worse particularly after the mid-terms. See video

Noah Smith is interesting

 Noah Smith writing on his substack noahpinion ( get it) writes a really thoughtful column.

our-age-of-kings.

A great read on a monday morning

 

Puccinni

 If you have never been to the Opera then try La Boheme. Fantastic arias and duets.

Surely this is the greatest aria ever written

Around the Traps 24/10/25

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Ruth Forrest on when-economic-spin-masquerades-as-analysis Thanks Nick
• Shaun Wilson on why-has-support-for-one-nation-surged-since-the-2025-federal-election
• Marilyn Lake on is-australia-still-a-lucky-country-or-has-the-australian-way-lost-its-way
• Patrick Commins on albaneses-critical-minerals-deal-isnt-good-economics-but-in-trump-and-xis-new-world-bargaining-chips-matter
• Emma Shortis on can-albanese-claim-success-with-trump-beyond-the-banter-the-vague-commitments-should-be-viewed-with-scepticism
• Sam Roggeveen on what-trump-told-albanese-about-taiwan-matters-more-aukus
• Jenny Bloomfield on can-rare-earths-be-australia-s-next-mining-boom
• Greg Jericho on australias-surprise-unemployment-spike-suggests-an-economy-not-overheating-but-in-need-of-stimulus
• Gordon Peake on apology-australia-owes-timor-leste-won-t-deliver
• croaking cassandra on rb-still-defending-a-series-of-costly-mistakes
• Alex Simpson on is-melbourne-really-the-crime-capital-of-australia
• Rochelle Kernen and Kathryn Amos on ancient-salt-mountains-in-southern-australia-once-created-refuges-for-early-life
• Aarti Betigeri on us-foreign-worker-visas-where-there-s-crisis-there-s-opportunity
• Nicki Hutley on dont-believe-the-hype-why-australian-taxpayers-should-be-wary-of-the-critical-minerals-deal-with-trump

OZ Climate

• queensland-lnp-is-trying-to-have-its-cake-and-eat-it-too-you-cant-keep-coal-open-and-meet-climate-targets
  
• death-of-baseload-worlds-biggest-isolated-grid-is-reaching-84-pct-wind-and-solar-almost-daily 
  
• big-green-lies-are-renewables-really-tearing-up-agricultural-land
  
• unions-back-plan-for-wind-solar-and-battery-storage-to-save-future-of-struggling-smelters
  
• aemo-boss-says-energy-retailers-need-to-make-vpps-more-attractive-for-homes-with-pv-and-batteries
  
• big-batteries-are-scaling-up-but-we-aint-sending-nothing-yet-when-it-comes-to-capacity-and-price-impact
  
• pay-people-for-their-time-six-ways-we-should-be-funding-regions-to-respond-to-the-energy-transition
  
• aemo-boss-says-energy-retailers-need-to-make-vpps-more-attractive-for-homes-with-pv-and-batteries
  
• tight-squeezes-and-tricky-turns-the-tortuous-path-of-transporting-giant-wind-turbines
• south-australias-biggest-wind-farm-with-the-countrys-lowest-feed-in-tariff-is-officially-open-for-business
  
• australians-install-100000-home-battery-systems-in-17-weeks-and-they-are-getting-bigger
  
• intermittent-coal-bowen-tells-right-wing-think-tank-and-fierce-critic-that-its-got-it-wrong-on-renewables
  
• the-fog-of-electricity-price-disinformation
  
• Alexander Kilmencko on switching-off-the-huge-gladstone-coal-station-in-2029-will-cause-problems-it-needs-a-longer-smarter-phase-out
• Andrew Blakkers et al on white-elephant-hardly-snowy-2-0-will-last-150-years-and-work-with-batteries-to-push-out-gas
• Michelle Ward on queenslands-forests-are-still-being-bulldozed-and-new-parks-alone-wont-save-them

