Thursday 30 July 2020

Around the Traps 31/7/20

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)
Retired but still genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk

Wednesday 29 July 2020

Don't follow Sweden

The Grattan Institute comes in with an article showing Sweden is not the way to go on Corona virus.
THIS is also pertinent

If only Gigi Foster had known this on Monday on Q&A she would not had made a fool of herself.

Tuesday 28 July 2020

Renewables: Fact and fiction.

Renew Economy had an interesting article last week which of course was in Around the Traps.


  1. New solar and wind power  are taking market share from coal fired power stations because they have lower costs.
  2. This lead to lower wholesale prices
  3. Coal powered power station have quite a lot of outages both planned ( servicing the units)  which are gaining in frequency these days and unplanned ( breakdown of units).
  4. Less revenue for battery storage
  5. Rooftop solar is changing the time of highest demand. It is has changed from the middle of the day to when people get home from work.
Dear me how can all this occur if renewables are so unreliable? It is funny how all those people who so that are silent on the unreliability of coal fired power.

AEMO doesn't think much of the myths.

Monday 27 July 2020

The Government's economic statement

Last Thursday we had a sort of economic statement.

A few people wrote articles on ot so I do not.

My only comment is to disagree with Ross Gittins. He says the Government is about to run a contractionary policy. I think it is more accurate to say it is merely less expansionary. They are taking their foot off the accelerator somewhat.

IMHO a contractionary policy is one that detracts from growth whilst an expansionary policy adds to growth.  My back of the envelope calculations has fiscal policy still adding to growth post September

Sunday 26 July 2020

The NSW Government is sending out mixed messages

The NSW government is sending out mixed messages yet again in the corona virus.

It wants to stop a black Life Matters march. The organisers says they will ensure social distancing, people wear masks, have hand sanitisers ready. They could be lucky if 1000 turn up and last time when the weather was better and 10,000 turned up no problems occurred with the virus spreading.

Contrast that to community football.  Over the weekend well over 100,000 indeed much much more people played football. No social distancing, vast sweaty bodies, plenty of shouting which ensure that droplets from our mouths go a lot further than 1.5 metres.

Which is the more dangerous?

You either allow both to go on and ban both. I would do the latter.

Incidentally Mick Fuller has been shown up again as telling porkies. He acts like a politician not a police commissioner.

I might say something on Victoria's problems.  firstly does anyone alse find it ironic that the 'most ;eft wing' premier in Australia outsourced security of overseas travellers to the private sector. On this I agree with Richard Holden.

You do not need a lot of training to know your job is to ensure that people stay in their hotel rooms and they have NO contact with anyone else. you certainly do not go into their rooms and have ahem social contact.

If you suspect you have the virus and have the test you most certainly do not go anywhere UNTIL you have the results.

You do not need to be Einstein in either of these circumstances yet some Victorian act like Trumpians in this regard.

Thursday 23 July 2020

Around the Traps 24/7/20

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)
Retired but still genial Dave Giles
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk

Wednesday 22 July 2020

Mt Isa to get hybrid base load power

Mt Isa is in the process of gaining  hybrid base load power.

It is very much solar power dominated ( with battery ) together with help from some gas generators.

It is unique but also provides cheaper power.

It is the future of electricity me thinks

Tuesday 21 July 2020

Cricket All rounders

Ben Stokes's exploits in the last test against the West Indies has raised interest in all rounders so I thought I might write about them.

I have a very strict test on whether a person is an all rounder in test cricket. they must have 'won' tests with both bat and ball. This involves both quantitative and qualitative evaluation. Allan border took 10 wickets on a doctored Sydney pitch but he most definitely was never an all rounder.   Gary Sobers never won a test with his bowling and Keith Miller never won a test with his batting.

Thus most people who are said to be allrounders are either batsmen who can bowl somewhat or bowlers who can bat somewhat. Think Imran Khan or Kapil Dev or even Richard Hadlee.

England are said to have has three allrounders  over that last 40 years.

They are Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff and now Ben Stokes.

Stokes is a matchwinning batsman ( who can forget the last ashes contest who is a very useful bowler but would never be an opening bowler. He has never won a test with the ball.

Flintoff could and should have opened the bowling for England and was a more than useful batsman. He has never won a test with the bat.

Botham was an opening bowler who could swing the ball late at fast medium. He has won matches with both bat and ball and on one memorable occasion in India hit a ton and took 10 wickets.

Botham was an all rounder but b neither Flintoff or Stakes were or are.

An Allrounder or even a batsman who can bowl or vica versa will almost always have averages that are not too flash. The reason is the effort needed both physical and mental.

The best example of this is Keith Miller. He was a wonderful opening bowler yet batted at no.4. An inane place in the batting lineup for someone who opened the bowling.

If I can finish by simply saying too many countries like Australia select players because they are allrounders when they are not test bowlers nor test batsman. Mitchell Marsh comes immediately to mind.

