In Praise of blogging

Nick Gruen , the nicest bloke in the blogosphere and one on the most thoughtful ( although very Broderist in the best on M0nty;s definition.) has written in praise of blogging.

He naturally writes a interesting column on blogging.

Blogging has simply increased exponentially over the last ten years.

I can read and be kept up to date on macro-economics, micro-economics, statistics, politics, econometrics, history even economics in star trek or how science fiction is evolving. I can participate in debates over the various star trek franchises ( yes I am a trekkie) or the Lord of the Rings ( yep there too).
Even better you get to interesting blogs through either links in good articles or the blogs on the sidebars.
Don't believe then go to :

• Mark Thoma
• Simon Wren-Lewis
• Noah Smith
• Steve from Brisbane
• Hotwhopper

this is only a small example.

My wife always nags me about how much time I have on the computer however she does not realise I am reading lots and lots of articles.

Thank you Nick

Not an update:

I have been upbraided for not commenting about how blogs on politics and elections in particular has become so much more sophisticated.
In Australia we saw Mumble and then in more recent times Kevin Bonham and Mark the Ballot who have shown us what the polls are really telling us.
In the US we had Nate Silver, Sam Wang and our own Simon Jackman all told us what would occur in the last US Presidential election ( although Katesy and Catallaxy did not typically understand)..

As Brad De Long would say smackdown accepted!

Blue Oyster Cult

They did have one song that became an absolute classic.  Don't fear the Reaper

Here it is!

Around the Traps 19/8/16

It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy.Oy.Oy

• Peter Martin on code-red-how-bureau-of-statistics-bungled-the-census, say no to WA  , were-moving-part-time-as-jobs-market-ho;;ows-out
• Cameron Murphy on modelling-for-major-road-projects-is-at-odds-with-driver-behaviour
• Ross Gittins on why-treasury-is-wrong-on-deficits-and-debt , big-change-ahead-for-china-and-our-export-challemge
• Croaking Cassandra on norway-and-the-kitchen-sink , debating-monetary-policy , woodhouse-on-immigration , english-demonstrates-why-monetary-policy-governance-needs-to-change
• Kristopher Wilson on could-section-18c-protect-angry-white-males-like-david-leyonhjelm
• Leanne Smith on cast-adrift-australia-risks-its-international-standing-over-asylum-seeker-policies
• Stephen Grenville on China-Australia-report-Economic-relationship-needs-work
• Nick Bisley on Why-Australias-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine
• Bianca Fileburn on the-nauru-files-why-dont-we-believe-victims-of-sexual-abuse
• Saul Eslake on the-electorate-has-spoken-but-turnbulls-speech-shows-he-hasnt-listened
• Serena Yu and David Peetz on are-sunday-penalty-rates-a-job-killer-a-real-world-experiment-refutes-employers-claim
• Andrew Elder on our-quagmire
• Amy Maguire on manus-island-centre-set-to-close-but-where-to-for-the-detainees
• Greg Jericho on wages-growth-is-at-record-lows-unless-youre-a-commonwealth-bank-ceo
• Peter Layton on Security-shouldnt-trump-economics-on-the-Ausgrid-sale
• Helen Clark on Long-Tan-Half-a-century-on-a-battle-memory-interrupts-Australia-Vietnam-friendship
• The Kouk on here-s-why-the-banks-aren-t-passing-on-the-full-cash-rate-cut , blocking-the-sale-of-ausgrid-was-a-poor-decision-and-will-cost-australia-dear
• Ken Parish on andrew-bolt-has-a-point-but
• Richard Ackland on the-defence-of-free-speech-is-limited-for-the-anti-18c-brigade
• Steve Wylie on to-future-proof-our-crops-from-drought-look-to-the-australian-deserts

Northern America

• Roger Farmer on has-labor-productivity-dropped
• Edward Lambert on estimated-path-of-the-fed-rate , velocity-m2-mzm
• John Robertson on payroll-employment-growth-strong-enough 
• Benjamin Freidman on Obama rescued the economy. Could he had done more Thanks Mark
• Calculated Risk on key-measures-show-inflation-close-to-2%-in-july , comments-on-july-housing-starts
• Carola Binder on more-support-for-higher-inflation-target
• David Beckworth on nominal-demand-aint-what-it-used-to-be , the-unwinding-of-qe-has-begun
• Ezra Klein on media-v-donald-trump Thanks Brad
• Noah Smith on fixing-america-s-roads-is-a-great-opportunity
• Menzie Chinn on recession-watch-august-2016-updated
• Barry Ritholz on why-we-re-still-arguing-whether-qe-worked Thanks Mark
• Timothy Taylor on patterns-in-us-information-techology
• Narayana Kocherlakota on the-u-s-recovery-is-not-what-it-seems
• Larry Summers on A thought provoking essay from Fed President William Thanks Mark
• Kruggers on slow-learners-2
• James Kwak on the-difficult-math-of-american-health-care Thanks Mark

