Tuesday 31 October 2017

Trump cutting Regulations

Timothy Taylor examines the Trump Administration's plan to cut regulations.
He finds good and bad points.
You need to read it all to find his conclusion. Soony definitely needs to read it!

Monday 30 October 2017

Global sea levels

A lot has been written about sea levels and climate change. Tamino comes to the rescue to show us not only the actual levels but also how climate sceptics ( please note Steve how it is spelled) misuse the data.

Sunday 29 October 2017

Double entry book-keeping

I think double entry book-keeping was one of the greatest concepts ever thought of. Indeed it could well have provided one of the main boosts to capitalism becoming the overwhelming force it has been.
Tim Harford has both a short but highly informative article on who was responsible for double entry n book-keeping.

With politics being so depressive both domestically and internationally an article on something completely different is required.

Thursday 26 October 2017

Around the Traps 27/10/17

It is time for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book readings)
Vox Wonk

Wednesday 25 October 2017

The Michaelia Cash Imbroglio

Late yesterday Michaelia Cash announced one of her staffers had told the media of the AFP raid on the AWU premises. ( This is a good synopsis).
Her staffer , whom Coalition MPs says us a very good staffer has resigned. the said MPS say he has paid the ultimate price for poor judgement.
This 'Very good' staffer had the opportunity to tell his Minister what he had did all day ( some Opposition MPs say at least 5 times) yet did not until the end of the day. This staff member did not tell his minister nor the PM on the day.

The government is relying on we are hopeless excuse. If you are John Howard and lead a competent government you can get away with it. I very much doubt if this present government can get away from it. It seems every time they try to do Bill Shorten it blows up in their face.

I would say too many times the media are alerted to police raids  both at State and Federal level. It is a bad look.

Update:
no explanation how the media advisor knew of the raids when her office was only notified 15 minutes before they occurred. Either the AFP or ROC leaked this to the advisor. Not hard to bet on whom it was.
I just learnt Albo spurted out most of this on morning radio in SA around 9 a.m. there. Chrisdtopher Pyne who was also on the radio never thought to investigate this!!
Interesting perspective on Ministerial responsibility

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Croaking Cassandra skewers Nick Cater.

Croaking Cassandra has another article today which shows Nick Cater of the Menzies Institute in a very bad light.

It is like the Kouk giving Sloan or Davidson a black eye when they attempt to examine budgetary policy or understand the National Accounts.
The Australian plainly had no qualitative check nor asks the simplest of questions.

Why is it people who claim to to conservatives in Australia are either so lazy not to do much research or completely ignorant on the topic on which they are writing?
I note the CIS which was quite competent in the 80s has gone downhill badly as well.

The NBN

Ttoday I will pen a small piece on the NBN and tomorrow on the politics of the energy market.

When the NBN first started it occurred because the major telco companies thought they had the Government in a corner. If they did not bid then The government would have to come to them for building the wholesale market and it would be on their terms.

The government then said no they would build it via a corporate structure called the NBN which would be privatised at some time in the future.  This was always an absurd proposition. Telstra had shown it was incapable of developing the wholesale market.
It is ironic some conservative critics such as Ergas a or Sloan criticised the NBN as a monopoly without EVER talking about the past and Telstra's position. ( Ergas who worked for Telstra then criticised the NBN on grounds he defended Telstra for in the past!)

The government decided to have fibre to the premises. This was almost future proof as there was almost unlimited speeds you could have when using  fibre optic cable. Thus Australians could gain speeds never dreamed of if they were willing to pay for it.

The other major reason much forgotten for choosing this was to boost decentralisation. If companies in the regions had equal access to the internet it would mean they were no longer at a disadvantage compared to city businesses.
A change of government meant change the NBN. Thus fibre to the node was born. The very last bit of the process could be copper or other technologies used. The government was warned the further from the node customers were , be they families or businesses, the slower the speeds.

This has occurred.

The government is now being hoisted on their own petard. The major problems of the NBN were easily foreseen and well known before they started to proceed. They went ahead because of political reasons.

The internet in Australia was in the stone age before the NBN. Mobile internet via 4G or the forthcoming 5G is not a competitor in that if all Australians had monthly mobile internet it would be as slow as old get up. ( See Rod Tucker) something Sinclair Davidson patently does not understand.  Try using it at a major sporting event.

What should the Governments had done. It was always going to be a long set up period. Accept that and more importantly tell the public that.
The areas that got the ORIGINAL NBN should have been selected on economic not political reasons. How ironic selecting them on political reasons blew up in their face anyway.

Brilliant exposition on the ABC. HERE

Monday 23 October 2017

The Protestant work ethic

Surely one of the more controversial theories was that by Max Weber when he associated the rise of capitalism with the Protestant work ethic. Richard Tawney further consolidated this later.

Now in Vox wonk as I call it there is a small article that examines Cistercian catholic order in the early 11th Century.

This completely wipes out Weber's thesis you say. not at all. They say  That the Cistercians, a Catholic order, had this effect does not at all detract from the point that Weber made, and in fact our analysis leads us to expect that Protestant teachings resulted in a similar process of growth through cultural change.

Read it and enjoy.

Sunday 22 October 2017

A Few Things

Junior Representative Season ( it is U/10 to U/16) is here so I am very busy on the weekends. One good thing is I get to go to Evening Church with my oldest. They have some good musos  playing!

In no particular order of importance at all.

1) Steve from Brisbane sums up Trumps latest embarrassing lie quite well.see Dylan Mathews as well. Trump simply has no shamev at all.

2) Katesy proves he should have never been let into this country. She wants to improve it not get rid of it. Strong hint. Was nationalisation  writ large in their policy platform for the election?

3) What idiot at the World Health Organisation nominated Robert Mugabe as their goodwill ambassador. Take a look at what this tyrant has done to his country's health system for a start!

4) Sydney derby was another top notch effort. Good refereeing, good play and a good crowd but it should have been a sell-out. no happy Sydney FC!

5) The Lisa Wilkinson imbroglio is interesting. Equal pay. I think not. Karl does a lot more at the Station than she. I have said previously it was good unattractive women gets gigs on TV and not just bathing beauties. I must say Wilkinson shows no personality at all.What should have been the story is both get way overpaid and they do not even win the ratings!

6) Moyhu wonders why climate denialists do not understand simple stats

7) Just read this provocative piece by Chris Dillow on why-conservatives-should-be-corbynistas

Thursday 19 October 2017

Around the Traps 20/10/17

It is time again for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
  • nuttin not happy Dave!😢
  • Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk

Wednesday 18 October 2017

Trump again

Trump again showing in essence no class at all.
so what do we know about him as President.

  • He is old, fat and lazy. 
  • He rarely understands his one page very generalised briefs  
  • He loses his concentration very easily
  • He gets into tantrums very easily
  • He lies all the time ( see HERE and HERE in more detail) 
  • He doubles down every time he is caught out.
  • He does not possess empathy 
  • He is a very poor speaker
  • He is easily the most stupid person to be in the office in my living memory ( see transcript of talk with Our PM)
  • He is a woeful negotiator ( see transcript of talk with Mexican President)
  • He pays more attention to Fox and Friends and Breitbart than to his own advisors
  • He is a sucker for fake news. (See above) 
  • He hates the continual leaking within his Administration
Add to that what we knew before hand
  • He trades in his wives for the new model
  • He is ill informed and ignorant on most topics
  • He has never grown up
  • He has little understanding of social mores
  • He regularly abuses people
  • He hates criticism
  • He hates being found out
Let us take but one example. He threatens North Korea with military force yet everyone knows he will not use force because of the deadly consequences for South Korea. Is he that stupid?

LUNATICS still support him though. Mind you they are as ignorant and ill informed as he.

Tuesday 17 October 2017

The National Energy Target

The Government announced its National Energy Target yesterday.  We still have plenty of detail to come.

I agree with David Blowers who says how-the-national-energy-guarantee-could-work-better-than-a-clean-energy-target.

Has Turnbull and Frydenburg given us a clean energy target through other means.
 I totally agree when Blowers states  'The National Energy Guarantee is not the best policy solution. A carbon price imposed on electricity generators may have avoided the need for either of the two “guarantees” contained in the NEG. But the political reality is that a carbon price of any sort is not going to be adopted in Australia any time soon. '

A price of carbon is easily the best solution. This was recognised by John Howard way back in 2007.It means coal is no longer subsidised by consumers because their externalities are NOT internalised.
People who believe in markets would support such a solution. It is a great pity this no longer exists in the Liberal party. It has of course rarely existed in the National party.

update:

John Quiggin
Alan Pears et al
Frank Jotzo and Salim Mazouz

I should add please note that john shows how different dispatchable power is to base load power. Abbott will be furious.
Also note the ALP have NOT said they will oppose this. I doubt if they will. They will make much of no modelling at all but we might just might have a bi-partisan policy here. Thanks you Malcolm.

Further Update.

The benefits of cap and trade are  larger than once thought

Monday 16 October 2017

Are 631 coal plants being built around the world?

I read this a while ago and thought this made little sense. The economics could not be that different to what it is in Australia.

Adam Morton examines this claim and finds it wanting.  There is a large difference between units and plants for example.

Related to this is why the war on coal is over and coal lost.

Also Environmental Economics on wither-coal-despite-all-attempts-to-the-contrary-whats-next

Sunday 15 October 2017

Greg Jericho absolutely flays Tony Abbott

Greg Jericho goes to town on Tony Abbott's speech.

I was wondering when someone would point out to this dunce and other deniers that a warming world has actually been examined and that it causes more problems than solutions. A warmer Europe might be okay for some but try telling those in South East Asia that a warmer world is good for everyone!

The more and more Tony Abbott seeks publicity the more and more sillier he gets hypocrisy aside. He was PM remember!

How come Abbott and his fellow travellers in the Government have no idea that new solar and wind generated power is lower coast power than a new coal power plant. Have they ever thought why no-one has put up an idea of putting together a new coal plant?

Thursday 12 October 2017

Around the Traps 13/10/17

It is time for Around the Traps again

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Keynesian economics without the Phillips curve

From last friday's Around the Traps.  Roger Farmer writes about keynesian-economics-without-the-phillips-curve.
He finds when you replace the phillips curve with his farmer monetary model  policy works a hellva lot better!

Very interesting

Tuesday 10 October 2017

We nearly blew it

I kept on thinking last night we would lose.
We created plenty of chances as per usual but we kept on missing those chances as per usual. We gifted Syria an early goal and they took it.

As I have said preciously We have been very unimpressive since winning the Asia cup after which Ange in explicitly changed the system. Whilst we still create chance we are leaky at the back.

The other thing is his selections. Why does he like Brad Smith. He is getting little game time and is a poor player. He was lucky he got injured last night and Mooy replaced him. Mooy played very well. Indeed for the first time Mooy and Rogic clicked in the midfield.

You cannot have Leckie and Kruse in the same team.He is fortunate Leckie cannot play in the first leg. He needs to work out how to attack down the left hand side. He also  needs to get a defensive mid fielder in a hurry.

 Will we get to Russia.

Dunno

HERE is a take on last night

Monday 9 October 2017

Xenophon goes back to south australia

Having had another Jury service come and go I find Nick Xenophon leaving the Senate to go back to south Australia to fight for a lower house seat.

Why is he doing this. Me thinks the worst that will occur is he will become kingmaker after the next South Australian election ( which is for a fixed term). At best he will become Premier!!

The odds favour the former. his party may win some 'marginal seats on preferences where both major parties preference his party so if they lose the other major party doesn't win. I suspect his party will win several 'safe' liberal seats on Labor party preferences. I doubt if his party will win many 'safe' Labor party seats though.

This makes the next SA election very interesting with no party likely to win a majority of seats so either a coalition will emerge , unlikely in my view, or a minority government will occur where Xenophon gives them support of a confidence motion but negotiates on most legislation.

Interesting times

Tuesday 3 October 2017

Around the Traps 7/10/17

It is time again for Around the Traps.
Bugger I hit publish instead of save. Never mind I will just continually update!

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern  America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
Vox Wonk