Maggy Smith was a great actress. Like many great english actresses she was not blessed with good looks but my wind she could act. I thought her best in a room with a view. Anyone who can act their socks of in Harry Potter ( how many great actors did those movies have??) and then in the series Downton Abbey is some actress.
She was enjoyable to watch.
A lot of people are saying housing is u naffordable and young people are being priced out of the market.
Hang on. If this was the case demand for apartments for example for example plummet and thus so would prices. It hasn't happened. It is much harder to get into the market but clearly demand has not been affected. It must be remembered if this part of the market was affected then other parts of the housing market would be as well.
There has been a lot of talk about negative gearing. Firstly as Saul Eslake points out negative gearing is all about existing housing not new housing so it would not affect housing supply very much. with rents at record levels people who are negatively gearing must be paying a very high rates. To my mind the problem is not so much as negative gearing as it is the halving of the cpaital gains tax.
the key to housing is supply and this comes down to state and local governments. It also means more apartments and higher apartments as in most other major overseas cities.
Two things about Gimme Shelter.
I always thought the lyrics were different.
I was listening to BBC world service on radio national one night and they interviewed the lady who does the amazing lyrics on the song. They rang her up about 2-3 am to get her do the vocals. Her reputation was garnered by her experience in gospel music. In no live performance have I seen has any woman got near to her voice on this track.
No I do not believe the band di the music!
It is time for Around the Traps again.
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Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)
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The monthly CPI for august was released yesterday and it was good.
The main information was NOT the various governments programs reduced electricity prices. No no.
Let us quote the CBA economic research. the easing in inflation is not solely due to electricity rebates and lower fuel prices (these were trimmed out). There continued to be a broadening in the breadth of disinflation. The number of items with annual price rises above 3% continued to fall while the number of items with annual price changes below 2% continued to rise. Also important is Today’s data is another further piece of evidence that inflationary pressures have continued to moderate over recent months. Timelier surveyed price measures have looked constructive over the September quarter. Growth in final prices in August in the NAB Business Survey fell to its lowest level since February 2021. And increases in output prices as measured by the PMIs eased to the slowest since December 2020.
Indeed we must ask why is the RBA behaving so? We can rule out they do not understand economics and economic statistics. That being the case why are they sso hawkish when clearly the economy is slowing quickly and the labour market is slowing? clearly the economy is not hot. Unless you want a recession fiscal policy is about right now. more fiscal consolidation is needed as the economy improves/
I think the only reason is the RBA wants people to stop spending money ( they are) and if happens because of what RBA personnel are saying then that is good.
Everything is pointing to rates being cut this year!
Not much time today as more solar panels going on.
This is a good segway into
consequences-transitioning-climate-neutral-economy
Short but very interesting article
Peter Dutton made a speech the other day on why nuclear power is vital to australia's future.
I have little to ad to what Giles Parkinson has written.
Now we do have more information of the cost of nuclear power in australia. We do not yet have the promised costs and modeling from the Opposition.
Let us just go through this.
Nuclear power is easily the most expensive energy. It takes the longest to build
Gas which they will rely on is the next highest energy source.
Coal on which they must rely on until the nuclear plants are built are unreliable. This year we have not seen a day where ONE unit has not broken down! Alison Reeve queries this and the cost!
They will not allow anymore renewables to be built so where is the energy coming from until nuclear power is running
The solar duck curve means coal power loses money during the day. This would happen to nuclear power. What would the government do? Not allow any solar power from farms or rooftops? good luck with that.
Please note renewables and base load power do not work together. Indeed in a market where there is only private enterprise baseload power does not make sense. you only want power when demand is around. Excess supply of power is losing money for private enterprise. They only want dispatchable power. This is where you attempt to match demand and supply. both coal and nuclear power is incompatible with this.
I could go on but why bother. The opposition has no answers to these questions and they want to spend a LOT of money on this white elephant.
Thus Peter Dutton is a joke!