Europe

• Simopn Wren-Lewis on the-bbc-and-statistics , brexit-and-trump-supporters , hope-experience-and-the-left
• UK polling report on how bad id corbyn doing

Asia

• Kruggers on abenomics-and-the-single-arrow
• Menzie Chinn on balance-sheet-effects-on-monetary-and-financial-spillovers-the-east-asian-crisis-plus-20 
• Abhijit Singh on The-anatomy-of-a-political-warning
• Zubaidah Nazeer on The-anatomy-of-a-political-warning
• Sarah Ireland on Bracing-for-the-exodus-from-Mosul
• Euan Graham on Thae-Yong-Ho-North-Koreas-rogue-diplomat-extraordinaire-jumps-the-fence
• Robert E Kelly on North-Korea-A-realistic-path-to-regime-collapse 
• Rhys Thompson on The-National-League-for-Democracys-drug-problem

Wonk

• John Quiggin on against-locke-part-3
• Nick Rowe on do-local-housing-demand-curves-slope-up
• Mark Thoma gives us George Evans on whats-useful-about-dsge-models
• Tony Yates on john-kay-on-helicopter-money
• Timothy Taylor on the-future-of-dsge-models-in-macroeconomics , alfred-marshall-and-origin-of-ceteris-paribus , what-are-motivated-beliefs
• Dietrich Vollrath on More on measured productivity and the labour share Thanks Mark 
• Noah Smith on all-of-a-sudden-economists-are-getting-real-jobs , being-an-ideologue-means-never-having-to-say-you-re-wrong , heterodox-macro-reply-to-some-replies
• Raphaele Chappe on general-equilibrium-theory-sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing Thanks Mark
• Chris Dillow on a-welfare-state-good-for-savers , uber-vs-coops , on-job-polarization, on-arms-races
• Andreas Ortman on what-she-sees-at-the-revolution
• Bank Underground on forming-strong-bonds-dynamics-in-corporate-bond-markets  Thanks Mark
• David Glasner on helicopter-money-and-the-reflux-problem
• Tim Harford on the-meaning-of-trust-in-the-age-of-airbnb
• Brad De Long on must-read-i-think-that-paul-krugmans-jump-from-the-first-to-the-second-paragraph-i-quote-below-is-wrong-or-at-least
• Nick Gruen on markets-supply-chains-brains-and-human-services
• Simon Wren-Lewis on hard-truths-for-imf , helicopter-money-missing-point

General

• John Horner and Brett Addison on its-all-in-the-atmosphere-exploring-planets-orbiting-distant-stars 
• Julia Kindt on cheating-bribery-and-scandal-how-the-ancient-greeks-did-the-olympic-games 
• Brigid Lynch and Paul Gardiner on research-check-do-we-really-need-to-do-five-times-as-much-exercise-as-weve-been-told

Climate

• Andrew King and Benjamin Henley on we-have-almost-certainly-blown-the-1-5-degree-global-warming-target
• Bart Verheggen on climate-inertia
• hotwhopper on hottest-july-on-record-global-surface
• moyhu on giss-up-005-in-july
• Tamino on crystal-serenity
• David Appell on la-nina-looking-little-less-likely
• Arctic sea ice blog on 2016-arctic-cyclone-update-1 , 2016-sipn-sea-ice-outlook-august-report
• Real Climate on australian-silliness-and-july-temperature-records
• and Then Theres Physics on katie-mack-brian-cox-and-eric-idle
• Stoat on antarcticas-sea-ice-said-to-be-vulnerable-to-sudden-retreat
• Skeptical science on  arctic-sea-ice-history-to-1850 , state-of-climate-2015-records-tumbling
• Timothy Taylor on convert-carbon-dioxide-from-air-to-methanol
• Critical Angle on global-temperatures-anomalies-july-2016-still-warmer-than-than-ever

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• modeling correlation
• The history of characterizing of people by their averages 
• Calorie obesity labelling
• how-schools-that-obsess-about-standardized-tests-ruin-them-as-measures-of-success
• Whats gonna happen in november
• research psychology
• michael-porter-as-new-pincushion
• Kaiser Fung on statistical-thinking-on-my-subway-commute

Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)

• No Hesitations on nearest-neighbor-forecasting-in-times , more-on-nonlinear-forecasting-over-cycle , on-evils-of-hodrick-prescott-detrending

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• on difference , on difference , wandering-around-looking-at-people
• Noah Smith on is-firefly-overrated
• Vincent Ho on whats-the-best-way-to-go-to-the-toilet-squatting-or-sitting
• Francess Woolley on why-are-groceries-more-expensive-in-the-bulk-food-section
• Doverbeach on weekend-reading

vox wonk

• brexit-stress-test
• brexit-and-wage-inequality
• nation-building-through-foreign-intervention
• oils-two-pronged-price-revolution-changes-everything
• oil-market-aftermath-price-slump
• primer-helicopter-money
• growing-importance-financial-spillovers-emerging-markets
• managers-are-miscalibrated
• eurozone-stability-still-under-threat-bad-shock
• eurozone-stability-still-under-threat-bad-shock
• equity-cheap-large-financial-institutions-international-evidence
• problem-public-sector-absenteeism

Penalty rates and employment

Fascinating article on this topic from Serena Yu and David Peetz. They examine the period from when NSW increased penalty rates to 200% on Sundays in NSW and compared it to Victoria where they did not.

Timothy Taylor on a related topic in the US.

Two anecdotes.

1. A cafe does open on Sunday in Eastwood. It is the best cafe but the owners have decided Sunday is their family day
2. An electrician told my wife any work he does on a Sunday is much dearer than any other day because again it eats into his family time. The opportunity costs is greater in other words.

Q & A Brian Cox and Malcolm roberts

I taped Q&A on Monday night and watched it recently.  I was impressed by Brian Cox someone I had never heard of before. Malcolm Roberts came over as a complete fruitloop. Both Linda Burney and Greg Hunt were underwhelming. The Mathematician was a babe, ( technical term!)

Roberts claimed the data was corrupted and there was a conspiracy between  BOM. CSIRO ,NASA  etc.

Gavin Schmidt has demolished the conspiracy garbage here.
And then theres Physics is good as well. Graham Readfern joins in

I think it very appropriate Roberts is part of Hanson's mob. He is right ( pun intended) at home there and deserves it.

I should note Jim Rose thought Cox condescending because of his smile. I thought the smile was merely highlighting good manners,  Denialists would probably no little about manners!

The show also highlighted denialists will NEVER acknowledge the facts. They simply change their arguments as I told Steve from Brisbane so long ago.

A waste of money

Australians courtesy of the Government ( and it is bi-partisan) dishes out a lot of money to sport in the expectation it will lead to results. Let us leave the argument that is is a waste of money for the moment..

Quite clearly over the last decade we have seen little return on this large investment.
In swimming ( aint it interesting how we love sports most nations take little notice of) had quite a few world record holders who were favourites to win. Few did.

Ipsofacto something revolving around coaching is the problem.

Either a full investigation should be undertaken or simply stop the money going into high level sport

The US Presidential election

It seems (going on Sam Wang and Nate Silver) with about 12 weeks to go this election is Hillary Clintons to lose.

This would only happen if the Republicans nominated a person few people could vote for. In Donald Trump they have a candidate only the mentally impaired would vote for. At present he has few policies apart from making Mexico paying for a fence on the border. . The little he has said on economic policy would indicate that like most Republicans he likes to increase the deficit for little advantage at all to the economy unlike Obama's modest stimulus. ( Talking of Obama it is highly ironic so many 'conservatives' have criticized his fiscal policy yet failed to recognise he has produced a MUCH more austere policy than the sainted Ronald Reagan It is one of the reasons why the recovery has been so weak!).

I would imagine Clinton will decimate Trump in the debates. Once the Republican primary debates got down to three candidates and Trump had to do more than deliver one liners he was woeful.

However people should focus on what Clinton will do once she wins.

Let us go back a bit. When Obama was running Kruggers asked what his plan B was as it was certain Republicans would not cooperate at all as Obama was hoping they would.
As we found out Obama had no plan B and had to think on his feet to stay in office.

How will Clinton fight Congress? On her most optimistic scenario the Republicans will still have control of the house.

We also know whilst Clinton is fantastic on policies and policy detail she has no political smarts at all.
I could see her losing that battle and consequently the 2020 Presidential election.

The next four years could well be highly problematic and not too good for the US economy as she battles the house.