Around the Traps 10/7/20

It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Croaking Cassandra on wo-charts-3, two-charts-3, economic-policy-malaise, nationals-five-point-plan
• Neil Warren on memo-to-australias-states-try-renovating-your-tax-system-before-asking-for-a-new-one
• renew economy on troubles-in-solar-industry-as-leading-commercial-contractor-calls-in-administrators, states-give-clean-energy-sector-big-confidence-boost-in-absence-of-federal-policy, battery-storage-five-minute-rule-to-be-delayed-but-only-by-three-months, nsw-to-call-for-wind-solar-and-storage-proposals-for-second-renewable-zone
• institutional economics on what-the-fomc-really-thinks-about-australias-yield-curce-control, does-the-rba-already-follow-an-implicit-nominal GDP-rule
• Adrian Esterman on victoria-is-undeniably-in-a-second-wave-of-covid-19-its-time-to-plan-for-another-statewide-lockdown
• Jon Iredell on can-i-cross-the-nsw-victoria-border-there-are-exemptions-but-youll-need-a-very-good-reason
• Andrew Burridge on heres-how-the-victoria-nsw-border-closure-will-work-and-how-residents-might-be-affected 
• Ketan Joshi on why-an-attempt-to-gamergate-australian-climate-journalism-fell-flat Thanks Steve from Brisbane
• Bjorn Sturmberg on owners-of-electric-vehicles-to-be-paid-to-plug-into-the-grid-to-help-avoid-blackouts
• Paul Haskett-Dowland and James Jin Kang on china-could-be-using-tiktok-to-spy-on-australians-but-banning-it-isnt-a-simple-fix
• Phillip Russo and Brett Mitchell on metropolitan-melbourne-and-mitchell-shire-return-to-lockdown-this-is-just-how-vigilant-we-have-to-be-until-a-covid-19-vaccine-is-found
• Mary-Louise McClaws on melbournes-lockdown-came-too-late-its-time-to-consider-moving-infected-people-outside-the-home
• Sarah Kaine and Emmanuel Josserand on melbournes-hotel-quarantine-bungle-is-disappointing-but-not-surprising-it-was-overseen-by-a-flawed-security-industry
• Richard Holden on vital-signs-50-000-australians-a-day-are-being-tested-for-covid-19-how-to-solve-the-maths-that-says-the-number-should-be-6-5-million
• Alex Reilly on asylum-or-economic-opportunity-the-mixed-messages-in-australias-new-hong-kong-visa-options

Northern America

• Menzie Chinn on an-employment-w-what-would-it-take
• Ian Milliser on supreme-court-voting-rights-alabama-texas-democratic-party-abbott-merrill-people-first, supreme-court-trump-mazars-vance-john-roberts-subpoenas-tax-returns
• Dan Crawford on competency
• New Deal Democrat on the-2020-presidential-election-forecast-from-state-polling-a-biden-tsunami-threatens-to-swamp-the-gop-senate, coronavirus-dashboard-for-july-7-2020-deaths-as-a-very-lagging-statistic, coronavirus-dashboard-for-july-8-deaths-in-the-south-and-west-finally-suggest-increasing-trend
• the conversable economist on an-audit-study-of-discrimination-in-boston-rental-market, marketable-pollution-permits, the-subway-map-view-of-mortality-and-health
• Macro Musings on make-up-policy-where-art-thou
• Sam Wang on our-polling-trauma
• Calculated Risk on comments-on-weekly-unemployment-claims

Europe

• long and variable on lockdowns-and-lockdown-releases-are-not-going-to-be-fair, make-the-boe-work-for-their-oak-panelled-offices-and-get-them-to-identify-the-missing-stimulus-needed
• Mainly Macro on sabotaging-recovery
• Irish Economy on central-bank-quarterly-bulletin-3-2020
• stumbling and mumbling on profits-before-jobs

Asia

• Brendan Clift on hong-kong-activists-now-face-a-choice-stay-silent-or-flee-the-city-the-world-must-give-them-a-path-to-safety
• Purnedra Jain on popular-tokyo-governor-heading-towards-re-election-and-maybe-more
• Imogen Liu on economics-national-security-hong-kong
• Ben Bland on indonesia-still-caught-between-trade-and-protectionism
• Chongyi Feng on the-rot-goes-right-up-to-beijing-why-detained-professor-xu-zhangrun-is-such-a-threat-to-chinas-leadership
• Tony Walker on naval-exercises-in-south-china-sea-add-to-growing-fractiousness-between-us-and-china
• Kirsten Han on singaporean-s-tricky-exercise-tactical-voting
• Rodger Shanahan on cashing-chips-trump-casino
• Kate Sullivan-Walker on semiconductor-industry-where-politics-gets-real-taiwan
• Christopher Snedden on india-s-dilemma-neither-strategic-nor-autonomous