Whoopsy I forgot to say the Coalition would have to pass legislation so they could build on property now held by public companies
Graham Arnold has called it a day as Socceroos coach.
Alas he has done australian football a disservice. We have a mere point after playing the two weakest teams in our group. He should have known before this if he had the wherewithall to get us through.
no-one can argue he di not have the passion for the job however he was found out tactically in almost every tournament where he was coach.
He clearly had little idea of what his team could do when the other team 'parked the bus'.
Unquestionably he should have said farewell after the world cup. After a woeful first match against france we played out of our skins. If not for Behich and his lack of skill and confidence we might have beaten Argentina ( who were so lucky Brazil did not get through to the final.) His reputation would be far higher. We should also recall he did a much better job than Ange to get us there!
Who can succeed him? We can rule out any overseas candidate because of money. This leaves Poppa as the only man to take over.
It is time again for Around the Traps.
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Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)
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Taylor Swift
not a fan of her but her statement was impressive. States reasons why she is voting for Harris. Did not say to vote for her BUT to do their research and then vote. Provided a link for those who needed to register to vote.As I said impressive.
FED
Cut rates by 50 basis points. About time and they appear behind the curve. Inflation has been under control for some time if you take annualised rates.
Haitian immigrants
This showed up two things. Trump lies like there is no tomorrow. JD Vance said he had contacts from constituents. firstly you examine the evidence. There is none. Second release the correspondence. He hasn't because either there aren't any or it would be embarrassing to do so.
The second thing is Trump supporters in the media cannot accept he is a liar and they like to show what he says has truth to it. Trust me if a person saw their pet bit just dead but being eaten they would inform the police but also film it or take photographs. This happens all the time but in this instance nothing.
They cannot admit it was a racist lie. the Haitians are immigrants courtesy of a Reagan law. They are very hardworking as Springfield employers attest to.
the USA is an immigrant country. It will go backwards if this changes. Trump has already stated he wil deport all haitians to Venezuela (senility). done on a large scale as Trump threatens it would have dreadful effecrts on the labour force and mean recession. Add that to his tariff madness and you would have inflation as well!
Steve from Brisbane celebrated his 64th birthday last wednesday. Well it is my birthday today and i am the same age as john Quiggin however since his birthday is in April his is a tad older!
I am sorry to say getting old sucks. You need to see the doctor more often and ensure your health insurance is up to date. I have seen hospitals more often than I would like to.
You need to sleep more. I find an afternoon nap essential although it is not long.
The major problem is the world.
Russia invaded Ukraine and the Western world still is frighten of helping ukraine win. After Hamas murdered innocent Israelis the Israeli government has killed over 40,000s of palestinians in attempting to kill hamas operatives. This is collective punishment and therefore a war crime and few countries object. People talk of a two state solution. It won't happen. Gaza is rubble and Israel won't help re-build it. The are over 750,000 israelis living in the West bank illegally. more will come.
All this will perpetuate violence
One of the candidates for US President is a convicted criminal. He has been convicted of fraud, the company he controls has been convicted of fraud, he has been convicted of sexual assault which the Judge said was akin to rape and finally he falsified business records so people would not find out he had sex with a pron star. Finally lies like there is no tomorrow. Yet the election is close.
It is hard to be optimistic about the future!
Steve from Brisbane ( who is 4 years younger than I )writes all about it. The Jonathan Chait article is in this weeks Around the Traps on friday.
Kevin Drum is highly relevant as well.
It is time again for Around the Traps
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When something happens and it goes exactly as you predicted it is entirely satisficing.So it was with the 'debate' yesterday.
Let us go back a tad. firstly Trump di not win the last debate. Biden scored a really bad own goal. Indeed Biden's performance let people forget how dreadful Trump was. Also important as Harry Enten pointed out he had lost almost every debate he has been in.
