Not Trampis: October 2014

I keep on hearing Greg Hunt saying the price on carbon had no effect on emissions.
Hugh Saddler gives us the facts. They fell.

Now I hear you ask what occurred after the price was dropped. They started to rise.

Given the large amount of mistakes Hunt has made ( in parliament the Speaker has to save him ) and his embarrassing performance on 7.30 last night I believe Hunt is an idiot not a liar.

Monday, 27 October 2014

Rafe Champion cannot count!

Poor Old Rafe in THIS article attempts to show similarities between Whitlam and his Government and then Rudd/Gillard and their Governments.

Was there any evidence to back up his assertions?
No sir.
Poor Old Rafe is not a person to let any facts to get in the way of his misguided beliefs

I have dealt with the alleged over-spending ( HERE and HERE)previously. the only people who adopt this arguments are Goebbelsisers or idiots.

Guess which one Poor Old Rafe is?

How very sad!

( yes it is a very slow and boring day.)

Sunday, 26 October 2014

The more things change the more things stay the same

I thought the previous Government had a number of good policies but were terrible at politics. They could sell a beer in a pub.

An Essential poll found just over 30% of people thought interest rates were higher under the ALP than under Howard and just over 50% thought interest rates were not lower under the ALP!
I put all this down to a generation of poor candidates for the ALP who had no idea of being able to sell a policy and the destructive input from the NSW right wing who simply could not understand a qualitative poll if they fell over one!

However nothing changed with a change of government. The Present government is equally lamentable in selling policies. They seem to think if you say a slogan long enough people will believe you.
Their attempts to explain their broken promises were breath taking in believing just how stupid they thought the electorate was.
They are also being hit by an electorate whose beliefs on rising prices, electricity prices and the economy are clearly at odds with reality.

( In the USA most of the electorate still believes the deficit is the result of rampart spending and it is out of control. A shame it is the sharpest drop in the deficit the US has seen since WW2!)

Perhaps we should be examining the quality of politicians on both sides and be asking ourselves why is this generation sooo bad.

Thursday, 23 October 2014

Around the Traps 24/10/14

It is time for Around the Traps.
Coaching then Umpiring at cricket on Saturday (hopefully) so any updating wil be done on Sunday.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

John Quiggin on time-to-terminate-cormann , gough-whitlam
Ross Gittins on abbotts-choice-competition-v-cronies , health-spending-is-quite-sustainable , economic-chaos-of-whitlam-years-not-all-his-fault
Greg Jericho on the-casualisation-of-australias-workforce-is-nothing-to-panic-about , australia-destined-europes-economic-malaise , public-benefits-from-lng-exports-may-be-little-more-than-a-gas-pipe-dream
Ken Parish on a-charter-city-for-refugees
Harry Clarke on chinese-tariffs-on-coal-there-gone
Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-three-polls-have-small-swing-back-to-Labor
The Kouk on inflation-is-slowly-deflating-and-rba-should-be-worried , the-risks-of-falling-house-prices
The Piping Shrike on whitlam
Andrew Elder on what-sort-of-nation
Andrew Norton on what-is-whitlams-higher-education-legacy
Mumble on whitlam_bits_and_pieces , a_different_place
Joshua Gans on Remembering Whitlam

Northern America

Calculated Risk on is-mortgage-credit-too-tight , a-few-comments-on-september-existing-home-sales , key-measures-show-low-inflation-in-September , qe-timeline-update , a-few-comments-on-qe
Edward Lambert on increasing-productivity-by-cleaning-out-low-productivity-firms
Mark Thoma on state-income-migration-claims-are-deeply-flawed
Frances Wooley on the-federal-government-should-not-cut-taxes
Jeffrey Frankel on is-the-us-current-account-deficit-problem-over
Edward Lambert on productivity-recessions-new-levels-of-productive-capacity , brad-delong-is-soooo-right-about-labor-share-effective-demand-yeah

Europe

Ha Joon Chang on britain-political-class-tories-economic-fairytale Thanks Brad
Simon Wren-Lewis on uk-immigration-and-social-attitudes
Frank Barry on austerity-talk-at-battle-of-ideas-in-london
Robert Waldeman on two-little-comments-on-matt-obrien

Asia

Lance Prichett and Lawrence Summers on Asiaphora meets reversion to the mean Thanks Brad

Wonk

James Hamilton on how-will-saudi-arabia-respond-to-lower-oil-prices
Mark Thoma gives us Kruggers on amazons-monopsony-is-not-ok
David Glasner on can-we-all-export-our-way-out-of-depression
Menzie Chinn on competitiveness-exchange-rates-spillovers-the-end-of-original-sin-and-more
Cecchetti and Schoenholz on how-big-should-central-bank-balance-sheets-be Thanks Mark
Mark Thoma gives us Richard Easterlin on why-our-happiness-and-satisfaction-should-replace-gdp-in-policy-making
Nick Rowe on john-cochranes-monetary-policy-with-interest-on-reserves , stability-and-robustness
Frances Woolley on tax-cuts-should-deliver-equity-or-efficiency-or-both-income-splitting-does-neither
Noah Smith on forecasting-is-risky-especially-about-the-future
Simon Wren-Lewis on helicopter-money , redistribution-between-generations
Edward Lambert on fisher-effect-in-econoblogosphere-again
Nick Gruen on neoliberalism-and-big-data-public-and-private-goods
Sandwichman on from-him-exact-usury-whom-it-would-not-be-a-crime-to-kill
Lord Keynes on david-ricardo-on-natural-rate-of-interest
David Glasner on currency-wars-the-next-generation
Prakash Loungani on does-raising-the-minimum-wage-hurt-employment-evidence-from-china
Tony Yates on why-im-against-helicopter-drops Thanks Mark
Chris Dillow on immigration-capitalism-1

General

Kruggers on this-age-of-derp
the CDC on how-does-the-worlds-leading-economy-and-the-rest-of-the-world-prepare-for-disease-outbreaks-epidemics-and-pandemics
Tim Harford on why-pilot-schemes-help-ideas-take-flight
Chris Dillow on social-mobility-in-a-dystopia , facts-the-establishment
Gavin Kennedy on pragmatism-beats-ideology Thanks Mark
Dover Beach on Is marriage a form of sex discrimination

Climate

Robert Stavins on what-can-universities-do-about-climate-change
Lawrence McDonald on sudden-rise-of-carbon-taxes-2010-2030 Thanks Brad
Real Climate on ocean-heat-storage-a-particularly-lousy-policy-target
Katie Valentine on hottest-september-on-record
Ari Phillips on wind-one-fifth-electricity-by-2030
Sean Bryan on climate-change-and-timescales-part-1-why-global-wobbling-doesnt-matter-2
hottwhopper on on-antarctic-ice-ongoing-ignorance-of-deniers
Steve from Brisbane on /read-it-for-tol-bashing-if-nothing-else , ocean-acidification-worries-noted-yet-again

Andrew Gelman ( Mainly Stats)

Genial Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

nuttin frorn Dave Bad Dave!
Lars Psyll on watch-out-for-econometric-sinning-in-the-basement Thanks Mark
Chris Dillow on persuasion-with-statistics
Jim Rose gives us Lars Psyll on the-ten-commandments-of-econometrics
John Whiteford on those-whom-a-god-wishes-to-destroy-he-first-drives-mad Thanks Mark

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky + Book Reviews)

who-owns-the-future-not-you , the-enlightened-economist-prize-2014 , who-is-nudging-whom , the-logic-of-failure , hume-keynes-and-wisdom
Noah Smith on the-omega-man
Lorenzo on quantity-physicality-source-the-origins-of-currency-names

Vox wonk

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Simon Wren-Lewis explains

Simon is usually one of the more thoughtful economists around and his blog is a must read.

Recently he has written on two topics that anyone who loves or merely understands economics are essentially reading.

First there is the-mythical-phillips-curve

And then there is helicopter-money

Read and enjoy!

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Gough Whitlam

Gough Whitlam died yesterday.

To begin with I will recount what I heard on 2UE on November 11 1975. Steve Liebman had an afternoon show and he was talking to Katherine West on the political situation when the Daily Telegraph Canberra correspondent came on the line ( Kevin somebody) and said breathlessly Gough has been sacked. Liebman said 'Shit' without knowing what he was saying.