Monday 20 July 2020

Raising the inflation target

Over at Vox Eu or Vox wonk as I call it there are plenty of wonderful articles relating to the coronavirus.

however I want to highlight an article : raising-inflation-target-assessing-extra-room.

It is really interesting. i have to say I do not mind a short rise in the inflation target to ensure economic revolver is not cut short.

There are problems if this continues over the medium tern particularly relating to monetary policy.

Sunday 19 July 2020

Does this stimulus change the dynamics for politics

The redoubtable Nick Gruen at Club Troppo has an article on what a future stimulus should look like.

It got me thinking this will change politics here.

No longer will the Liberals be able to sprout specious claims of the fiscal stimulus to combat the GFC.
How can they now criticise that stimulus when they have gone further to combat the corona virus?

I should also note where are all those critics of the fiscal stimulus to combat the GFC now? It is amazing how they disappear when it is the Liberals who are doing the spending.

Thursday 16 July 2020

Around the Traps 17/7/20

It is time for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)
Retired but still genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
VoxWonk

Wednesday 15 July 2020

Eradication, Suppression and elimination

These are three policies being advocated at present to counter the corona virus.

not sure what they entail?

Good news. We have an excellent article by experts to tell us !

Tuesday 14 July 2020

Despotic Regimes

I listened to ( by shear fluke) to a really interesting program on Radio National. It was about that most governments and/or leaders who are thought of as authoritarian are in fact despotic.

Think of Singapore and its recent election or Russia as prime examples.

It is 30 minutes long but well worth the listen.

Monday 13 July 2020

Manufacturing Revival

Given all the supply chain problems incurred with the coronavirus there are plenty of calls to revive the manufacturing industry both here and overseas.

A few prob,ems with this idea are all attempts to do this that have been made public are against WTO rules or any of the 'free trade' agreements we have.

The problems as I see it is two fold.

First some sort of protection is needed for the industry in question to get started.

The second is for the industry to be viable in the long term it must be export oriented because of our small market. This needs quite a bit of finance.

Happy to be proved wrong but thus far all ideas are very vague.

Thursday 9 July 2020

Around the Traps 10/7/20

It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman ( main;y stats)
Retired but still genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
vox wonk

Wednesday 8 July 2020

Models and their uses

Kaiser Fung has a very interesting articles on models and how they are used.

A must read.

Monday 6 July 2020

The NSW Government is incompetent

Some suburbs in Melbourne have got a bad case of the coronavirus.

The NSW government's solution? Close the border with Victoria! Never mid if you are from Shepparton, Euroa etc.
What does it mean? Read THIS and THIS.

Those who are in those suburbs badly affected are in lockdown. If there are any who wish to travel to NSW then hit them with a large fine.
A lockdown affects ALL Victorians and the vast majority simply do not have the virus.

Scotty from Marketing both supports the lockdown and legal action that would make such lockdowns illegal!

In NSW we had community sport for the first time on the weekend. I am still wondering how one can have social distancing and have sports that have physical impact. As yet no-one but no-one can give me an answer.
It appears the government is thinking the risk is worth it.

Just remember in such winter sports you have sweaty bodies. you have a lot of yelling and shouting. I recently went to a funeral. We were not allowed to sing because of the danger.

If the government was consistent then it would either allow public transport and lifts to go back to 'normal' or simply do not allow any sports with physical impact until a vaccine is found.

All we have at present are mixed messages.

Sunday 5 July 2020

Eden-Monaro by-election

It appears the ALP has won the by-election.

Kevin Bonham has some analysis on the result.

A few observations.

The swing to the Opposition on seats held by them is much smaller than the 4%  written about. See Kevin Bonham.
Mike Kelly was seen as both a popular and very good local member..
Wheres the liberal candidate held the 'right wing' vote this did not occur with the 'left wing' vote.
My view of the main two candidates were they were chalk and cheese.
The ALP candidate was local girl made good, articulate, telegenic, intelligent. The liberal candidate was almost the complete opposite yet in the end it did not matter either in the election or here!!

I was surprised that the ALP did not make a lot of a post-corona virus recovery.
I hope this is not the case at the next election.

Whoopsy I also should have said no-one knows why the Liberal won the last election nor why the ALP lost.
As yet few polling firms have yet to fess up to their failures of the last elections.
Worse it appears few journalists appear to have noted the polling failures. It appears these failures never happened.

Saturday 4 July 2020

Neil Young

I do like Down by the River by Neil Young if only for the almost dueling guitar solos.

Here are two live performances.


The first is CSN& Y  Stephen Stills is a much better guitarist than Young!
Oh dear  I forgot to mention the bass guitarist was still at school!



In this  Neil Young is supported by a few people. notably the Duck on bass and Booker T on keyboards


Thursday 2 July 2020

Around the Traps 3/7/20

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)
Retired but still genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky+ book reviews)
Vox wonk