Sunday, 3 May 2026

Gerard Henderson watch

 Our friend Gerry is playing the grumpy old man well.

He didn't like panelists on Sally Sara's breakfast program not mentioning the bondi attack involved jews. Well unless you have been living under a rock everyone knows that! He is also with the crowd that allege that it was part of a anti-semitism wave in Australia. No mention from our Gerry of Iranian based motives and their hand in this nor of a criminal attempting to get a better deal by instigating anti-semitism 'problems'. What was also missing was how people who are essentially ISIS disciples' would kill jews because of Gaza when ISIS hates  Palestine and their people!

He is very good at saying people or organisations are left wing, far left wing etc BUT he never defines this. Is it absolute or relative for example. We do not know.

He doesn't like Jimmy Kimmel's joke. He clearly needs an education. Since self-awareness is not a Henderson strength he simply does not understand he is showing , like Chris Kenny did , a lot of ignorance of the topic. Perhaps he should get onto youtube and look up some don rickles roasts where the husband was a lot older than the wife and in advanced years!!

He also claims the independent in the Farrer by-election is a teal without any real explanation. For example is she campaigning on issues the teals have? This apparently too much worrk for our Gerry to do. He simply says climate 200 has contributed to her campaign. Okay how much money was it and was it comparable to the teals in the last election? It is all insinuation. A bit like when he continually refered to Obama as Barak hussein Obama. See


Thursday, 30 April 2026

Around the Traps 1/5/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk

Wednesday, 29 April 2026

A rate rise is inevitable

 The March CPI was released yesterday.

Here are a few reaction:

I reject Jericho's argument and am fully in agreement with both Huangfu and Mark the Graph.
Why you ask?
I am old enough to remember the oil shocks of the 1970s and 80s. ( so is John Quiggin). I reemember the second and third round effects that embedded inflation that took years ( a decade?) to reduce and then it took a nasty recession.
I favour rates rising to 4.5%.

Tuesday, 28 April 2026

An education lesson for Chris Kenny

 Chris Kenny is allegedly a journalist on sky after dark. He is frequently wrong such as on global warming but sometimes gets it right like on Aboriginal rights.

He believes Jimmy Kimmel was alleging that Trump be asssisnated when he made his comedic statement .

Let us bring into context a few things which somehoow he missed.

  • first of all Kimmel made his joke on late thursday night US ttime. The trumps and then their apolif gists did not react until monsay. huh. Are they that thick it takes that long to digest the joke.
  • second Trump is almost 80 and very fat and eats very badly. She is 56 remembering he has traded in his earlier two models.  Even trying to reduce this by drugs is quite problematic
  • We know courtesy of the Wolf suit she has a different apartment in New york to her husband where she sleeps.
  • The couple are famous for not showing any affection towards each other.
  • lastly Kimmel is well known for making comedic statements on his late night show

How could a 'jopurnalist' not know any of this indeed why did kenny take ssol ong to be affronted by kimmel?

Monday, 27 April 2026

Mark the Graph on fire

 If you are not reading Mark the Graph then you are missing out on something special.

I'h here to help.


I wil warn you they are lenghty articles but are well worth reading.

Sunday, 26 April 2026

The Liberals are mad

 The Liberal party is preferencing one nation in the Farrer by-election. Let that just sink in. They are preferencing a party who is an existential thrreat to them but more importantly to the National party.

IF their prefwrences mean one nation wins then they give one nation another boost, a very big one at that, to their eelectoral stocks. Every national party in parliament will be vulnerable. (I have already given my thoughts on why Littleproud resigned). If one nation contines where they are in the polls then the Nationals wil be decimated and perhaps not even recognised as a party after the next election. The very coaltion is at risk. The Liberal regional seats are of course at high risk as well. At present this is their strength.

Further if one nation wins then they are more likely to keep it than an independent if a swing occurs against the government in the next election as is likely.

Just a minor detail for the Farrer by-election if you support much tighter immigration which the Liberals, Nationals and one nation do then where do all the small buisnesses in the electorate find employees?


another minor detail. I have met David Farley. he is a smart guy. I cannot seeing him deferring to a moroan like Hanson for very long!

Saturday, 25 April 2026

The Models A tribute to James Valentine

 James Valentine died last week.He took his own life voluntary as he had cancer which was inoperable.

He was a brilliant on radio where he could make a very enjoyable radio program out of nothing. My favourite was with HG Nelson where they explored building a canal from the Northern Territory to Sydney as Subs could get here quicker!!  

Here it is

He was a very good saxophone player and had a program on ABC jazz which wasn't bad.


Here is my only favourite Models song which is a pseudo-live version of hold on

 James Reund who is the singer committed suidide a long time ago. his family are stil lwondering why sjowing why and how suicide is a very selfich act!



Thursday, 23 April 2026

Around the Traps 24/4/26

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mostly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk



Wednesday, 22 April 2026

Starmer appears stuffed

 The UK Prime minister Keir Starmer appears gawn.

For reasons I have never understood he appointed the prince of darkness to be the UK's ambassador to the USA He had to resign from Cabinet not once but TWICE!! If that was not a red light it was certainly an amber which meant a lot of investigation needed to be done on him.

