Projection

PROJECTION. Pure and simple. How sad.
Update:
Proof he has definitely gone gaga!

Fiscal Policy hasn't changed all that much

In Opposition the present Government would state again and again the problem with the Government was spending.

We examined this and found this statement wanting badly.

In the last Budget we have details on Wayne Swan produced the tightest budget in budget history.Spending fell in nominal terms let alone real terms. Cash rates continued their down trend as the RBA saw no dangers of inflation.
When Wayne Swan released his last budget he followed advice and allowed automatic stabilisers to do their job. Thus the budget was mildly expansionary. The Present government came in and boosted this expansionary nature of the budget.

We can then surmise the Government when in Opposition persistently lied about fiscal policy as they are now doing the exact opposite of what they said they would. Indeed they are adopting very similar fiscal policy to Wayne Swan except it is more expansionary.

Whilst they are being hurt in the opinion polls now their obvious plan is to get the economy back to trend growth and then deal with the problems of the budget.
This echos my thoughts entirely. Of course a further fall in the terms of trade could see nominal GDP growth continue in its present weakened state and then their plans would explode in their face..

I also note that all the Government apologists have ignored this issue. Probably because they have no understanding of it.

Postscript.

Wow fancy forgetting about the causes of the structural deficit. There is no more problems of spending in terms of the structural deficit, It is all about Revenue. Mainly but not only income tax cuts that both sides of politics thought would be paid fro by company tax revenue.

Around the Traps 28/3/14

It is time for Around the Traps again.

I can really recommend the Stats and Econometrics sections and Wonk is always interesting.

only umpiring in the afternoons this week so updates hopefully on Saturday and sunday


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• The Kouk on another-year-of-expansion ( I think you are optimistic mate)
• Mumble on why_did_he_do_it, at_stake_in_wa
• Ross Gittins on how-we-can-do-better-on-aboriginal-imprisonment
• John Quiggin on she-who-pays-the-piper
• Don Arthur on think-tanks-influence-isnt-always-about-offering-practical-solutions
• David Walker on the-pell-principle-mission-trumps-morality
• Andre Elder on weighed-in-balance
• Mr Denmore on unleashing-the-reptile
• Andrew Catsaras on free-speech-more-free-for-some-than-for-others

Northern America

• Calculated Risk on a-comment-on-new-home-sales-report, comment-on-house-prices-graphs-real prices-price to rent ratio
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-post-fomc-fedspeak, fed-watch-williams-acknowledges-forecast-change
• Barkely Rosser on has-janet-yellen-given-up-on-her-2% -target
• House of Debt on jobless-recoveries-in-one-chart
• Pro-Growth liberal on mankiws-philosophical-case-against-taxing-capital-income
• Kruggers on obamacare-fails-to-fail
• Menzie Chinn on some-macro-implications-of-a-minimum-wage-hike
• David Beckworth on ad-hoc-monetary-policy Thanks Mark
• Noah Smith on land-of-brave-no-more

Europe

• Kruggers on french-wages-are-not-the-problem
• Menzie Chinn on russia-to-recession
• Tim Harford on economic-quackery-and-political-humbug
• Simon Wren-Lewis on its-economics-not-politics
• Chris Dillow on the-tyranny-of-party-politics,osbornes-spending-paradox