Wonk

• Barbara Mintes and Ellen tHoen on the-us-has-bought-most-of-the-worlds-remdesivir-heres-what-it-means-for-the-rest-of-us
• stumbling and mumbling on limits-of-evidence-based-policy, reclaiming-freedom
• Nick Gruen on markets-as-causal-spread-how-the-early-neoliberals-anticipated-embodied-cognition-michael-polanyi-fragment, what-works-getting-to-the-land-of-how-complete-essay, thinking-keep-it-adaptive-stupid
• The conversable economist on can-economists-be-both-popular-and-patriotic
• Brad De Long on blanchard-reopening-the-economynoted
• the grumpy economist on the-surplus-process
• Simon Lacy on huaweis-window-of-opportunity-closes-how-geopolitics-triumphed-over-technology
• Mathew Del Santo on yes-balance-china-bring-russia-in-from-cold
• Brad De Long on a-grand-narrative-catechism-the-global-economic-history-of-the-long-20th-century-1870-2016
• Adam Kamradt-Scott on lives-at-grave-risk-trumps-withdrawal-from-the-who-is-a-hit-to-global-health
• and Then Theres Physics on cancel-culture
• Tim Harford on what-countries-can-and-cant-learn-from-each-other
• John Quiggin on the-general-theory-and-the-special-theories

General

• Robert Wellhammer on shillings-gods-and-runes-clues-in-language-suggest-a-semitic-superpower-in-ancient-northern-europe
• Simon Campbell and Yerra Kumar on revealed-the-suns-secret-plan-to-become-a-lithium-factory
• Robert Hassan on guide-to-the-classics-the-war-of-the-worlds

Climate

• Moyhu on ncepncar-reanalysis-june-2020-surface-down-from-may, june-global-surface-templs-down-0076-from-may
• and Then Theres Physics on extreme-precipitation-events
• Chris Turney and Chris Fogwell on marine-life-found-in-ancient-antarctica-ice-helps-solve-a-carbon-dioxide-puzzle-from-the-ice-age
• James Shulmeister on climate-explained-what-the-world-was-like-the-last-time-carbon-dioxide-levels-were-at-400ppm
• David Roberts on covid-19-climate-change-global-warming-shifting-baselines
• David Appell on temperatures-are-running-amock
• Real Climate on shellenbergers-op-ad

Andrew Gelman ( main;y stats)

• inference-for-coronavirus-prevalence-by-inverting-hypothesis-tests
• who-were-the-business-superstars-of-the-1970s
• priors-on-effect-size-in-a-b-testing
• new-england-journal-of-medicine-engages-in-typical-academic-corporate-ass-covering-behavior
• statistical-controversy-on-racial-bias-in-the-criminal-justice-system
• time-travel-in-the-brain
• drunk-under-the-lamppost-testing
• ugly-code-is-buggy-code
• the-scientist-as-hero-narrative
• Kaiser Fung on modeler-exceptionalism, prediction-demand-for-off-campus-housing-near-cornell-to-booooom
• statschat on nationwide-non-representative-sample-and-covid

Retired but still genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)

• Menzie Chinn on annual-annualized-q4-q4-growth-rates-a-reprise
• the grumpy economist on a-little-financial-econometric-history

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• Andrew Gelman on regression-and-other-stories-is-available ( blatant plug)
• Tim Harford on /book-of-the-week-25-a-man-for-all-markets-by-edward-thorp

vox wonk

• neighbourhood-effect-reforms-after-crises
• three-strikes-against-fed
• green-stimulus-jobs-and-post-pandemic-green-recovery
• effects-parallel-trade-drugs-europe
• suppressing-covid-19-combination-social-distancing-and-case-detection
• pandemic-shocks-and-fiscal-monetary-policies-euro-area
• news-media-and-distrust-scientific-experts
• risks-rapid-recovery-views-top-uk-economists
• state-ownership-will-gain-importance-result-covid-19
• bank-insiders-impede-equity-issuances-times-crisis
• policing-and-race-role-electoral-accountability
• deeper-recession-wider-divergences-commission-s-summer-2020-interim-forecast
• economic-policy-under-pandemic-european-perspective
• compliance-stay-home-orders-can-be-good-news-shareholders
• selecting-next-wto-director-general-what-trade-community-thinks
• air-travel-restrictions-pandemic-easy-implement-hard-assess
• paid-sick-leave-during-covid-19-health-and-labour-market-crisis
• role-ethnicity-and-democracy-urbanisation
• new-east-asian-trade-blocs-create-tough-choices-china
• testing-effects-reminders-promote-social-distancing
• wto-negotiation-and-institutional-reform-priorities-stakeholder-perspectives
• early-lockdowns-save-more-lives-and-livelihoods
• gender-norms-and-leadership-roles-legal-profession

Models and their uses

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

A must read.

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.

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.