Gough Whitlam was a great Opposition Leader until winning in 1972.
He was a mediocre PM and then to be blunt a has been in parliament until he retired.

The reason he was a great Opposition Leader was because he reformed the ALP and went around and discovered what policies were needed to bring Australia into the twentieth Century.

In this he was heavily influenced by firstly the Vernon Committee and then Alf Rattigan of the Tariff board which he changed to the Industries Assistance Commission (IAC). Indeed on more than one occasion he declared himself to be a Rattigan man.

The policy program he adopted was highly impressive and would have helped Australia to improve its GDP per capita IF it were implemented cautiously and successfully.

Whitlam's problem when he became PM was :

He had terrible people management skills and needs a good deputy to smooth things over. when Lance Barnard left he never had this
He allowed sentiment to overweigh good judgment in terms of cabinet. Thus he inherited a Cabinet of a poor calibre. Whereas he had a good one in his last days.
He needed a good treasurer, Treasury and economic advisors. Until Bill Hayden he did not have a good Treasurer. Treasury were not at their best which is why there was a 1974 recession and A lot of Ministers and back benchers lost faith in Treasury. He had no good economic advisors/
He thought he could adopt all his program at once and it would only have a positive affect on the economy. He was wrong.
In hindsight history would be a lot different if Whitlam had have won in 1969 like he should have.

Yes I agree his sacking was a travesty and Kerr's conduct absolutely disgraceful.However Whitlam's reaction was silly and never thought through.

Following the 1975 election Whitlam was never the same.

As a person he had a very quick and sharp wit. It could be destructive or self deprecating.

~~Two~~ Four different views

Here are the figure from Budget papers.

Years Outlays Revenue surplus/deficit

1972/3 18.8 19.5 0.7

1973/4 18.4 20.3 1.9

1974/5 21.7 22.3 0.3

1975/76 24.3 22.5 -1.8

Net debt fell Under Whitlam as a % of GDP!!

Postscript

I forgot to add prior to Whitlam winning office only HALF of Sydney had proper sewerage!

Monday, 20 October 2014

When you are a PM you really need to behave yourself

We have in recent days had Tony Abbott say he would shirtfront Russian president Putin.

This was wrong in a number of ways.

Clearly he was responding to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and attempting to look 'tough.Opposition Leader can say silly things in foreign affairs because no--one pays them any notice. We saw this with regard to Tony Abbott when he was Opposition Leader. On the other hand people do pay attention to what a PM says.
Shirt fronting means different things depending on whether you follow Aussie rules or rugby. What is particularly clear it is not a word you expect to hear from a Statesmen. this is confirmed by the fact Abbott walked away from that expression.
Abbott's comments than made himself a figure of ridicule.
Abbott has now put himself under enormous pressure when or if he meets Putin.He clearly cannot live up to his metaphor.

Now I think Steve from Brisbane is over the top but he is clearly heading in the right direction.

I think the G20 meeting is now going to be very interesting particularly since Abbott has put himself under enormous pressure as I stated previously. Just Remember Putin is one of the most experienced leaders going around. Abbott is at the other end.

On the domestic front we find the actions of the 'burqua ban' was imposed because of a rumour

Bronwyn Bishop not only looks like an idiot but is found to be one.

I knew this would occur when Sinclair Davidson praised her. He is becoming more Kates like every day!. ( I might add that will happen when you run an echo chamber and not a blog. As Alan Moran so sadly shows at John Quiggin's blog you forget on how to debate.)

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Around the Traps 17/10/14

It is time for Around the Traps again.

I will attempt to Umpire on Saturday afternoon but will update in the morning and Sunday.

Jim Rose, you really need to read most of this!
Genial Dave Giles is on fire!

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

Andrew Elder on another-week-in-federal-politics
Greg Jericho on whichever-way-you-cut-it-the-federal-budget-hurts-the-poorest-hardest
David Walker on matt-levine-helps-you-understand-the-bank-regulation-problem-in-1800-words
Ross Gittins on interest-rates-to-stay-low-but-lending-curbs-loom , competition-is-wonderful-thing-up-to-a-point
Mumble on shorten_one_year_in , enough_of_the_codgers , comments/jackie
The Kouk on rba-needs-to-shed-its-house-price-blinkers-as-global-deflation-spreads
Gerry Jackson on economic-growth-the-minimum-wage-and-sloppy-economic-thinking

Northern America

Calculated Risk on disinflation-here-we-come , a-few-comments-on-september-housing
Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-the-methodical-fed
Edward Lambert on is-tim-duy-seeing-fed-behind-the-curve , dow-pricing-in-future-disappointments
Noah Smith on casey-mulligans-thoughts-on-great-recession
Macroblog on whats-behind-declining-labor-force-participation-test-your-hypothesis-with-our-new-data-tool
Danilo Trisi on safety-net-cut-poverty-nearly-in-half-last-year-new-census-data-show Thanks Mark
Mark Thoma gives us paul-krugman-what-markets-will
Nick Rowe on paying-back-the-loan-of-forward-guidance
Livio De Matteo on where-is-a-kenneth-carter-when-you-need-one
Brad De Long on monday-clifford-asness-smackdown-watch

Europe

Kruggers on german-weakness
Chris Dillow on job-polarization , leaders-constraints
Mark Thoma on urgent-need-to-boost-demand-in-the-eurozone
Lord Keynes on alfred-marshall-on-deflation-of-1873-1896

Asia

Wonk

John Quiggin on r->-g
James Hamilton on lower-oil-prices
Menzie Chinn on exchange-rates-monetery-policy-and-financial-policy
Mark Thoma on jean-tirole-wins-nobel-prize-in-economic-sciences
Edward Lambert on obvious-and-outrageous-defects-of-our-economic-system-keynes
Jeremie Cohen-Setton on infrastructure-investment-is-a-no-brainer
Kruggers on the-state-of-macro-six-years-later , 1937
Mark Thoma gives us Jean Tirole on economics-is-both-positive-and-normative
Simon Wren-Lewis on the-mythical-phillips-curve
Nick Rowe on the-representative-agent-does-not-know-what-he-is-doing , dumb-questions-about-forward-guidance-in-new-keynesian-models , sign-wars-with-price-level-targeting
David Glasner on hicks-on-is-lm-and-temporary-equilibrium
Brad De Long on department-huh-yet-another-thomas-piketty-edition , convincing-evidence-2year-low-inflation-target
Dan Crawford on international-debt-and-financial-crises
Sanwichman on weitzmans-burden-do-we-dare-to-question-economic-growth
Kevin O'Rourke on the-great-mortgaging

General

Chris Dillow on cargo-cult-thinking-about-virtue , out-of-touch , why-freuds-wrong , diversity-trumps-ability
Noah Smith on three-ways-of-understanding-the-world
Noah Smith's thursday-roundup , us-vs-chinarussia-tale-of-tape
Tim Taylor on thoughts-on-high-priced-textbooks Thanks Mark

Climate

Roger Jones on pentagon-adapts
Brad De Long on yes-clifford-asnesss-views-on-global-warming-are-insane-why-do-you-ask
Tim Harford on the-kettle-conundrum
Steve from Brisbane on new-estimate-for-sea-level-rise
Brave New Climate on the-left-vs-the-climate
Real Climate on new-developments-climate-services-for-health
Ari Phillips on sea-level-rise-faster-6000-years
Jonathan Koomey on the-case-for-the-2-c-warming-limit
Climate Change National Forum on what-climate-scientists-are-saying-about-the-global-warming-hiatus
Hotwhopper on sea-levels-and-global-ice-volumes-over-the-past-35,000-years
Scientific American on climate-uncertainty-no-excuse-for-inaction
Peter Dorman on the-biggest-nonlinearity-in-short-run-cost-of-mitigating-climate-change

Andrew Gelman ( Mainly Stats)

Genial Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky + Book Reviews)

money-as-a-process-not-a-thing , a-nobel-prize-for-real-world-economics , teaching-economics-2 , gloomy-thoughts-about-systemic-risks
Steve Hutkins on invisible-hands-the-businessmens-campaign-to-dismantle-the-post-office-2
David Walker on happy-20th-birthday-to-blogging

Vox wonk

Monday, 13 October 2014

Some people will NEVER learn

I was asked, by e-mail, about a Sinclair Davidson article yesterday.
Naturally there are a number of inaccuracies as you would expect from Davidson.

Apparently debt is soaring. But hang on the Commission of Audit found on the WORST case scenario net debt as a % of GDP would get to 17.5% of GDP.
Hmm that doesn't sound like soaring debt does it?

He believes that Hockey should have brought in a much tighter budget. Hockey has backloaded most of the spending and tax decisions. The reason for this is the economy is already weak. It is logical that fiscal consolidation occurs when the economy is stronger.

The declining Terms of Trade is putting pressure on the Nominal GDP level.
The Last time a treasurer put forward a tight budget when similar circumstances eventuated the budget made the economy much weaker.
That Treasurer was Wayne Swan. His budget, easily the tightest in budgetary history, actually detracted 0.7 percentage points from GDP. ( We must always remember Davidson said on the day after this budget he and another colleague said the budget was expansionary!!)
the RBA believed Hockey's budget would add around 0.4 percentage points to GDP.

So like an old fashioned communist Davidson never marks his beliefs to market. He continue to believe in them even though he is almost always wrong.

That is also the reason he does not allow varied comment at his site. He and the others have thin skins and cannot debate. They never venture out from Catallaxy to make comment because when they do they get humiliated.

They never learn!

Sunday, 12 October 2014

Reflections on lying on a Hospital Bed

Before I start this Can I just thank everyone for their good wishes.

Imagine my surprise dear Lonely and Only Reader when I was getting get well e-mails from everywhere on the globe ( well not quite but you know what I mean!)!

Okay in no particular order here goes:

Australia's health system
I was lucky. I am relatively okay financially and am in possibly the best health fund to be in Australia ( Teachers courtesy of my wife). Thus when it was obvious an operation was needed I was able to go to a really good private Hospital (the San) very quickly and get the operation done.
I hate to think what would have occurred if I couldn't afford all this.

Media
Whilst lying on my bed I had a TV in my room. This has all the free channels plus some channels from Foxtel. I have to say ABC 24 is way way better than Sky News.
I could listen to AM, the world today and PM as they has those radio stations on the TV. They also had ABC FM which was a god send when I wanted to nap during the day.
I got to see the greatest Western of all time ( the Virginian) BUT only in is final bad season. I watched Bonanza for the first time since I was a teenager. IT is still enjoyable to watch.
I couldn't watch Mad as Hell as it hurt when I laughed!

I heard Nick Gruen ( the nicest bloke in the Blogosphere) being interviewed on 702. It was really interesting. ( This is mostly what he talked about). Thanks heaps Nick. I have always wondered why when private toll roads go broke they cannot be simply made public roads?

Internet
I was having withdrawal symptoms having to go three whole days without any access to the internet.
Next time hopefully I will have a laptop. I missed a vital Castle episode!
There is an incredible amount of information out there. My interests are politics and economics and there are plethora of blogs to read in these two areas. ( I am reading more these days on climate change, statistics and econometrics ( mainly thanks to Messrs Andrew Gelman and genial Dave Giles.) It is all good but now my wife is saying I am always on the internet during my recovery!!
My excuse is that I cannot do any significant physical exercise yet!

Postscript
I am perplexed that some of the highest viewed articles I have had in recent times was a piece which was a mundane look at the stats of this blog, Then my problems after the Wedding i went to and then of course my post on sick leave.

Saturday, 11 October 2014

Debussy

Between Eric Satie and Claude Debussy we are blessed with some of the great classic music of all time involving the piano

Thursday, 9 October 2014

Around the Traps 10/10/14

It is time for a post-hospital operation Around the Traps. I haven't read any of the articles so I will be reading them over the weekend like you.1
Since I am recovering I will be updating all weekend.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

John Quiggin on pyne-on-the-american-model
The Kouk on sell-the-aussie-dollar-before-it-s-too-late
Greg Jericho on time-for-another-infrastructure-push-just-dont-let-politicians-choose-the-projects , beyond-the-headlines-about-economic-growth-its-not-all-gloom-and-doom
Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-budget-blowout-over
Mumble on professional_class , mickey_goes_to_the_oecd
Andrew Elder on Mark Kenny still believes
Mark the Graph on state-of-economy , seasonal-adjustment

Northern America

Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-is-there-a-wage-growth-puzzle , fed-watch-the-labor-market-conditions-index-use-with-care
Menzie Chinn on did-states-that-raised-the-minimum-wage-have-faster-or-slower-employment-growth
Kruggers on punished-for-the-dollars-virtue , the-deficit-is-down-and-nobody-knows-or-cares
Calculated Risk on public-and-private-sector-payroll-jobs-under-various-presidents , moodys-zandi-have-we-underestimated-us-wage-growth
Matt O'Brien on why-is-the-recovery-so-weak-its-the-austerity-stupid Thanks Mark

Europe

Menzie Chinn on update-on-the-uk-recovery, russia-under-pressure-russia-moves-ruble-band-in-biggest-intervention-since-march
Barkely Rosser on the-collapse-of-russian-ruble
Simon Wren-Lewis on the-mythical-debt-crisis , do-we-need-crisis-to-reduce-deficit
Chris Dillow on tory-crisis-capitalist-crisis , the-economy , the-ukip-question
Philip Lane on europe-and-the-world
Stewart Wilks-Heeg on two-by-elections-one-winner-the-rise-and-rise-of-ukip
Kruggers on europanic-2-0
Kevin O'Rourke on sinking-fast-and-slow

Asia

FRBSF on Has China's economy become more standard Thanks Mark

Wonk

Tony Yates on dont-call-the-helicopters-yet Thanks Mark
David Glasner on aggregate-demand-and-coordination-failures
Simon Wren-Lewis on more-asymmetries-is-keynesian-economics-left-wing , defining-price-stability , are-dsge-models-distorting-policy-test
Nick Rowe on g-ngdp-zlb , how-to-test-whether-the-lmi-lmci-is-a-good-indicator , helicopters-redemption-and-the-target
Chris Dillow on free-markets-need-socialism , the-establishment-a-review
Lord Keynes on kaldor-on-austrianism-versus-monetarism

General

Tim Harford on pick-a-fund-any-fund
Chris Dillow on narcissism-hubris-and-success , the-reification-fallacy
John Quiggin on black-swans-financial-crises-and-more
Nick Gruen on one-reason-why-britannia-ruled-the-waves-tqm-18th-c-style
Dover Beach on defending Marriage
A Fine Theorem on international-trade-and-institutional-change-medieval-venices-response-to-globalization-d-puga-d-trefler Thanks Mark
Lorenzo on the-good-people-syndrome
Jim Rose on on-the-economics-of-nuisance-suits

Climate

Real Climate on climate-response-estimates-from-lewis-curry
Rabette run on eli-is-busy
Joe Romm on antarctic-sea-ice-record
Katie Valentine ocean-surface-warming-faster
Jim Rose on carbon-tax-vs-emissions-trading-a-brief-comparison
Hotwhopper on heat-heat-waves-and-angry-australian
John Quiggin on a-simple-route-to-climate-disaster

Andrew Gelman ( Mainly stats)

Genial Dave Giles ( Econometrics)
~~nuttin as yet. Bad Dave!~~

illustrating-asymptotic-behaviour-part-i

Dianne Coyle (Quirky + Book Reviews)

Vox wonk

Sunday, 5 October 2014

Sick Leave

This blog is going on sick leave for reasons stated HERE.
Hopefully a successful operation and recovery will mean I will be back on Friday to do Around the Traps however it is likely to be a bit later than usual.

Saturday, 4 October 2014

Elvis and football

Elvis was pretty ordinary IMHO but there was one song which was made famous by Nike.

A great song and some great footballers.

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Around the Traps 3/10/14

It is time for Around the Traps.Given my difficulties I will update over the Weekend as I won't be doing anything else. I haven't had time to read all the articles listed this week due to obvious difficulties.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie, Oy,Oy,Oy