Asia

• Peter Boone and Simon Johnson on chinas-shadow-banking-malaise 

Wonk

• Dan Crawford on tapering-and-the-emerging-markets
• Edward Lambert on down-with-r-up-with-the-fed-rate-yells-a-protestor
• Simon Wren-Lewis on more-thoughts-on-expectations-driven, time-inconsistency-and-debt
• Nick Rowe on alpha-banks-beta-banks-fixed-exchange-rates-market-shares-and-the-money-multiplier and then David Glasner on the-uselessness-of-the-money-multiplier-as-brilliantly-elucidated-by-nick-rowe and then Nick again on there-can-be-an-excess-supply-of-commercial-bank-money
• Tim Harford on four-steps-to-fixing-inequality
• Chris Dillow on ideology-behavioural-economics, randomness-in-decision-making
• Kruggers on dare-to-be-silly, economic-realism-wonkish, /what-i-mean-when-i-talk-about-is-lm-wonkish
• Liberty economics ondo-too-big-to-fail-banks-take-on-more-risk, evidence-from-the-bond-market-on-banks-too-big-to-fail-subsidy Thanks Mark
• Liam Delaney on behavioural-economics-and-regulation
• Peter Dorman on another-reason-why-realism-of-assumptions, back-to-econ-101-costs-versus-transfers
• Simon Wren-Lewis on pensions-and-neoliberal-fantasies

General

• Chris Dillow on football-as-financial-economics,on-hedonic-adaptation
• James Kwak on a-book-that-needed-to-be-written
• Mark Thoma on why-the-income-distribution-matters-for-macroeconomics
• Noah Smith on coming-into-econ-from-physics-and-other-other-fields
• Magic, Maths ans Money on the-republic-of-science Thanks Mark
• House of Debt on monetary-policy-and-secular-stagnation Thanks Mark

Climate

• Benjamin Preston on new-us-storm-surge-data
• Tamino on hansens-1988-predictions
• Real Climate on the-most-common-fallacy-in-discussing-extreme-weather-events
• Rabbette Run on who-you-gonna-trust-models-or-data
• Ari Phillips on weather-extremes-world-meteorological-organization
• Brad DeLong on thursday-idiocy-on-friday-here-is-the-last-time-i-noted-the-existence-of-roger-pielke-jr, apropos-of-roger-pielke-jr-and-the-cost-of-global-warming-related-natural-disasters-monday-delong-smackdown-watch-on-sa

Andrew Gelman ( Stats man)

• empirical-implications-empirical-implications-theoretical-models
• statistical-graphics-course-statistical-graphics-advice
• is-a-steal-really-worth-9-points
• new-research-journal-observational-studies
• beyond-the-valley-of-the-trolls
• creating-lenin-style-democracy
• references-code-bayesian-hierarchical-multilevel-modeling-structural-equation-modeling
• Noah Smith on data-buzzword-vs-data-actual-thing
• Understanding Society on causal-necessity
• Good Stats Bad Stats on A potential Alzheimers test 
• Kaiser Fung on hbr-webinar-nate-silver-krugman-writing-about-data

Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• thumbs-up-thumbs-down
• mcmc-for-econometrics-students-part-iv
• Frances Diebold on gas-and-dcs-models-good-stuff-and-im-hungry-for-more
• Frances Woolley on why-do-people-get-so-worked-about-linear-probability-models
• Menzie Chinn on faith-and-econometrics-minimum-wage-edition

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky + Book Reviews)

• what-role-for-reason, thinking-long-and-hard, a-fresh-perspective-on-identity, the-unsustainable-is-never-sustained, secret-statistics, post-innovatio-economy, non-digital-thinking

Vox wonk

• controlling-uk-executive-pay
• ecb-should-do-qe-forex-intervention
• six-fiscal-reforms-uk-s-lost-generation
• chartbook-of-economic-inequality
• eiffel-group-political-community-euro
• sustainable-growth-requires-long-term-focus
• europe-s-banking-problems-and-secular-stagnation
• thin-capitalisation-rules-and-corporate-leverage
• delivering-eurozone-consistent-trinity

Parliament is a farce

Yesterday the Government and tony Abbott in particular had no idea of how to react to laughter following the announcement of the Bunyip honours.

Bronwyn Bishop , possibly the worst Speaker we have ever seen, told one Female ALP member to get out of the chamber because she was LAUGHING. That's right laughing. ( Indeed she was laughing so much she had to hold her sides.)
By doing so Bishop has allowed herself to become a laughing stock. She has better watch out. People are very hypocritical when it comes to females who are neither very bright nor very attractive like Bishop. They give them no slack at all.

