Around the Traps 31/1/14

It is time for Around the Traps again and its another cracking edition. The wonk and climate sections are really interesting, Andrew Gelman is on fire (in a statistically significant way of course.Does he ever sleep?) and Voxwonk is full of interesting articles as usual.
Big Bad Dave Giles is on strike apparently!


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• John Quiggin on the-anti-science-right-on-wind-farms
• Mumble on abbott_and_bolt_both_wrong, how_to_build_authority
• Matt Cowgill on links-27-january, tax-expenditures-were-number-1
• Ross Gittins on why-health-spending-is-sustainable-and-will-be-sustained
• Harry Clarke on muzzling-the-abc, fact-check-on-plain-packaging
• Andrew Elder on morrison-is-the-obstacle
• The Kouk on spc-one-and-a-half-cheers-for-joe-hockey
• Don Arthur on whats-the-point-of-work-for-the-dole

Northern America

• Calculated Risk on new-home-sales-weak-finish-solid-growth, fannie-mae-mortgage-serious-delinquency-rate
• Kruggers on the-realities-of-class-begin-to-sink-in
• Nick Rowe on is-the-falling-exchange-rate-good-news-or-bad-news 
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-and-the-taper-continues 
• James Hamilton on u-s-economy-gaining-momentum
• Menzie Chinn on eswar-prasad-on-the-the-dollar-trap
• Brad DeLong on morning-must-read-david-beckworth-the-two-big-failures-of-the-bernanke-fed
• Noah Smith on why-does-america-have-potholed-roads-low-taxes-and-high-inequality

Europe

• Jonathan Portes on keynesians-supply-siders-and-labour-market
• Philip Lane on the-financial-crisis-in-iceland-and-ireland-what-are-the-lessons-five-years-later
• Simon Wren-Lewis on understanding-ever-increasing-executive-pay
• Chris Dillow on deficit-fetishism, tax-rises-vs-immigration-caps
• Philip Lane on squaring-the-eurozone%E2%80%99s-vicious-circle

Asia

• Menzie Chinn onthe-reliability-of-chinese-gdp-again
• Edward Lambert on bye-bye-sustainable
• Noah Smith on what-can-abenomics-teach-us-about-macro

Wonk

• David Glasner on two-cheers-well-maybe-only-one-and-a-half-for-falsificationism 
• Noah Smith on chris-house-sticks-up-for-macro-part-ii , what-if-preferences-are-unstable
• Kruggers on soup-kitchens-caused-the-great-depression-aff-edition Read Lord Keynes as well on misess-explanation-of-great-depression
• Robert Waldeman on is-the-permanent-income-glass-half-full-ii
• Menzie Chinn on interpreting-recent-emerging-market-currency-movements
• Dan Crawford on guest-post-shake-rattle-and-roll
• Simon Wren-Lewis on bullard-on-death-of-theory
• Chris Dillow on taxes & growth, why-inequality-matters
• Lord Keynes on a-gulf-separates-milton-friedman-and-most-Austrians
• Livio De Matteo on economic-inequality-saving-and-economic-growth
• Nick Rowe on coloured-sunspots-and-shells

General

• Noah Smith on the-econ-nobel-prize-is-really-weird
• Steve Roth on no-saving-does-not-increase-savings
• Kruggers on macroeconomic-populism-returns
• Stephen Kinsella on economics-and-finance-teaching-before-and-after-the-crisis

Climate

• Greg Laden on the-alaskan-winter-that-never-was Thanks Steve from Brisbane
• Benjamin Preston on australian-heatwave-aftermath, cuts-to-uk-adaptation-spending
• Climate Shifts on Deja Vu, what is causing Asutralia's heatwave
• Real Climate on global-temperature-2013
• Rabett run on gauntlet-tossing, die-entdeckung-der-currywurst
• Joe Romm on the hockey stick lives
• Mauri Pelto on greenland-ice-sheet-retreat-leading-to-island-development
• Tamino on global-temperature-the-post-1998-surprise  very good!
• Brian Schmidt on im-kind-of-big-deal-in-australia
• Science of Doom on ghosts-of-climates-past-fourteen-concepts-hd-data
• Climate science on defendants-appeal-in-mann-defamation-case-delays-discovery
• Joanna Forster on drought-air-pollution-west
• David Appell on is-hockey-stick-flaccid Thanks Steve from Brisbane

Andrew Gelman ( Stats Man!)

• infoviz-top-stat-graphic-top-spreadsheet
• twitter-sucks-people-gullible-as-f
• best-blog-comment-ever
• disappointed-results-boost-scientific-paper
• history-important-left-history-professors
• questioning-lancet-plos-surveys-iraqi-deaths-interview-univ-london-professor-michael-spagat
• history-important-left-history-professors-part-2
• thicket-variation-political-orientations-parents-sons-daughters-return-tradeoff-internal-external-validity-design-interpretation
• recently-sister-blog-2
• /microfoundations-of-macroeconomics
• Kaiser Fung on introducing-the-statistical-parable

Dave Giles ( Econometrics???)

• alexander-aitken
• econometrics-at-monash-university ( Australian of course!)

Dianne Coyle (Quirky +Book Reviews)

• eric-schmidt-is-wrong-the-robots-are-not-drinking-champagne,something-to-read, dollar-unthinkable, joni-mitchell, on-being-open
• Tim Harford on what-makes-us-happy
• Chris Dillow on adnan-januzaj-counter-signalling, our-parental-inheritance-matters

Voxwonk

• optimal-rules-thumb-personal-finance
• is-world-recovery-really-strengthening
• sleeping-together-network-effects-and-sleep-duration
• padre-plan-politically-acceptable-debt-restructuring-eurozone
• inequality-and-household-debt-new-evidence
• us-electrification-1930s
• lessons-from-the-of-economics-crime
• privatisation-and-debt-lessons-greece-s-fiasco
• job-losses-during-great-recession
• ez-business-cycle-syncing

Allegations

In recent times we have become aware of two allegations.

1. One set was made by asylum seekers against the Navy
2. Another more recently was made against people in the building industry.

In both case the media did its proper job and reported the allegations.

Both set of allegations need to be investigated to find out if there is any veracity in them.
If there are then action needs to be taken.
If there are not again action needs to be taken.

People who state one set of allegations should have never been allowed on the media are simply bereft of common sense!
update. It appears the PM is bereft of common sense.He is losing more than his hair!

further update. It seems this is the line by Steve Kates who we know is mentally unbalanced. Say no more!

Castle -Series 6 thus far

Well just to start with here were my thoughts prior to Series 6.

• here
• here
• here
• here

and then this after series 6 started.

Yes a little repetitious but then it had to be. 

Firstly season 6 has been overall pretty good. Once you take out the first two dreadful episodes concerning the DC job where it appeared to be a different series to Castle and the awful Alexis episode ( where the writers had the appalling taste to put Father and Daughter building theory together. This is foreplay for Caskett!) there has been only one episode which I rate boring. The very last one. Some of the episodes have been absolute ball-tearers. ( The time traveller being my favourite.) Marlowe wrote a fantastic episode!

Secondly and very surprisingly the first arc of series 6 showed that Beckett was stupid, selfish, self-centred and very fickle in accepting the job. We had confirmation she did NO homework before accepting the job and didn't think of the consequences once she started.Hence all my criticisms were actually confirmed although I very much doubt that Marlowe was aware of what he was doing.

We had the pathetic sight of Castle attempting to remedy the situation by saying he bought an apartment in DC as he can write anywhere. Only problem is he had no evidence for this. He wrote his first best-seller at Uni and then wrote at the Old Haunt until he bought the Loft,. That is where he writes now. Indeed he has said  in a number of episodes. ( Don't any of these writers look at the previous episodes of Castle to provide consistency in the canon!)

Thirdly Stana cannot hold centre stage on her own. With Castle in the background in the first two episodes it was very boring. Contrast that to Headhunters in series 4. Nathan can hold his own!

Fourthly Beckett has completely changed in her attitude with regard to the Caskett relationship. It appears to have happened after her DC failure however this is only strongly implied. We do not know for sure. Moreover if she hasn't learned any lessons from this failure then she will do it again. hence viewers need to know.

I can see this series getting better and better as the wedding approaches. 

Here's hoping and keep Marlowe well away from that episode!

Steve Kates Mad , Bad and unable to tell the truth

Steve Kates is at it again.

In this ignorant rant he says this.
'The European economies, and Australia as well, emerged from the Great Depression faster than we have today because they used classical theory and policy to work things out. The UK famously balanced its budget in 1933, at the very trough of the Great Depression. We cut spending here in 1931 and was the first economy to come out of the Great Depression with the Australian trough being reached in 1932 from which time things continually improved.'

Okay , let us examine the US under Roosevelt. When the New Deal was implemented the US experienced growth of nearly double digits. The US then went into recession when Roosevellt adopted classical economics and performed the largest fiscal change in his administration. Yeah that's right the largest change in fiscal policy by Roosevelt was not deficit spending but getting the budget into the black.

Now Australia we examined here.  Please note what happens to the economy after the balanced budget of 1931. 
After GROWING at 1.7% it then reduces GDP by 2.6%.

Thus Steve joins fellow Catallaxy writer Julie Novak as a complete liar about Australia in the Depression.

Please note the reasons for the recovery. nothing to do with classical economics indeed quite the opposite!

Australia's unemployment rate never got below 8%. sound like full employment to you. no not to anyone literate in economics actually.

Steve actually doesn't mention Germany. The ONLY country to get to FULL employment following the Depression. I wonder why?
Poor old Bruning. He followed those classical economics policies advocated by Hayek and it brought disaster and worse. Hitler.
so the ONLY advertisement for classical economics is that it gave us Hitler.
It is no wonder Steve is mad!
just as an added bonus. 
The official costs of Austerity in europe!

Really is there any further evidence people at Catallaxy are brain dead.  ( Thanks Steve from Brisbane)

Carly Simon Again

I know it has been a long time for some music but I have been busy.
A fantastic reaction to the last Carly Simon song so here is another one most would not have heard of.

I am willing to bet Carly never had a problem either!

Around the Traps 24/1/14

It is time for Around the Traps.
no cricket at all this week so updating will be easy.
Noah Smith obviously had no Christmas, there are quite a few econometric articles besides Our Dave writing and David Glasner has a great article.
Interesting article on various guises of Keynesianism by OZ's own John Quiggin.
voxwonk always interesting.


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• The Kouk on heres-why-italian-bond-yields-are-lower-than-australia , all-pumped-up-about-inflation
• Harry Clarke on housing-prices-and-migration, getting-towards-a-sound-asylum-seeker-policy 
• Joshua Gans on the supply side effects of direct action 
• Peter Martin on how-australian-dollar-floated-30-years, clipping-peaks-why-we-should-allow-to-turn-off-our-air-conditioners
• Mumble on whats_at_stake_in_griffith
• John Quiggin on putting-their-worst-foot-forward
• Andrew Elder on on-a-different-plane, scott-morrison-should-be-sacked
• m0nty is cheesed off with Sinclair Davidson's hypocrisy, this is good too
• Kevin Bonham on andrews-phantom-welfare-spending-crisis

Northern America

• Noah Smith on does-americas-survival-mean-that-its-a-resilient-country, a-henry-george-tax-for-san-francisco
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-the-week-that-was 
• Stephen Gordon on statistics-canadas-attention-deficit-disorder
• Livio Di Matteo on a-lower-dollar-wont-reverse-dutch-disease

Europe

• Chris Dillow on market-trade-offs, who-needs-productivity, abuses-of-statistics
• Kruggers on running-economies-into-the-sand
• Francesco Saraceno on fiscal-expansion-or-what Thanks Mark 
• Kevin O'Rourke on deflation
• Simon Wren-Lewis on adapting-forward-guidance
• CEPR on greece-will-likely-begin-recovery-this-year-is-austerity-working  Thanks Mark

Asia
nuttin
Wonk

• Robert Waldeman on is-the-permanent-income-hypothesis-glass-half-full
• Nick Rowe on is-the-macroeconomic-importance-of-finance-an-artefact-of-monetary-policy, another-weird-monetary-world
• Simon Wren-Lewis on ordoliberalism-neoliberalism-and-economics
• John Quiggin on new-old-keynesianism and Kruggers on everything-new-is-old-again and then Robert Waldeman on john-quiggin-is-as-usual-brilliant
• David Glasner on g-l-s-shackle-and-the-indeterminacy-of-economics  really good, barro-and-krugman-yet-again-on-regular-economics-vs-keynesian-economics
• Noah Smith on robert-barros-famous-polemic-against-NewKeynesians, Kruggers needed here none-so-blind-macroeconomics-division  chris-house-sticks-up-for-macro
• Sandwichman on fallacy-vs-fallacy

General

• Noah Smith on toss-out-falsifiability, thoughts-on-the-neoreactionaries, wealth-inequality-slightly-exaggerated
• Liveo Di Matteo on foreign-remittances-immigration-and-economic-development
• Chris Dillow on democracy-dissonanceC

Climate

• Rabette run on curry-vs-curry
• open mind on one-of-the-problems-with-judith-curry
• John Neilsen-Gammon on your-logic-escapes-me
• James empry blog on recognising-pattern
• Science of doom on ghosts-of-climates-past-twelve-gcm-v-ice-age-termination
• William Connelly on peer-review
• Jeff Spross on world-climate-cataclysm
• Climate Science Watch on assault-on-knowledge-anti-science-policymaking-in-canada
• Ryan Koronoswki on noaa-nasa-2013-temperature
• John Neilsen-Gammon on the-basics-of-extreme-weather-and-global-warming, the-weather-trap Thanks Steve from Brisbane

Andrew Gelman (Stats)

• aaa-tranche-subprime-science
• mailing-list-degree-of-difficulty-difficulty
• commissar-traffic-presents-latest-five-year-plan
• everything-need-know-bayesian-statistics-learned-eight-schools
• spell-checking-example
• discussion-preregistration-research-studies
• parables-vs-data
• sparsity-density
• Good Stats Bad Stats on biased selection methods 
• Kaiser Fong on  numbersense-on-mailchimps-gmail-study

Dave Giles (Econometrics)

• six-word-peer-review
• an-ardl-add-in-for-eviews
• testing-up-or-testing-down
• Frances Diebold on causality-and-t-consistency-vs.correlation-and-p-consistency
• Arindrajit Dube on casual-versus-causal-inference-time-series-edition
• James Hamilton on on_rsquared_and-economic-prediction

Dianne Coyle (Quirky + Book Reviews)

• economics-of-shelfies, complementarity-serendipity, introducing-game-theory, history-retweeting

Voxwonk

• market-mechanisms-in-retreat
• multilateralising-21st-century-regionalism
• tapering-and-emerging-market-capital-flows
• why-japan-s-debt-hasn-t-wreaked-havoc-yet
• minimum-wages-and-jobs-new-evidence
• china-s-one-child-policy-and-saving-puzzle
• simple-formula-climate-linked-economic-damage
• efficient-retail-payments-and-growth-europe
• why-asian-firms-hold-cash
• russia-against-eu-s-eastern-partnership
• european-merger-policy-reform

Interest rates will be rising.

The Kouk examines the CPI  and doesn't like it. and for good reason.on a six month annualised basis the RBA preferred measure is now running at 3%. Moreover as the Kouk says the-rba-inflation-forecasts-hit-for-six . 
This means the RBA will have no option but to increase interest rates.

I might say my sympathies are with the forecasters here. Given that wage growth is minimal one would not have expected such large increases in the September and December quarters.

Joe Hockey has blamed the carbon tax. This means he doesn't know what was in the MYEFO!

How to price Bonds

The Kouk has a great article on heres-why-italian-bond-yields-are-lower-than-australia.

It is all about how to price bonds.

The Kouk was in the fixed income market for quite a long time with TD securities ( The Australian offshoot of Toronto Dominion Bank).
He therefore knows quite a lot about the market.

It is an informative article for those who do not know how bonds are priced.

You cannot price shares without first pricing Government bonds!

Why cannot Sinclair Davidson simply admit he was wrong?

Sometime ago Sinclair Davidson made a very silly prediction that Australia would experience Stagflation.

Now just read the article and then take a time to ponder did he get anything right?

Well no.
 Instead of stagflation we in fact got deflation when the terms of trade fell quite a bit. Indeed there were times Real GDP was larger than Nominal GDP in some quarters.
No sign of nominal GDP falling below trend in this article. No sign that this is the reason why unemployment would rise.

Thus when M0nty provokes Davidson into asking why his prediction was  so wrong here   it was interesting to note Davidson's reaction.

He essentially says he got it right.  If we are to take him at his word then that would mean he is patently mad like Kastesy however given his history I think we can merely note he is incapable of saying he got it wrong,badly wrong.

Fortunately those of us that can read know how badly he got it wrong and why he got it so badly wrong!

How ironic the site that gives me more ( many more in fact) pageviews than any other site is Catallaxy

Around the Traps 17/1/14

It is time for Around the Traps.

Boys are away so plenty of time to update on the weekend.


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• The Kouk on the-budget-deficit-remains-well-contained, crappy-jobs-data-but-it-is-a-lagging-indicator, housing-affordability-lattes-and-great-expectations
• Peter Martin on secret-fees-why-war-on-red-tape-is-war-on-us, health-economics-what-would-charging-for-a previously-free-visit-to-the-doctor-achieve
• Harry Clarke on pricing-heavy-vehicle-use, privatising-australia-post
• Mumble on so_so_shorten
• Mark the Graph on employment
• Grog's Gamut on Australias-unemployment-rate-in-December
• John Quiggin on a-few-more-observations-on-nuclear-power

Northern  America

• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-employment-report-keeps-policymakers-on-their-toes, fed-watch-lockhart-greenlights-tapering
• Calculated Risk on key-measures-shows-low-inflation-in-December
• Menzie Chinn on friday_fiscal_lookback
• David Beckworth on has-natural-interest-rate-has-been-negative  Thanks Mark

Europe

• Kruggers on success-european-style,the-glittering-crises
• James Hamilton on european_monetary_policy_&_the_yield_curve
• Kevin O'Rourke on loffre-cree-meme-la-demande
• Mark Thoma on france-by-the-numbers
• Simon Wren-Lewis on was-uk-governments-use-of-north-sea-oil-a-scandal, how-ecb-could-be-radical-by-being-old-fashioned
• Monique Ebell on scottish-independence-and-uks-debt-burden-update

Asia
nuttin again

• Noah Smith on myths-and-misconceptions-about-japans-economy

Wonk

• Steve Roth on the-economy-is-a-ponzi-scheme
• Arindrajit Dube on separating-signal-from-noise-a-review-of-12-major-studies-on-minimum-wages-and-poverty  Thanks Mark
• Menzie Chinn on reserve_accumulation_ in_the_wake_of_the_great_recession
• Econbrowser on guest_contribution_on _Understnding_the _potential_effects_of_QE
• Noah Smith on the-equation-at-core-of-modern-macro
• Edward Lambert on attack-on-euler-equation-implies-financial-repression-is-alive-and-well
• Carola Binder on on-euler-equations  Thanks Mark
• Edward Lambert on comparing-methods-to-determine-the-output-gap
• Brad DeLong on The risks from expansionary monetary policy
• Simon Wren-Lewis on will-financial-crisis-lead-to-another-revolution-in-macro-economics

General

• Noah Smith on how-will-conservatives-save-poor, new-week-article-economists-get-bad-rap, against-ideological-turing-test
• Rob Bray on national-minimum-wage-role-and-rationales
• Tim Harford on what-price-supply-and-demand
• Chris Dillow on bonuses-arms-races, inherently-biased-journalism, paul-krugman-the-nature-of-economics and then Kruggers on ui-the-nairu-and-the-zlb
• David Glasner on did-raising-interest-rates-under-the-gold-standard-really-increase-aggregate-demand
• James Hamilton on links_for_2014 

Climate

• Tamino on smooth-3, southern-discomfort
• Rojer Jones on mclean-follow-up 
• Real Climate on thames-barrier-raised-again
• The Science of Doom on ghosts-of-climates-past-twelve-gcm-v-ice-age-termination

Andrew Gelman ( Stats Guru)

• risk-deviating-standards-close-reading-requires-context
• things-like-almost-nobody-else-interested
• judea-pearl-overview-causal-inference-general-thoughts-reexpression-existing-methods-considering-implicit-assumptions
• postdoc-liz-stuart-propensity-score-methods-covariates-measured-error
• advice-on-writing-research-articles
• postdoc-involving-pathbreaking-work-mrp-stan-2014-election
• Aggressive definitions
• course-sample-surveys-political-science
• transformations-for-non-normal-data
• british-amateur-debunked-mathematics-of-happiness
• Good Stats Bad Stats on the polar vortex and the media hype of cold weather
• Kaiser Fong on in-which-i-ghost-write-part-2-of-avinashs-post,real-scientists-make-their-own-data

Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• thanks-for-honour  Well Done Dave richly deserved
• estimating-generalized-pareto
• an-interesting-new-book
• Noah Smith on time-series-econometrics-no-giod-p.

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky + Book Reviews)

• life-satisfaction-gdp-and-sense, picturing-economic-complexity, reasons-to-be-cheerful-even-if-american,pursuits-grand-and-lesser,progress-and-the-greatest-irony, top-reading
• Liveo Di Matteo on fleet-gdp-and-1914

Voxwonk

• real-wage-productivity-nexus
• win-win-eliminating-corporate-income-taxes
• first-steps-banking-union-implementation
• quality-goods-and-pass-through-puzzle
• costing-secrecy
• fixing-japan-s-labour-market
• roots-of-shadow-banking
• video-gaming-and-studying-evidence-japan
• what-asset-quality-review-likely-find-independent-evidence
• generalisability-experimental-results-economics
• immigration-romania-and-bulgaria-fiscal-impact
• firearm-background-checks-and-suicide
• global-crisis-and-east-asian-currency-misalignment

The Budget

The Kouk looks at what we oldies used to know as the Niemeyer statement and finds the-budget-deficit-remains-well-contained.
Indeed there has been a slight improvement since PEFO.

Thus either Messrs Hockey and Cormann do not understand their jobs and are ignorant or they do and they are liars.This is widely known as the Catallaxy 'defence'

Around the Traps 11/1/14

It is time for Around the Traps.
I will update Saturday and Sunday


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Matt Cowgill  demolishes john black
• The Kouk calls for rates to rise
• Kevin Bonham on 2013-ehrlich-award-for-wrong-predictions, wrong-in-both-directions-richo-on-Labour's-chances
• Mumble on forget_the_required_swing
• The Piping Shrike on the-year-australian-politics-imploded sorry its late

Northern America

• Jared Bernstein on more-on-summers-taylor-and-secular-stagnation
• Jason Furman on Obamacare is slowing healthcare inflation Thanks Mark
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-how-divided-is-the-fed, fed-watch-fomc-minutes-the-quick-review,fed-watch-next-up-employment-report
• Menzie Chinn on macro_implications_of_extending_emergency_unemployment_compensation, progress_in_rebalancing, some_of_thoughts_on_the_December_employment_report
• Mike Konzal on rortybombs-best-2013
• Lord Keynes on us-federal-government-spending-as-a-%-of-GDP
• David Beckworth on the-real-scandal-at-the-federal-reserve
• Brad De Long demolishing Robert Rubin
• Calculated Risk on public-and-private-sector-payroll-jobs-under-various -presidentsl

Europe

• Chris Dillow on on-forecast-based-policy
• Simon wren-Lewis on will-mpc-raise-uk-interest-rates-in-2014

Asia
nuttin

Wonk

• Noah Smith on of-brains-and-balls-nassim-talebs-macro-bets 
• John Aziz on nassim-taleb-used-to-be-my-hero-but-today-hes-just-plain-wrong, on_risk
• Simon Wren-Lewis on monetary-versus-fiscal-odd-debate
• Mark Thoma on how-to-tell-if-fiscal-policy-works
• David Glasner on james-grant-on-irving-fisher-and-the-great-depression , macroeconomic-science-and-meaningful-theorems
• Edward Lambert on a-study-of-financial-repression-part-1-a-basic-model, a-study-of-financial-repression-part-2-in-the-us, a-study-of-financial-repression-part-3-how-does-it-manifest, a-study-of-financial-repression-part-4-potential-problems
• Noah Smith on bad-event-studies, the-most-damning-critique-of-dsge
• Nick Rowe on monetary-policy-fiscal-policy-the-target-and-the-size-of-the-central-bank

General

• Dan Monaco on Peter Temin on Economic crises  Thanks Mark
• Noah Smith on heroes-of-blogging  Noah's heroes no-one elses!
• Tim Harford on casinos-worrying-knack-for-consumer-manipulation
• Mark the Graph on pandas-dataframe-cheat-sheet-and-python
• Chris Dillow on lily-allen-decision-theory, tories-&-the-minimum-wage

Climate

• Roger Jones on bom-2013-climate-quick-summary, bom-annual-climate-2013-swwa-sst
• Real Climate on a-bit-more-sensitive
• Gareth Renowden on its-hot-down-here-2013-was-the-new-zealand-regions-2nd-warmest-year
• Rick Pilz on abrupt-impacts-of-climate-change 
• Brad De Long on afternoon-must-read-global-warming-reality-check
• William Connelly on the-spirit-of-mawson, cooling-one-we-missed-petersen-and-larsen-1978
• Brad Plumer on can-global-warming-be-real-if-its-cold-in-the-u-s-um-yes  Thanks Steve from Brisbane

Andrew Gelman ( Stats Guru)

• spam-names
• my-recent-debugging-experience
• how-to-display-multinominal-logit-results-graphically
• belief-aggregation
• hermann-goering-jane-jacobs-together-last
• san-fernando-valley-cityscapes-example-benefits-fractal-devastation
• do-you-believe-humans-living-things-have-evolved-over-time
• look-whos-3-years-date-whole-dennis-dentist-thing
• Good Stats Bad Stats on Accuweather's 45 day forecasts
• Kaiser Fong on numbersense-in-education, imprecise-machines-mess-with-me

Dave Giles A genial econometric genius)

• the-three-minute-thesis.
• reading-for-new-year

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + Book Reviews)

• enlightenment-values, uses-of-declinism, charles-dickens-on-economics, shipping-and-statistics

Voxwonk

• next-sudden-stop
• the-ghost-of-deauville
• consistent-trinity-eurozone 
• volatility-insurance-and-exchange-rate-predictability
• national-growth-rates-converging-diverging-paths
• long-term-economic-impacts-reducing-migration
• why-fiscal-sustainability-matters
• gdp-and-life-satisfaction-new-evidence
• overstated-pessimism-over-latin-america

Monetary policy versus Fiscal Policy.

Simon Wren-Lewis is mystified why some people wish to downgrade the usefulness of fiscal policy when there is a liquidity trap.
Mark Thoma shows how-to-tell-if-fiscal-policy-works.  Brad De Long hops in as well.

Given all the evidence of how potent fiscal policy is ( see the IMF but also Adam Posen on Japan both of which have been highlighted here)  I can think of only two reasons.
The person saying this is stark raving mad like Katesy or they are simply playing politics.

The Hobbitt

I saw the second film in the Hobbitt series last night with my two boys.

It is highly enjoyable and action packed. Thus like the first film it is completely different to the book.

However as with the first film that is why it is enjoyable.

Dr John Watson is really good as Bilbo.

Recommended to see!

The best article on Global Warming of last year

Real Climate is a great blog and near the end of the year produced an excellent article on global warming. On whether it had stopped, what the reasons affecting it were, looking at the future et al.

It was in Around the Traps but if you missed it then you can read it here.

It is a New Years present.

Around the Traps 3/1/14 New Years edition

It is time for the First Around the Traps in 2014.

The Kouk,Matt Cowgill and Nick rowe obviously didn't do a lot of celebrating!!

I will update over the Weekend!




Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,oy,Oy,Oy

• Harry Clarke on maurice-newman-foolish-commentary, too-much-finance, negative-gearing
• The Kouk on mathias-cormann-bells-the-cat-on-the-budget, mathias-cormann-ignores-economics-for-the-sake-of-politics, poor-white-trash-becomes-national-treasure
• Matt Cowgill on blocking-housing-development-comes-at-a-cost, the-most-important-graphs-of-2013-part-3
• John Quiggin on austerity-in-australia-1980s-style
• Mark the Graph on growth-in-those-persons-not-in-labour
• Mumble on gender_gap_outlasts_gillard
• the Last Test of the Ashes. Tony and the boys discuss

Northern America

• Econospeak on the-jobless-situation-getting-better
• Lord Keynes on us-unemployment-in-1890s-who-is-right
• Edward Lambert on fed-is-behind-the-curve
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-what-comes-after-the-evans-rule
• Kruggers on bodyguard-of-zombies-counterattack-by-cockroaches, in-praise-of-art-laffer
• Livio Di Matteo on when-will-low-interest-rates-end
• Menzie Chinn on the_year_in_review, is_the_us_economy_really_about_to_go_boom
• James Hamilton on a_lack_of_ethics
• Carola Binder on tale-of-two-housing-markets

Europe

• Simon Wren-Lewis on economics-and-immigration-debate,on-city-economists-and-ft-survey, economic-standards, cutting-public-investment-has-conequences
• Jonathon Portes on marking-myself-market-my-predictions-2013-revisited
• Chris Dillow on lucky-osborne,the-outcome-bias,truth-vs-power

Asia
nuttin, still celebrating

• Noah Smith on quartz-article-is-china-going-to-be-1

Wonk

• Econospeak on macro-stuff-from-aan-adas-dinosaur
• Edward Lambert on says-law-fairy-build-it-and-they-will-come
• Nick Rowe on banks-with-100-capital-ratios, backedcoin-vs-unbackedcoin, nominal-loss-aversion-and-its-consequences
• Menzie Chinn on for_a_few_dollars_more
• David Glasner on the-microfoundations-wars-continue

General

• John Quiggin on can-there-be-a-sane-honest-rightwinger answer proabably not!
• Kruggers on 266-and-all-that
• Chris Dillow on respect
• Don Arthur on did-hayek-support-a-basic-income-guarantee
• Mark Thoma on taylor-v-summers-on-secular-stagnation

Climate

• Rabette run on where-has-all-sea-ice-gone
• Tamino on smooth, smooth-1 ( mainly Stats)
• Brian Banisch on climate-clippings
• Stormy on four-degrees-warming-by-2100
• Scientific American on us-maps-route-to-reduce-global-warming-pollution
• Harry Clarke on warming-telling-lies
• Rojer Jones on letter-to-smh-the-age-eds

Andrew Gelman(Statistics)

• bill-gatess-favorite-graph-of-the-year
• though-may-unaware-newlyweds-implicitly-know-whether-marriage-will-satisfying
• 2013 This is huge. a big thanks to Andrew for those who like to update their expertise
• booze-been-there-done-that
• dogs-sensitive-small-variations-earths-magnetic-field

Dave Giles (Econometrics)

• a-cautionary-bedtime-story
• zero-one-matrices

Dianne Coyle (Quirky and Book reviews)

• challenge-doing-whats-obvious, books-to-look-forward-to-in-2014, economics-books-in-2014-continued, science-fiction-economics
• Stephen Kinsella on christmas-economics-books

Voxwonk

• economic-theory-model-amending-treaty-lisbon
• attitudes-towards-immigration-ireland
• allowing-governments-limit-successors-debt
• why-current-accounts-fell-post-crisis
• effectiveness-of-japanese-industrial-policy

why the name Not Trampis

Trampas was my favourite person the greatest western ever made The Virginian.

now I am sure someone has Trampas somewhere in the blogosphere but no-one has Trampis and of course that means I must be not trampis!!

Get it!

Only Tony the Teacher realised this and of course he loves cricket