Starmer whilst impressive on the foreign stage is mediocre on the domestics one.

This  comes down to two reasons.

  1. A successful leader needs to have very good political judgement. Starmer does not appear to have this.
  2. A successful leader needs a very good team. Paul Keating for example always had an outstanding team around him in whom he could trust. Starmer clearly does not have this. Starmer appointed them so he has to own this.
He got into trouble because his judgement was poor BUT also his team di not understood what proper process is. That Mandelson has problems with security should have set off the air raid sirens but it didn't.
Starmer's staff incompetence in this matter simply translates into Starmer's incompetence.

Reform has gained popularity over there for reasons that escape me. They are corrupt and lie with great ease and Starmer's answer to to capture a number of their policies. That never works because people usually want the originals to implement policy.

All this means Starmer is gawn.

Tuesday, 21 April 2026

Stagflation

 I have heard in recent times a lot of talk of stagflation returning. I am old enough to have grown up in the 70s and 80s ( like John Quiggin.) That is when it was trendy to talk about stagflation. Inflation and unemployment both reached double digits! The misery index exploded! IT also stayed around a while.

Thus I got to expect exactly that. both inflation and unemployment had to reach double digits. If you read the definition.clearly it does not state what levels inflation and unemployment have to reach.

Thus if Australia gets to 5% both in the CPI and unemployment do we have stagflation? If we only have it for a short time is that counted?

I would say no in both cases BUT I can see why some would argue otherwise. Mark the Graph we need you to write on this.

Most Western nations have independent central banks. Here in OZ I am sure the RBA will raise rates quickly to ensure inflationary expectations do not rise as well so the rise inflation would be temporary but as the economy slows unemployment will rise. Falls in unemployment always are much slower than inflation.

So my question is are we about to get stagflation or not?


Whoopsy I really should have talked more about the Fed. IF a FEd which has a lot of Trump nominees leaves interest rates where they are or even cut them as inflation rises then look out. Arthur Burns has returned!


Mark the Graph delivers. Well done sir.

Monday, 20 April 2026

climate Change nothing has changed

 I am sick of climate change denialists. They are either liars or completely ignorant.  Liam Bartlett is obviously in the latter camp. Naturally he got even his basics wrong. cobalt aint used in what he alleged. however they are used in I-Phones and laptops.

Two myths stand out to me. Offshore windmills kill whales for which there is NO research at all. The other is windmills onshore kills birds. Now there is evidence for this BUT they are avoiding them now!

Guess what they are killed by aeroplanes, skyscrapers and even coalfired power stations. My guess if birds are smart enough to ignore wind towers they would certainly give these others a miss.

The point is critics here either make things up or simply ignore, like our Liam , other evidence that convicts what they support.

Of course you won't be surprised that the same suspects who blamed rising electricity prices on renewables when Russia invaded ukraine when it was clearly oil and gas ( oops).

Of course they Are now doing it again.  They also clearly do not understand economics. Yes Australia has a lot of undiscovered oil BUT BUT BUT it is uneconomic. Oli prices would have to remain high for a  long time for companies to get into exploration let alone refining oil.

Sunday, 19 April 2026

Iran again

 Let us go back to the beginning.

Obama set up a reasonable agreement with other nations.

Iran had to curb their nuclear interests. There would be inspectors to examine their dealings. It worked well BUT Trump came in and tore it up.

Now we have a war where no ships can go anywhere near the strait of hormuz. It is important to note that no tanker will attempt to go through it without insurance and they will not have insurance if there are threats being thrown around let alone live ammunition.

We are also being told two different things. Iran's nuclear ambitions were obliterated all those months ago by US and Israeli fighters. Nuclear were very close to possing a nuclear bomb. Huh. I think we can ignore Iran was anywhere near to having a nuclear bomb. By the way I have never heard any Irani official say they were willing to Nuke Israel knowing they would be nuked in turn. ( Israel has over 200 nukes)

We are also told Iran must stop funding their proxies. Okay how do you do that. We have not been told.

Iran also has to reduce their missile and drone capability.

some say they want regime change in Iran.

Okay if you want some or even all of those aims upheld you will need boots on the ground.

Irani officials know the importance of the mid-terms. My guess there would be a number of US soldiers killed BUT also a number of petro-chemical plants destroyed by Iran's missiles. The world economy would be hit very hard.


Think about this. The US negotiators are inexperienced with little back up to help them by design. Steve witkoff has been shown to be easily manipulated by Russia. He also either lied or di not understand what Iran said according to Oman's officials.  This is always likely to occur if you do not have experts from the State department to help you. Kushner and Vance have little experience in negotiating and it shows.

From where I sit it is very clear Trump is failing around because everything has gone pear-shaped. i have no idea of how this is going to work out but it doesn't look good.

Saturday, 18 April 2026

Mark Knopfler

 If you have not seen Local Hero then do yourself a favour and watch it if only for the magnificent scottish scenery.

This music is the ending of the film and I am sorry but I have never seen a decent live version of the music.



Thursday, 16 April 2026

Around the Traps 17/4/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk