Thursday 31 October 2019

Around the Traps 1/11/19

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)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk

Wednesday 30 October 2019

We stil have no idea of what occurred in the ;last election

In the last election we had a massive polling failure.
As Kevin Bonham explained in the article I wrote a few days ago only ONE polling organisation has tried to come to terms with this failure.
Take Newspoll we have had a number of them which indicates the government is narrowly in front. Why should we believe these polls are anymore accurate than the newspolls in the election campaign.

In other words they have their heads in the sand and pretending it did not happen.

We therefore do not have a clue of WHY people changed their votes. We do know WHO changed their votes and this makes things even more confusing. Low income and low educated voters switched to the coalition whilst the opposite occurred for the ALP.

Thus we do not know why the coalition won nor why the ALP lost. please note most politicians and commentators apparently do not understand this.

It is a mess

Tuesday 29 October 2019

Populism

vox wonk as I call it has a number of posts all about Populism by several eminent authors.
all the articles are linked.

Well worth a read in these times.

Monday 28 October 2019

polling roundup of sorts

Kevin Bonham gives us something to think about again with regards to polling and more importantly how the ALP went with regards to migrants.

I also should add as Kevin talks about I am totally livid with vitally no repose from pollsters on their massive failure on the last election.

Always worth reading

Sunday 27 October 2019

Angus Taylor is a goose part 2

Angus Taylor has gotten himself in a large problem. I will let Ann Davies do a summary of proceedings.

So what we have is either Angus or part of his staff have downloaded an annual report and could not understand it. There is NO evidence the City of Sydney council has changed its annual report at all.
Indeed there is a possibility either Taylor or his staff or both deliberately feed false information to a gullible daily telegraph.

I doubt this very much. Why you ask.

Taylor thinks dispatchable power is the same as base load power. It is not.to make an obvious point baseload power takes time to 'switch on' whether it be coal fired power or gas ( or even nuclear. dispatchable power is needed straight away. If baseload power is on then it is all been used up.

He also believes the blackouts in /Melbourne that occurred was because of renewables. Err no. It was because several units in coal fired power stations broke down ( and one was being serviced.

He also wants like for like investment. That's right do not take cost into consideration at all!

Taylor is increasingly an error prone Minister. He also appears prone whose ideology overpowers facts.

Tuesday 22 October 2019

Gittins on the Drought

Ross Gittins does himself proud with some excellent writing on the drought.

Naturally I totally agree with him.

Around the Traps 25/10/19

It it 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)
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
vox wonk


Monday 21 October 2019

Denialists do not understand climate change

This is my take on an article from Real Climate entitled:

Can I say the criticism of climate change is taken seriously. They do not impute 'impure political' motives but rather take on their criticisms and shoe how poor they are.

Sunday 20 October 2019

Is Morrison going to copy Fraser?

I thought about this after reading Ross Gittins.
He essentially says Morrison is playing politics and is not good at economics and it may well catch up with him.
See also Greg Jericho on the economics.

For those of you who were not around Malcolm Fraser and his Treasurer John Howard were saying the same things this present mob are however a severe recession caught up with them and their last budget resulted in a spending spree to avert the recession. It was too late and people were perplexed why the government were doing the very thing they said should not be done i.e spending a lot of money.

Morrison is running into bad headwinds and is betting on a turnaround to ensure things get better. His big selling point is an actual surplus ( in reality a balanced budget). Even here the latest Niemeyer statements by the Department of Fiance show the budget running BEHIND projections because of the slowing economy. Thus Morrison is hoping high iron ore prices overcomes a weak domestic economy for the budget to get 'into surplus'.

Will Morrison copy Fraser and have to adopt expansionary economic policies as Ross Gittins alludes to. It is possible. There are all sorts of scenarios that could lead to this. My guess is they are unlikely at this stage HOWEVER they should NOT be discounted.

Some of these include:

  • A slowing Chinese economy
  • The USA/China trade dispute impacting the world economy
  • A hard Brexit eventuates and the Bank of England cannot obviate it
  • The weak wages growth is because of weak employee power and will continue to be weak into the medium term

It would be both ironic and appropriate for a so called very good politician fail because he was too good at politics!!

Thursday 17 October 2019

Around the Traps 18/10/19

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 reviews)

Wednesday 16 October 2019

Why we are wrong

stumbling and mumbling has a wonderful post on why we are so loathe to change beliefs even after they have been repeatedly falsified. It follows from a Eric Loergan question on this topic.

Very stimulating

Monday 14 October 2019

What is so hard about bringing back people from Syria

Our Home Affairs Minister does not want to bring back Australian citizens from Syria.
Apparently some citizens are more  important than others.
Why should we do it?
Well they are Australian citizens.
What about the risk? The only risk is some would perform terrorist acts in Australia.
There is either evidence for this or there isn't.
Evidence means they are put in prison like anyone else who might perpetrate crimes.
If there isn't either the Minister is lying or he only has information they MIGHT perform terrorist acts.
If he is lying and merely saying this for political effect we have no worries.
If he is not and he has only information they might perform terrorist acts then the police would follow them like they do with any other criminal suspects. I suspect ( pun intended) it would not take too long before they are arrested indeed they possibly could well be arrested now for going to an area not allowed for Australian citizens.

Peter Dutton has a very peculiar understanding of what it means to be an Australian citizen

Thursday 10 October 2019

Around the Traps 11/10/19

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

Tuesday 8 October 2019

Monday 7 October 2019

Thursday 3 October 2019

Around the Traps 4/10/19

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)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk