Trump is mad

 What sort of person would blame Ukraine for russia invading the country. The same person who claims Ukraine should have an election when it is at war. Guess how many European nations held elections when they were at war. 

That person is an idiot

I should add only a moron would believe that enlargement of NATO 'forced' Russia to invade Ukraine. NATO like most military treaties is a defensive treaty. It cannot be invoked if a member invades another countries. It can ONLY be invoked if they are attacked.

What sort of person would indulge a billionaire to pursue indiscriminate sacking in the public service .Two points

1.  This policy clearly failed at twitter where cutting costs hit revenues
2. Indiscriminate sackings simply mean there is no rhyme nor reason involved.We have seen this in USAID, Nuclear Safety and now birdflu

This will clearly fail

If you really wanted to cut costs and root out fraud you would bolter the Inspectors General. Instead Trump fired a lot of them.  Engineers are not skilled at this. forensic accountants are.

Then we had another example of a corrupt DOJ where a highly experienced prosecutor resigned rather than begin gran jury proceedings because they had NO evidence.

The only thing worse than an idiot is one who projects and has authoritarian tendencies.

Be worried, be very worried

The RBA cuts rates

 I cannot still believe the RBA is worried about a 'tight' labour market. They claim to be data driven but seem to ignore wages data! the 2020s is vastly different to the 1970s even 1980s! TOLD YA

Inflation is a lagging indicator. It is now falling more than the RBA thought because of the slowing economy. It will continue to fall. If the RBA is data driven and most forecasts are on the money then another rate cut is on the cards depending on Trump and his mad economic program. They could just drop 10 points and wait to see what else occurs out of Trump's mouth and wait.

Let me speculate on politics. I think Albo will go in May. A softerning labour market and falling inflation should all mean everyone will be expecting a cut after the election and this will be as important as an actual cut in rates.

If the ALP cannot tell the story of a goldilocks economy following high inflation then they deserve to lose!

fiscal stability in the USA

 A short but very interesting article on fiscal stability in the USA.

The only way is up under Trump.Whatever happened to those 'fiscal haks' in the republican party.

Amazing Trump incompetence

 wow so many examples.

Hegseth makes a speech and then has to backtrack ONE day later. competence matters

Vance makes a speech riddles with errors ( I suspect deliberately), meets with neo-nazies in Germany and warnes about democracy in Europe. All this from the bloke who cannot say Biden easily won in 2020! Competence matters

A former Trump defence lawyer who was given a plumb job on the DOJ writes a letter that sure looks like a quid pro quo! This unleashes mass resignations particularly from conservative lawyers. Competence matters

Musk acolytes sack people who are nuclear safety staff.  they then have to try and reinstate them Whoopsy. Competence matters

Trump's poorly written executive orders lead to many court cases.They could lose a lot leading to call to impeach the judges. Competence matters

Notice a pattern here.

Oh can someone tell Trump NATO is a defensive treaty. It can only be enacted if a country is attacked. It is null and void if a country attacks another country so it is impossible for Purin to feel Russia was almost under attack from NATO if Ukraine was to join ( which Germany said it would vote against.).

Around the Traps 14/2/25

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Paddy Gourley on forgetting-robodebt Thanks Nick
• Brendan Coates et al on most-retirees-who-rent-live-in-poverty-heres-how-boosting-rent-assistance-could-help-lift-them-out-of-it
• John Quiggin on trump-has-thrown-out-the-global-economic-playbook-its-time-for-australia-to-write-its-own-rules
• Ross Gittins on economists-find-social-media-harms-mental-health , everyone-hates-government-spending-until-someone-tries-to-cut-it , the-nation-is-finally-coming-to-grips-with-housing-affordability , maths-or-no-maths-ross-gittins-and-richard-holden-have-it-wrong
• Greg Jericho on trumps-latest-tariff-bid-shows-the-old-rules-of-trade-no-longer-apply-scraps-of-paper-will-not-save-us
• Scott French on whether-we-carve-out-an-exemption-or-not-trumps-latest-tariffs-will-still-hit-australia
• Hussein Dia and Hadi Ghaderi on jim-chalmers-wants-to-fix-australias-broken-road-tax-system-heres-what-one-solution-might-look-like
• Cameron Allen John Thwaites on a-new-report-card-shows-inequality-in-australia-isnt-as-bad-as-in-the-us-but-were-headed-in-the-wrong-direction
• Pandanus Peter and Ian McAllister on do-parties-win-elections-because-of-their-leaders-or-in-spite-of-them-history-shows-its-a-bit-of-both
• Frank Bongiorno on splits-fusions-and-evolutions-how-australias-political-parties-took-hold
• Roland Rajah and  Grace Stanhope on how-australia-should-respond-implosion-us-aid
• Kevin Bonham on how-might-minor-right-parties-win-more-seats
• Mark the Ballot on betting-and-polling-update-mid-february

OZ climate

• another-two-giga-scale-battery-storage-projects-take-shape-adding-more-shock-absorbers-to-the-grid
  
• hearing-on-contested-solar-farm-next-to-old-coal-mine-moves-online-due-to-low-number-of-speakers
  
• australias-oldest-commercial-wind-farm-to-close-as-cost-of-repowering-is-too-high
  
• aemo-reports-surge-in-grid-registrations-for-wind-solar-and-battery-projects
  
• surge-in-solar-wind-and-battery-investment-sets-pace-for-82-pct-target-can-australia-keep-it-up
  
• agl-targets-1-4-gw-of-new-big-batteries-to-firm-renewables-and-cash-in-on-price-volatility
  
• nsw-strikes-land-deal-for-massive-new-wind-and-battery-storage-project-in-south-west
  

Northern America

• Kruggers on oppose-oppose-oppose-and-do-it-loudly Thanks Nick
• Andrew Sullivan on keep-calm-carry-on-and-wait Thanks Nick
• The honest Broker on the-state-of-the-culture-2024 Thanks Nick
• Robert Orr on north-carolina-supreme-court-gop-election-strategy
• the conversable economist on what-share-of-federal-spending-is-borrowed , dangers-of-rising-federal-debt
• Brad De Long on time-to-revisit-how-does-this-assessment-look-14 months-later
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-donald-trump-too-weak
• Fred Kaplan on trump-news-doj-foreign-agents-russia-china-iran
• noahopinion on what-i-think-doge-is-really-up-to , anti-anti-neoliberalism-is-also-not-enough
• Robert Waldmann  on musk-usaid-and-a-crazy-conspiracy-theory
• Joyce Vance on jd-vance-tweet-judges-trump-supreme-court
• Thomas Gift and Michael Plouffe on the-us-tried-high-tariffs-and-america-first-policies-in-the-1930s-trump-should-note-what-happened-next
• Andrew Prokop on trump-defy-court-rulings-constitutional-crisis-vance
• Lisa Rubin on can-trump-fire-federal-officials-osc-musk
• calculated risk on cleveland-fed-median-cpi-increased-03-in-january
• Dylan Scott on trump-cdc-health-data-removed-obesity-suicide
• David Scott on the-unhinged-presidency-trump
• Bill Haskell on the-trump-swamp-is-growing
• Jason Furman on post-neoliberal-delusion Thanks Tyler
• Tyler Cowen on the-danger-of-trump-disobeying-court-orders
• Jeet Heer on elon-musk-spending-data-coup , musk-resistance-democrats-billionaire-donors
• Alex Tabarrok on steel-tariffs-in-two-pictures
• Menzie Chinn on douglas-irwin-in-wsj-on-reciprocal-tariffs
• Dahlia Lithwick on eric-adams-charges-dispute-doj-sdny-resignations
• Umair Irfan on record-heat-january-2025-la-nina-winter-cold-climate

Europe

• noahopinion on whats-going-to-happen-to-ukraine-now
• Catherine Wilson on hungary-s-viktor-orban-faces-challenge-his-illiberal-democracy
• Mainly Macro on quantifying-continuing-uk-public-spending-squeeze
• Fred Kaplan on trump-putin-ukraine-russia-news-call

Asia

• Unherd on chinas-stem-army-is-coming Thanks Nick
• Maha Nassar on palestinians-have-long-resisted-resettlement-trumps-plan-to-clean-out-gaza-wont-change-that
• Anniello Iannone on escaping-asean-paralysis-myanmar
• David Livingstone on two-faces-syria-s-interim-government
• Ved Shinde on british-bombay-businesses-indian-foreign-policy
• John Culver on china-taiwan-pla-s-2027-milestones
• Muhammad al Zaqzouq on days-and-nights-in-gaza
• Mosab abu Toha on gaza-must-be-rebuilt-by-palestinians-for-palestinians
• Adnan Amir on flight-nowhere-curious-new-gwadar-international-airport

Wonk

• Garrit Van Dyk on america-first-trade-policy-is-pushing-economic-self-sufficiency-but-history-shows-this-is-harder-than-it-seems
• Eric Storm on how-putin-xi-and-now-trump-are-ushering-in-a-new-imperial-age
• Stephen Grenville on dominant-dollar
• Tim Harford on do-you-want-the-good-feedback-or-the-bad-feedback
• stumbling and mumbling on using-misusing-markets
• institutional economics on i-didnt-expect-leopards-to-eat-my-portfolio
• Tyler Cowen on minimum-wages-efficiency-and-welfare
• Brennain Simpson et al on where-should-we-look-for-new-metals-that-are-critical-for-green-energy-technology-volcanoes-may-point-the-way
• Mareike Reidel on antisemitism-goes-beyond-overt-acts-of-hate-subtle-forms-of-bias-take-their-toll-too
• Michael Jensen on hate-speech-on-x-surged-for-at-least-8-months-after-elon-musk-takeover-new-research
• Lee Morgenbesser on is-elon-musk-taking-over-the-us-government-heres-how-state-capture-works-and-why-we-should-be-concerned
• Alexandra Finch on what-us-withdrawal-who-will-mean-global-health
• Richard Yetsenga on population-decline-future-shock-no-more
• sandwichman on hot-off-press-and-cut-and-fold-and-glue
• Thomas Gift and Michael Plouffe on the-us-tried-high-tariffs-and-america-first-policies-in-the-1930s-trump-should-note-what-happened-next
• Abijnan Rej on fear-loathing-dhaka-dc
• the conversable economist on winter-2025-journal-of-economic-perspectives-freely-available-online , a-meditation-an-academic-journal-goes-paperless

General

• Jenny Allen on whalesong-patterns-follow-a-universal-law-of-human-language-new-research-finds

Climate

• Andrew King and Liam Cassidy on earth-is-already-shooting-through-the-1-5-c-global-warming-limit-two-major-studies-show
• skeptical science on ClimateAdam-is-it-game-over-for-the-1point5-degree-climate-limit , sabin33-15-does-em-radiation-from-wind-turbines-pose-a-threat-to-human-health

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• if-there-really-is-more-fraud-being-done-by-prominent-scientists-than-there-was-in-the-past-why-heres-a-theory
  
• why-are-places-like-stanford-and-johns-hopkins-hosting-gatherings-of-well-known-coronavirus-cranks
  
• what-is-the-correct-value-of-x-in-the-sentence-the-t-test-is-the-xth-most-important-statistical-method-in-science
  
• when-is-60-the-new-40
  
• posterior-sbc-simulation-based-calibration-checking-conditional-on-data
  
• research-with-the-reluctant-challenges-and-strategies
  
• and-if-he-does-research-on-potassium-you-can-bet-hell-strike-out-in-the-labs-softball-game
  
• flatiron-wide-autumn-meeting-talks-are-now-online
  
• better-priors-for-ar-arx-ltx-dr-ma-arma-and-var-models
  
• maybe-they-should-just-write-some-papers-about-their-priors-and-not-mess-around-with-actual-data
  
• freakometrics on mitigating discrimination in insurance
• Kaiser Fung on from-elevator-music-to-causal-thinking , the-player-who-scored-on-his-or-her-birthday
• Eran Raviv on nonstandard-errors

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews

• social-machines
  

Vox Wonk

• implications-severe-weather-events-economy-and-monetary-policy
  
• child-penalties-and-parental-role-models-how-classroom-exposure-shapes-gender-gaps
  
• impact-superbonus-italian-construction-costs
  
• good-managers-better-matches-job-allocation-effects-worker-productivity
  
• gaining-efficiencies-financing-european-public-goods-together
  
• climbing-ivory-tower-socioeconomic-representation-academia
  
• innovation-economic-resilience-strengthening-ukraines-human-capital-and-science
  
• school-resources-parental-involvement-and-student-effort
  
• chaos-theory-assessing-legal-validity-trumps-tariffs
  
• corporate-climate-commitments-profit-driven-strategy-not-just-empty-promises
  
• global-value-chains-world-uncertainty-and-automation
  
• why-unilateral-decarbonisation-can-pay-itself
  
• poverty-during-pandemic-and-role-government-transfers
  

The Bankstown Hospital disgrace

 Yesterday we had two nurses who work at Bankstown hospital say they would not assist if a jew came into their hospital and even kill them.

I hope there is no need to say this was disgraceful more so at present  however I think far too many people are getting ahead of themselves.

They must have known this would go public so what were they thinking of?

In one sense it is nonsensical. No jews would turn up at Bankstown hospital as a patient!

Lastly I am sure I am not the only person who has been in a public hospital. A Nurse who would not attend to any patient would be instantly dismissed. Attempting harm to a patient would be very hard. They would been to be on the roster and ensure other patients could not see what they are doing and remember any problems would show up very fast in terms of their equipment!

These two people will be charged and then find it hard to get a job now.  That is a punishment fitting their crime

Racism

 In view of Sam kerr's court case I thought it would be useful to explore what exactly is racism.

to my mind it is when a person says in some way a certain derogatory term is given to a person because of their skin colour. 

Thus asserting people are stupid or smelly because of their skin colour is racist.

On the other hand asserting someone is a black bastard is not because you are not saying they are a bustard because they are black. you are merely saying they are a bastard who happens to be black.