Tony Abbott looked completely flummoxed by the laughter the ALP made at his absurd Bunyip honours system. Indeed no-one in the government had any idea of what to do.

The Bunyip Aristocracy

Tony Abbot made the ridiculous announcement of making the previous Governor General a Dame and the New Governor General a knight.

I had thought Australians had grown up and were aware of how silly and childish such  'honours' systems were. see HERE   Also Mumble

Apparently not.

Government apologist Samuel J believes these honours make the old ones second rate.
sorry honours that are a laughing stock are the second rate ones!

SA Government, Bolt plus a bit more

South Australia has a government now one independent has said he will support the Labor Party.
As I previously said I thought it strange that a party with 53% of the 2PP vote could lose an election.
however the electorates are not gerrymandered as Thomas Playford did back in the 60s where Don Dunstan got 55% of the vote and lost.
Unfortunately the liberal vote was far too concentrated in safe seats. The Independent looked at seat numbers and came to a sensible conclusion. The Liberals lost votes in the campaign.
Here is Steve form Brisbane on this. see also Mumble.

The Government is going to change the racial discrimination act to ensure there are no more judgments like what happened to Andrew Bolt. My opinion is pretty similar to John Quiggin on this.
It is ironic the litigants to Bolt to this court so they wouldn't get any money merely a correction.
Bolt was his usual indolent self in his research and got the facts wrong AGAIN!

I can't get over how poor the government is in Parliament.Given it is all in favor of the government in parliament and it is their first term they should be well on top of the Opposition but they are not.

 I guess it doesn't help when you appoint a speaker who is incompetent and makes you look bad. It doesn't help when the Treasurer can't even get his story right either.At present it is not the Opposition putting pressure on the Government but the Government looking decidedly unimpressive

Around the Traps 22/3/14

It is time for Around the Traps again.

It is a bit smaller than usual but the quality is there. I am umpiring on both Saturday and Sunday but somehow dear Lonely and Only Reader I will update this just for you!!

Stats and econometric section is really interesting this week. Genial Dave Giles has more time on his hands and we are all grateful!

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• The Kouk on some-home-truths-on-abc-fact-checking, rory-vs-the-kouk-vs-mccrann
• Ross Gittins on more-to-infrastructure-problem-than-spending-money, on ending-mining-tax-will-hurt-jobs
• Andrew Catsaras on how-is-abbott-government-travelling
• Andrew Elder on the-rise-and-fall-of-arthur-sinodinos
• Mumble on time_to_bury_mining_tax
• Kevin Bonham on sa-election-how-libs-fell-short-again
• Matt Cowgill on should-we-envy-the-kiwis, 

Northern America

• Mark Thoma on the-most-important-economic-chart
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-fomc-meeting-begins, fed-watch-that-train-left-the-station, fed-watch-unintentionally-hawkish, fed-watch-kocherlakotas-dissent
• Menzie Chinn on time-for-some-traffic
• Livio De Matteo on resources-revenues-and-alberta-premiers-the-oil-must-flow
• James Hamilton on graphs-of-key-economic-trends

Europe

• Simon Wren-Lewis on i-got-to-third-sentence-of-osbornes-speech, see-no-evil
• Monique Ebell and Angus Armstrong on gers-and-tax-volatility
• Chris Dillow on ex-growth
• Barkely Rosser on hard-thoughts-about-nuclear-weapons-and-Ukraine
• Peter Dorman on the-long-and-short-of-kurzarbeit
• Seamus Coffey on raking-over-old-coals
• Menzie Chinn on crimes-and-punishments

Asia
nuttin agin

• Brad De Long on abenomics-a-short-run-success-reading-hausman-and-wieland-friday-focus-march-21-2014
• House of Debt on india-pakistan-and-growth-part-i Thanks Mark

Wonk

• Dan Crawford on financing-new-economic-activities-and-bankrolling-speculation
• James Kwak on insurance-companies-and-systemic-risk
• Nick Rowe on the-sense-in-which-the-stock-of-money-is-supply-determined, two-lm-curves
• Chris Dillow on memories-mechanisms
• Kruggers on nobody-could-have-predicted-monetary-edition, timid-analysis-wonkish
• Gerry Jackson on the-wealth-effect-an-austrian-view
• Brad De Long gives us philippe-martin-and-thomas-philippon-inspecting-the-mechanism-leverage-and-the-great-recession-in-the-Eurozone
• Lord Keynes on bank-of-england-research-paper-on-endogenous- money
• Roger Farmer on labor-markets-dont-clear-lets-not-keep-pretending-they-do Thanks Mark 
• David Glasner on the-irrelevance-of-qe-as-explained-by-three-bank-of-england-economists
• Simon Wren-Lewis on price-level-targeting-intuition,what-place-do-applied-middlebrow-models-have
• Noah Smith on a-grand-unified-theory-of-behavioral-economics

General

• Carola Binder on who-will-save-us-from-inequality  Thanks Mark
• Noah Smith on do-economists-control-our-ideas, white-supremacy-does-not-reign-supreme
• Chris Dillow on subsidizing-childcare
• Barkley Rosser on whatever-happened-to-regional-science
• Kruggers on tarnished-silver and also M0nty on 538-problems-and-fox-aint-one

Climate

• John Whitehead on the-red-faces-of-the-solar-skeptics Thanks Mark
• Tamino on what-were-up-against
• Serendipity on climate-model-bake-off
• Nate Cohn on last-decade-warmest-on-record-and-hiatus-due-to-laundry-list-of-mitigating-factors-like-a-prolonged-la-nina-a-wave-of-modest-volcanic-activity-and-an-ebb-in-solar-activity
• Michael Quirke on dr-garth-paltridge-on-judithcurry-com

Andrew Gelman ( mostly stats)

• best-alternative-histories-real-world-whats-ultimately-real
• wacky-anti-bayesians
• how-americans-vote
• teaching-bayesian-applied-statistics-graduate-students-political-science-sociology-public-health-education-economics
• random-matrices-news
• picking-pennies-front-steamroller-parable-comes-life
• win probabilities from sporting events
• greg-mankiws-utility-function
• Good Stats Bads Stats on Cluttered Graphics, Probabilities and the Warren Buffer March madness challenge
• Kaiser Fung on toward-a-more-useful-definition-of-big-data, what-is-numbersense

Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• mcmc-for-econometrics-students-1
• mcmc-for-econometrics-students-2
• mcmc-for-econometrics-students-3
• data-transfer-advice-from-francis-smart
• Noah Smith on which-is-better-data-or-theory

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + Book Reviews)

• vulnerability-and-sustainability, this-is-how-little-i-know, all-about-me, choose-your-ancestors-carefully
• Francess Woolley on discriminating-custom-essay-services
• Harry Clarke on innocent-bystander-syrah-2012 wine recomendation

Vox wonk

• voters-reward-performance-evidence-india
• trans-pacific-partnership-economic-impact
• there-room-more-one-international-currency
• ensuring-european-resolution-fund-large-enough
• returns-currency-speculation-evidence-keynes-trader
• ez-fiscal-shock-absorber-lessons-insurance-economics
• uncertainty-and-great-trade-collapse-new-evidence
• great-escape-death-and-deprivation
• us-university-science-shopping-mall-model
• historical-lessons-target-imbalances
• internationalisation-innovation-and-productivity-firms
• limited-economic-impact-us-shale-gas-boom
• eu-antitrust-fines-and-economic-distortions

Royal Commission into home insulation

A royal commission into the home insulation scheme started this week.

This is rather strange. We looked at that here.

We found the number of fires in houses was around TEN times less under the program.

Safety definitely improved.
No matter whether you used Possum's numbers, The CSIRO or did a simple Z test you found there was a significant difference between industry practice BEFORE and AFTER the Home Insulation program.

That being the case then why would you have a Royal Commission into the program?

One obvious answer is the government is not concerned at that much with spending money!

The other is the government is all about the politics of the scheme.

State elections

State elections for both Tasmania and south Australia.

 Mumble to the fore in talking about them so soon.

I am not surprised by Tasmania.

If a party gets well over 52% of the 2PP vote and still doesn't win then it seems to me the distribution of seats is not right. ( Mumble writes on this here.) The Liberals have every cause to believe they should from Government in SA.

This is completely different to the 2010 federal elections where they didn't and fortunately we did get the right government.

We can only hope the independents in SA are as wise as the independents were after the Federal elections.

Bob Seger

At one stage people were comparing Bob Seger and the Boss.

that was absurd but this song Brave Strangers was to my mind his best.

Around the Traps 14/3/13

It is time again for Around the Traps.

I have highlighted articles I think are really interesting to read.

updates on Sunday.

Avagoodweekend



Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Ross Gittins on more-privatisation-will-help-fix-economy, compulsory-super-without-protections-is-a-rip-off, many-economists-dont-get-labour-market
• Mumble on we_need_to_talk_about_preferences, how_about_a_real_alternative
• Andrew Elder on systematic-failure-in-western-australia
• John Quiggin on abbottandtribalism
• Peter Martin on weve-drawn-line-in-sand-on-industry-sure
• Mr Denmore on media-house-of-cards
• Gerry Jackson on australia-and-the-great-depression-what-you-dont-know-but-should
• Ricardian Ambivalence on when-50k-is-5k-maybe

Northern America

• Robert Waldeman on irrational-inflation-phobia-and-unemployment-in-the-usa, inflation-expectations-credibility-and-paul-volcker
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-on-that-hawkish-wage-talk
• Menzie Chinn on fiscal-policy-re-assessed
• David Beckworth on what-is-feds-real-inflation-target  Thanks Mark
• Kruggers on wages-of-fear-somewhat-wonkish
• Edward Lambert on slow-realization-of-low-wages-the-japanification-of-the-us
• Calculated Risk on kolko-where-do-housing-leading-indicators-lead-us
• Livio De Matteo on ontario-manufacturing-not-getting-better-anytime-soon

Europe

• Simon Wren-Lewis on greece-and-denying-responsibility
• Philip Lane on irish-exceptionalism-in-the-world-economy, international-financial-flows-and-the-irish-crisis
• Francsco Saraceno on commission-forecasts-watch-march-2014-edition
• Mark Thoma gives us Tyler cowen on crimea-through-a-game-theory-lens

Asian

• nuttin agin
• House of Debt on china-and-the-dangers-of-debt  Thanks Mark 

Wonk

• Edward Lambert on a-look-at-real-rates-actual-natural
• Nick Rowe on macro-savings-vehicles, one-general-theory-of-money-creation-to-rule-them-all
• Brad De Long on the-social-insurance-state-economic-problems-of-the-north-atlantic-redistribution-and-the-lesser-depression
• Scott Summner on the_old_rules_still_apply  Thanks Mark
• Econbrowser on guest-contribution-regional-trade-agreements-with-labor-clauses
• Roger Farmer on asset-prices-in-lifecycle-economy Thanks Mark
• Chris Dillow on arguning-against-immigration, openness-in-policy-making, credit-controls-and-the-crisis
• Mark Thoma gives us James Kwak on the-free-markets-weak-hand
• Noah Smith on the-finance-macro-canon and Kruggers on charge-of-the-right-brigade
• David Glasner on hawtrey-v-keynes-on-the-general-theory-and-the-rate-of-interest

General

• Chris Dillow on the-power-of-the-1%, on-compensating-advantages
• Noah Smith on the-robot-lords-and-end-of-people-power 
• Tim Harford on lets-have-some-real-time-economics
• Liam Delaney on economists-letter-on-minimum-wages

Climate

• James Annan on pause-blah
• Tamino on california-drought
• Real Climate on the-nenana-ice-classic-and-climate
• Climate science watch on holdren-critique-of-pielke-on-drought-and-climate
• Mauri Pelto on do-we-understand-the-atmosphere-enough-to-identify-problems-and-solve-them-heck-yes-we-are-two-for-two
• Harry Clarke on a-carbon-capture-storage-ccs-success-story
• Benjamin Preston on climate-impacts-and-us-energy
• Joe Romm on nasa-study-climate-sensitivity-high

Andrew Gelman ( mostly Stats)

• preregistration-whats-in-it-for-you
• stop-publishing-in-journals
• myth-myth-myth-hot-hand
• publishing-journals
• economists-guide-visualizing-data
• maximal-information-coefficient
• problematic-interpretations-confidence-intervals
• look-find
• Chris Blattman on the-latest-in-faith-based-development-randomized-control-trials Thanks Mark
• Good Stats Bad Stats on A cluster of birth defects
• Kaiser Fung on reality-check-on-the-long-tail

Dave Giles (Econometrics)

• still grading papers. Ask for a raise Dave!
• seminar-by-numbers-redux
• research-on-interpretation-of-confidence-intervels
• no-pressure-here
• a-new-statistics-journal

Dianne Coyle (Quirky + book Reviews)

• is-economics-leaving-wonderland, what-shall-i-read-next, reason-on-trial, can-the-unwinding-be-unwound,21st-century-capitalism

Vox wonk

• market-based-lobbying-berlusconi-power-and-mediaset-ads
• missing-gains-from-trade
• what-is-at-in-stake-crimea
• compnet-s-new-firm-level-data-base
• new-evidence-durability-social-norms
• industry-centric-economic-measurement
• economic-flaws-german-court-decision
• making-macroprudential-stress-tests-more-effective
• eastern-european-credit-crunch-and-foreign-bank-funding
• growth-and-reserves-impact-crisis-times
• skilled-immigration-and-us-jobs-firm-level-evidence

The Great Depression in Australia- Gerry Jackson

Gerry Jackson has written a very thought provoking article on the great depression in Australia.

I think he has missed the 'Hawtrey' line on the benefits of devaluation quite a bit however it is interesting.

I do think he adds a bit to understanding what occurred then.

Postscript
I am betting big money there is no rebuttal from Davidson and Novak!

Ken Henry talking sense as usual

Ken Henry was on 7.30 last night talking a helluva lot of sense on the taxation system. He was the person put in charge of the review of the taxation system that the previous government mostly ignored.

This present government should take up those recommendations and run with them.

It is unfortunate Martin Parkinson has been forced to leave as head of Treasury.
I would endorse everything Ken Henry said on that.

Postscript
 Michael Pascoe nails it completely.

What are the polls telling us.

I was going to write an article explaining what the polls were telling us but Kevin Bonham has already done this and done it very well.
I agree pretty much with what Kevin is saying.

If I was advising the ALP then I would be happy the ALP is in the lead but I would still think the government is in the box seat to win the next election.

Now if the terms of trade fall over the time prior to the next election and nominal GDP growth is still around 3% then all bets are off!

Skeptikoi nails it!

The ever excellent commentator Skeptikoi writes one of the best columns of the year on why people should be looking at the nominal accounts at present.

in nominal terms Australia has been in a recession and we are still in a sluggish state. If the Terms of Trade fall again, as Ricardian Ambivalence expects, then the nominal economy will stay in the doldrums ( and the budget in deficit).

I might add it was the major reason why the ALP lost the election in such a thumping way!

John McLaughlin and Jean Luc Ponty

I was lucky to see these two masters at the Hordern Pavilion.( Luc Ponty also was with Frank Zappa when he was here.)

Looking at this I do feel old!

enjoy

Around the Traps 7/3/14

It is time again for Around the Traps.
Another cracking edition. sorry that's a tautology.

David Glasner shows why he is the only person on earth who can take on Kruggers and beat him. Nick Rowe simply keeps on keeping on, Chris Dillow shows us why is the only intelligent Commo around, Andrew Gelman gives us his usual high standard articles and the Climate section is full of interesting stuff indeed the whole lot is interesting.
Genial Dave Giles is bludging however. Not happy Dave!  Genial Dave pleads having to grade papers. ANSWER accepted Genial Dave. your P statistic is significant!!!

update on Sunday.
Avagoodweekend!



Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Mumble on we_need_to_talk_about_scott, accentuate_the_negative, result_in_wa, ludlams_speech_the_qantas_rip_off
• Simon Copland on the-carbon-price-should-be-closing-down-these-industries
• Steve from Brisbane gives us Greg Jericho on disability-pensions
• Mr Denmore on duty-to-whom
• Andre Elder on how-to-report-on-politics, who-your-mates-are
• John Quiggin on identity-crisis-2
• Ricardian Ambivalence on gd-what
• Skeptikoi on the-investors-guide-to-national-accounts
• Ross Gittins on clear-signs-economy-is-picking-up
• Pottinger on wrestling-with-regulation
• the Kouk on hardly-the-wages-blowout-of-an-inflexible-market  Thanks Steve from Brisbane

Northern America

• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-fed-talk-shifts-to-higher-rates, fed-watch-a-lackluster-start-to-the-new-year, fed-watch-tapering-is-sooo-2013, fed-watch-unemployment-wages-inflation-and-fed-policy, fed-watch-upward-grind-in-labor-markets-continues
• Aaron Carroll and Austin Frankt on zombie-medicaid-arguments  Thanks Mark
• Noah Smith on obama-seems-very-good-at-foreign-policy
• Beverly Mann on follow-up-to-what-glenn-kessler-and-i-missed-earlier-in-emilie-lambs-claim-that-she-says-obamacare-caused-her-hospital-and-doctors-to-stop-gratuitously-forgiving-her-medical-expenses
• Menzie Chinn on gdp-forecasts-administration-cbo-spf-and-arima, the-geographical-dispersion-of-inflation
• Livio De Matteo on us-budget-2015-some-quick-thoughts
• Kruggers on wait-until-wages-start-rising
• David Altig on thinking-about-progress-in-the-labor-market
• Calculates Risk on public-and-private-sector-payroll-jobs-under-various-Presidents

Europe

• Menzie Chinn on the-ruble-under-stress
• Joseph Joyce on high-road-low-road-scotland-and-independence
• Kruggers on lowflation-and-the-two-zeroes
• Tim Harford on sorry-decline-of-english-social-housing
• Simon Wren-Leiws on economics-politics-and-naivety, the-sharp-but-effectual-remedy
• Francesco Saraseno on wanted-german-inflation Thanks Mark
• Marcus Armstrong on plan-b-dollarization
• Johnathan Portes on newsnight-immigration-report-held-back-downing-street-some-background-and-analysis
• Chris Dillow on ukips-strange-libertarianism

Asia

nuttin

Wonk

• Menzie Chinn on interpreting-the-great-recession-in-a-classical-framework
• Nick Rowe on keynes-new-keynesians-and-the-keynesian-cross, coordination-and-the-demand-for-money
• David Glasner on why-fed-inflation-phobia-mattered, stephen-williamson-defends-the-fomc
• Mark Thoma gives us Antonio Fatas on global-interest-rates-and-growth-r-g
• Lord Keynes on hans-albert-on-quantity-theory-of-money, joan-robinson-on-quantity-theory-of-money,two-problems-with-real-business-cycle-theory, a-bibliography-on-inference-to-best-explanation
• Chris Dillow on heterogeneity
• Noah Smith on how-macro-answered-its-critics
• Simon Wren-Lewis on inequality-and-media
• Kruggers on the-french-comparison
• John Quiggin on capabilities-as-menus-a-non-welfarist-basis-for-qaly-evaluation

General

• Livio de Matteo on russia-or-china-who-should-the-us-worry-more-about
• Chris Dillow on happiness-age-class, the-triumph-of-good-persons, equality-growth-policy

Climate

• Gareth Newsome on living-in-a-warmer-world
• Joe Romm on john-holdren-roger-pielke-climate-drought 
• Scott Denning on cause-and-effect
• Science of Doom on ghosts-of-climates-past-eighteen-probably-nonlinearity-of-unknown-origin
• Climate Science Watch on setting-the-record-straight-on-misleading-claims-against-michael-mann, more-on-mann-v-national-review-et-al
• Real Climate on it-never-rains-but-it-pause, new-daily-temperature-dataset-from-berkeley

Andrew Gelman ( Usually just Stats but..)

• appropriate-time-scale-blog-day-or-week
• running-stan-reference-accident
• literal-vs-rhetorical
• plagiarism-arizona-style
• how-much-time-spend-criticizing-research-thats-fraudulent-crappy-just-plain-pointless
• selection-bias-reporting-shaky-research
• disagreeing-disagree
• reviewing-peer-review-process
• Good Stats Bad Stats on Obama's health promises and costs for small business
• Kaiser Fung on netflixs-stoked-up-algorithms

Dave Giles( econometrics)
nuttin. You're bludging Dave!!
Dave is grading papers

• testing-for-multivariate-normality

Dianne Coyle( Quirky + book Reviews)

• welcoming-the-overlords, an-austere-week, austerity-algebra-and-theology, freedom-and-virtue
• Tim Harford on golden-rules-of-thumb

Vox wonk

• making-city-lights-burn-brighter
• education-language-and-identity
• economic-impact-inward-fdi-on-the-us
• what-good-are-children
• china-s-regional-and-bilateral-trade-agreements
• voting-to-tell-others
• a-better-measure-for-standard-of-living
• redistribution-inequality-and-sustainable-growth
• what-drives-eu-labour-market-mismatch
• drinking-during-pregnancy-and-children-s-test-scores

A small thing that showed up in the National Accounts

The National Accounts were released yesterday.

One small thing that was in them was this.
  Public spending fell by 2.0% in the year.  This was the first decline in more than sixty years and detracted 0.5 percentage points from GDP growth.

 Wayne Swan's budget was actually an austerity budget. It was the most austere budget we will ever see

Gosh I didn't read that over at Catallaxy. both Sinclair Davidson and Samuel J said his budget was expansionary.

They got it wrong. Badly wrong.
Fancy that.

Added Bonus
 the Incomparable RicardianAmbivlanence on the GDP figures.

Is this person barking Mad?

This column has provoked some comment.

Steve from Brisbane has a column which says commentary-from-hysteric-and-some-others.

M0ny has one saying steve-kates-whistles-cats-go-feral

Now read Noah Smith on obama-seems-very-good-at-foreign-policy.

Notice the difference in quality at all?

 I think the main question is why has Steve Kates a job at any institution which teaches people.

Poll blues continue for the Government.

We have the latest poll for Government out now and it ain't good news.
Indeed when looking at the latest polls it appears that it is the Nielsen poll that is the rogue not the last Newspoll.
That is the surprise to most people who analyse the polling.

Most of us thought it would have been the Newspoll that was the rogue but the ReachTEL poll has smashed that theory to pieces.
I think My piece on why this occurring still stand up pretty well.

The WA Half Senate Election is going to be interesting.

Nils Lofgren

Nils Lofgren could be the most gifted musician of our generation.

This is my favourite song of all that he does. The best version of Carole Kings' Going Back