Northern America

• institutional economics on the-us-labour-market-slowdown-cyclical-or-policy-induced
• Joshua Keating on venezuela-trump-maduro-regime-change-drug-boats
• noahopinion on america-could-win-this-trade-war-if-it-wanted-to , after-trump-the-deluge
• the conversable economist on the-unfolding-effects-of-trumps-tariffs
• Tyler Cowen on the-economic-geography-of-american-slavery , the-median-voter-model-or-the-becker-pressure-group-model
• Kruggers on technology-and-jobs , civil-resistance-confronts-the-autocracy , donald-trump-has-lost-touch-with-reality, the-us-economy-is-in-worse-shape-than-it-looks , argentina-and-rural-americas-awakening , trumps-gilded-ballroom-and-the-fall-of-the-american-republic
• Zack Beauchamp on is-australia-still-a-lucky-country-or-has-the-australian-way-lost-its-way
• Andrew Prokop on young-republican-leaked-groupchat-antisemitism-shapiro-walsh
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-ice-no-law , supreme-court-trump-national-guard-illinois-ice-chicago
• Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Stern on supreme-court-arrogance-problem-for-trump
• Anne Applebaum on trump-no-kings-day-protest-ai-poop
• David Smith on a-supreme-court-showdown-looms-for-trumps-tariffs-will-it-limit-presidential-power
• Mark Stern on trump-portland-crackdown-bad-judge-supreme-court
• Ruth Marcus on tom-homan-and-the-case-of-the-missing-fifty-thousand
• Jonathan Blitzer on the-real-target-of-trumps-war-on-drug-boats
• the conversable economist on the-ambulance-transport-to-dialysis-fraud , marijuana-policy-in-a-fragmented-legal-structure , marijuana-policy-in-a-fragmented-legal-structure
• Fred Kaplan on trump-venezuela-boat-strikes-hegseth
• Jeet Heer on trump-no-kings-post-crapping-on-america
• Joshua Windham on ice-detained-us-citizen-immigration-crackdown-lawsuit
• Blake Lawrence on why-us-activists-are-wearing-inflatable-frog-costumes-at-protests-against-trump
• Benji Jones on florida-coral-reef-extinction
• calculated risk on cleveland-fed-median-cpi-increased-02

Europe

• Ed Harrison and Olivia Brown on inside-the-far-right-social-media-ecosystem-normalising-extremist-ideas-in-uk-politics
• Stefan Wolf on russia-now-has-a-strategy-for-a-permanent-state-of-hybrid-war
• Tim Harford on the-uks-problems-arent-caused-by-immigration
• Mick Ryan on last-week-was-disaster-ukraine-america-s-allies
• Gabriela Bernal on europe-should-back-donald-trump-again-engage-kim-jong-un
• Gail McElroy on irelands-presidential-election-race-now-down-to-two-women
• Fred Kaplan on trump-putin-russia-ukraine-meeting-budapest-hungary

Asia

• Neil Thomas on china-s-innovation-fixation
• Amin Saikal on pakistan-and-the-afghan-taliban-avoid-a-deeper-war-for-now-but-how-long-can-the-peace-hold
• Nir Arielli and Jacob Stol on how-an-international-security-force-in-post-war-gaza-could-work
• Robert Walker on sun-setting-southeast-asia-s-solar-exporters
• Kinda Alsamara et al on syrias-new-leader-promised-democracy-then-he-excluded-women-from-parliamentary-elections
• Adam Simpson on japans-economy-needs-foreign-workers-not-the-nationalist-approach-pushed-by-its-new-leader
• Virdirka Utama on prabowo-s-first-year-visibility-without-vision-indonesian-foreign-policy
• Nika Pasko on south-korea-track-become-defence-powerhouse

Wonk

• Erica Mayor on how-my-fake-accent-became-a-full-blown-identity-experiment Thanks Nick
• Hannah Forsyth on death-and-capitalism-part-1-of-4
• Alex Tabarrok on rare-earths-arent-rare , creative-destruction-in-a-nutshell
• Tyler Cowen on some-simple-economics-of-ai-and-macro-cycles
• institutional economics on the-new-normal-of-us-china-economic-warfare
• Amir Razmjou on the-global-race-is-on-to-secure-critical-minerals-why-do-they-matter-so-much
• Carolin Kautz on what-chipmaker-netherlands-can-tell-australia-about-its-commercial-relations-china
• uncharted territories on argentina-could-be-a-superpower Thanks Tyler
• Sussan Davis and Yuan Wang on testosterone-levels-decline-with-age-not-menopause-despite-what-youve-heard
• Bruno Arpi and Donald Rothwell on critical-minerals-us-bid-bypass-international-rules-deep-sea-mining
• Nick Gruen on the-evaluator-general-redux

General

• the neglected books page on Stella Bowen Thanks Nick
• Caroline Spry et al on how-forensic-analysis-and-traditional-knowledge-reveal-the-story-of-a-unique-boomerang
• Paul Crosby on in-her-revenue-era-the-economics-behind-taylor-swifts-34-versions-of-the-life-of-a-showgirl
• Scott McLean on ange-postecoglous-sackings-may-say-more-about-the-premier-leagues-attention-span-than-him
• Nicola Davis on dinosaurs-asteroid-struck-research

Climate

• Hamish Clarke on the-climate-crisis-is-fuelling-extreme-fires-across-the-planet
• and Then Theres Physics on a-controversial-methane-metric
• Tyler Cowen on understanding-and-addressing-temperature-impacts-on-mortality
• Christoph Nedopil on trump-is-pushing-allies-to-buy-us-gas-its-bad-economics-and-a-catastrophe-for-the-climate
• Mark the Graph on net-zero-caught-between-urgency-and-feasibility
• skeptical science on india-power-co2-falls , new_research
• ocean acidification on from-global-emissions-to-local-impacts-spatially-explicit-modeling-of-ocean-acidification-in-life-cycle-assessment

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• the-war-on-data-2025-edition-2
  
• aversive-statistical-methods-explain-differences-in-dark-publication-in-pnas-across-subject-areas
  
• bayesian-probability-like-frequentist-probability-is-a-model-based-activity-that-is-mathematically-anchored-by-physical-randomization-at-one-end-and-calibration-to-a-reference-set-at-the-other
  
• reanalysis-of-that-nobel-prizewinning-study-of-patents-and-innovation
  
• survey-statistics-individualism-doesnt-work
  
• skew
  
•  was-admiral-poindexter-a-terrorist-whos-in-charge-of-your-prediction-market
• Freakometrics on a three pillar governance framework for fair insurance pricing
• statschat on briefly
• Kaiser Fung on peak-social-media-depends-on-how-you-measure-it

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• David Runciman on down-the-rabbit-hole Thanks Nick
• Tyler Cowen on the-loneliness-of-sonia-and-sunny-by-kiran-desai , surviving-rome-the-economic-lives-of-the-ninety-percent , why-live-how-suicide-becomes-an-epidemic, what-ive-been-reading
• skeptical science on new-book-climate-obstruction-a-global-assessment

Vox Wonk

• missing-link-why-economic-policy-needs-organisational-economics 
  
• what-money-will-become-seven-key-questions 
  
• why-export-controls-accelerate-innovation-evidence-2007-us-china-rule
  
• geopolitical-tensions-and-international-financial-fragmentation-28th-geneva-report
  
• trumps-tariffs-fiscal-folly
  
• impact-fintech-lending
  
• details-matter-how-loan-pricing-affects-monetary-policy-transmission-euro-area
  
• sustained-growth-through-creative-destruction-nobel-laureates-philippe-aghion-and
  
• speaking-debt-framing-guilt-and-economic-choices
  
• confusopoly-unveiled-how-firms-use-complexity-raise-prices