On Harris's side too many people have conflated her very unimpressive presidential bid with now. As i have written previously she could not use her background in the primaries.She was given the nickname Coppala. She then veered left and looked uncconvincing.Everything changed when the Supreme court upended roe V Wade. She was the first to see the electoral consequences. This completely changed her. Her self confidence grew almost exponentially. She then thought she knew the electorate and it showed.
Her campaign was typical of this. A supremely self confident politician.
Harris came into the 'debate' well prepared. Trump di not and it showed. HArris dominated the 'debate' and essentially made the issues. TRump looked old, tired and angry. Harris looked happy, confident and engaged. Most importantly she looked god when not talking whereas Trump looked terrible. Add to this she got into Trump's head and lead him down various rabbit holes and you can see why this 'debate' was so overwhelming for Harris.
Harris looked like an ex-President. Trump did not
If Harris is so dumb then what does that make Trump.
Debates rarely move elections so take that into account.
I might just make a comparison with Hillary Clinton. Clinton had more policies than possibly any other candidate but she had no political smarts. Harris had that in spades. Also important is the point Harris is an attractive woman, Clinton is/was not. This helps.
First Kevin Drum on tariffs. Yes he is correct.Only US consumers and producers wil pay any increase in US tariffs.
Second Kevin Bonham investigates 'strange' reporting of polls. Perhaps we can call it shahanning polls!
Naraly I will be watching the 'debate', Few people realise that Trump has never 'won' a debate. ( Biden lost on a bad own goal last time.) I will have a few thoughts on it tomorrow.
I am getting old. I want to avoid serious issues today and concentrate on football and cricket.
Football
The socceroos were woeful against Bahrain. The selection was strange. Behich and Duke are clearly past their best. We had no creativity in the midfield and it showed up bigtime. For all the possession we had we rarely looked like scoring. We allowed the opposition to frustrate us and it showed in yellow cards. ( The referee was poor and some of the yellow cards were mystifying).
At least we have found a right back. We had pace upfront but for some unfathomable when the young man came on and looked good on the right he was switched to the left where he did not know what to do.
We play Indonesia tonight and they drew with Saudia Arabia after leading them.
We can only hope they improve a lot.
Cricket
The poms have finished their summer of cricket. The West indies were more cold than hot and Sri Lanka were not much better until the Pommy batsmen batted as if it did not matter in the second innings at the oval.
From an Ashed perspective the poms have good depth in batting and wicket keeping. Their fast bowlers apart from a 34 year old Wood could not break 90 mph. This is not good if they come to Australia. Their spinning options are worse. finger spinners are money for jam out here and there was no attempt to promote their legspinner.
It seems we will be relying on an aging pace attack. This may work. more to say after the series with India is concluded
Bill Shorten has announced he is going to retire to become Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra.
Bill Shorten was the head of the AWU before entering parliament. He was one of the university educated union officials. for those interested he got a Arts and law degree and then later a MBA.
He first came to prominence when he was the public face of the workers down in Tasmania when two miners were almost buried beneath the surface.
He got to parliament and rose to cabinet level pretty quickly introducing the NDIS to Australia. He switched sides twice in leadership. Firstly turfing out Rudd and then bringing him back.
Perhaps because of this he immediately on assuming being the Leader of the Opposition was to bring a party disunited together again. This was understandable given they lost in a landslide. In this he succeeded. Indeed he was so successful in this and at combatting Tony Abbott as PM he was in line to win in a landslide (although to be fair Tony Abbott's total ineptness helped). This led the Liberals to get rid of Abbott.
Turnbull then won a close election which all the polls showed would be the case although few actually believed them. Turnbull blamed mediscare for the result although the polls showed it made very little impact. Shorten was slow to understand how to combat Turnbull.
In the nest campaign Shorten lost the unlosable election however because of massive polling failures we still do not know why.
Since being in government again Shorten has been perhaps the most impressive minister.
I first heard this when I bought Duane Allman's An Anthology.
I thought it fantastic.
So here it is
It is time again for Around the Traps.
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Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)
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vox wonk