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

Around the Traps 3/7/20

It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Paul Alexander on youve-got-less-mail-covid-19-hands-australia-post-a-golden-opportunity-to-end-daily-letter-delivery
• Michelle O'Shea on world-cup-2023-will-be-a-massive-boost-for-womens-sport-but-does-it-make-financial-sense
• Catherine Bennett on have-there-been-uncounted-coronavirus-deaths-in-australia-we-cant-say-for-sure-but-the-latest-abs-data-holds-clues
• Brendan Coates et al on cutting-unemployment-will-require-an-extra-70-to-90-billion-in-stimulus-heres-why
• Peter Burnett on let-there-be-no-doubt-blame-for-our-failing-environment-laws-lies-squarely-at-the-feet-of-government
• Andrew Norton on coronavirus-and-university-reforms-put-at-risk-australias-research-gains-of-the-last-15-years
• Ross Gittins on we-should-get-fair-share-of-foreign-investor's-profits
• renew economy on will-rooftop-solar-blow-up-your-kettle-no-but-your-local-network-just-might, utility-solar-may-be-low-cost-but-it-is-even-lower-value, australias-major-energy-players-are-split-over-pace-of-renewables-transition
• Nick Gruen on public-servants-and-political-partisanship, what-works-getting-to-the-land-of-how-part-one, never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste-covid-19-and-democracy-guest-post-from-luke-slawomirski, what-works-getting-to-the-land-of-how-part-two, what-works-getting-to-the-land-of-how-part-three
• Mehmet Ulubasuglu and Yasin Onder on teleworkability-in-australia-41-of-full-time-and-35-of-part-time-jobs-can-be-done-from-home
• Croaking Cassandra on pursuing-jian-yang-and-the-travesty-that-is-nz-politics, on-the-trail-of-negative-interest-rates
• Kevin Bonham on newspoll-another-batch-of-off-scale-leadership-ratings
• Greg Austin on morrisons-1-3-billion-for-more-cyber-spies-is-an-incremental-response-to-a-radical-problem
• Institutional Economics on rethinking-production-under-uncertainty
• Christine Hosking on we-know-how-to-save-nsws-koalas-from-extinction-but-the-government-must-commit
• John Blaxland on defence-update-in-an-increasingly-dangerous-neighbourhood-australia-needs-a-stronger-security-system
• Sam Roggeveen on morrison-defence-reset
• Richard Holden on vital-signs-stamp-duty-is-an-economic-drag-heres-how-to-move-to-a-better-system
• Joel Barnes on defunding-arts-degrees-is-the-latest-battle-in-a-40-year-culture-war
• Chris Brigges et al on 45-000-renewables-jobs-are-australias-for-the-taking-but-how-many-will-go-to-coal-workers
• Spencer Zilcak on why-bernard-collaerys-case-is-one-of-the-gravest-threats-to-freedom-of-expression
• James Goldrick on defence-strategic-update-2020-first-assessment

Northern America

• David Smith on trump-is-struggling-against-two-invisible-enemies-the-coronavirus-and-joe-biden
• Open Mind on covid-19-red-states-blue-states-redux
• Menzie Chinn on guest-contribution-covid-induced-precautionary-saving-in-the-us-the-role-of-unemployment-rate
• New Deal Democrat on the-us-presidential-election-as-forecast-by-state-polling-tending-towards-a-biden-blowout
• Zack Beuchamp on russian-bounties-us-troops-afghanistan-trump-explained
• Brad De Long on why-were-university-of-chicago-professional-economists-republicans-so-stupid-about-coronavirus
• Grant Wyeth on canada-wont-fall-china-s-hostage-diplomacy
• Jeffrey Toobin on john-roberts-dissociates-himself-from-the-trump-mcconnell-legal-project
• Peter Baker on legacy-police-torture-chicago
• the conversable economist on the-productivity-that-didnt-happen, religion-and-life-outcomes-looking-for-causal-effects
• Tyler Cowen on why-american-lockdown-exceptionalism

Europe

• Menzie Chinn on the-swedish-experiment-illustrated
• stumbling and mumbling on the-economic-base-of-realignment
• Mainly Macro on why-does-this-government-get-away-with-murder

Asia

• Mark Beeson on china-s-charmless-offensive
• Kimkong Hen on hun-manet-cambodian-dynasty
• John Garrick on china-has-a-new-way-to-exert-political-pressure-weaponising-its-courts-against-foreigners
• Tony Walker on israels-proposed-annexation-of-the-west-bank-could-bring-a-diplomatic-tsunami
• Aristyo Darmawan on international-law-takes-step-towards-asia
• Rahul Jaybhay on china-s-pipeline-dream-pakistan
• Timothy McLaughlin on hong-kong-china-national-security-colony
• Rowan Callick on hong-kong-finishing-blow

Wonk

• the conversable economist on gdp-whats-next-for-government-statistics
• the grumpy economist on rethinking-production-under-uncertainty
• Tim Harford on can-the-pandemic-help-us-fix-our-technology-problem
• Nick Gruen on markets-as-causal-spread-how-the-early-neoliberals-anticipated-embodied-cognition-fragment-one-hayek
• Uneasy Money on whats-right-and-not-so-right-with-modern-monetary-theory

General

• Geoff Plummer on in-praise-of-the-office-lets-learn-from-covid-19-and-make-the-traditional-workplace-better

Climate

• Kyle Clem on new-research-shows-the-south-pole-is-warming-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-world
• Simon Kingham on climate-explained-will-the-covid-19-lockdown-slow-the-effects-of-climate-change
• Craig Stevens and Christina Hulba on what-an-ocean-hidden-under-antarctic-ice-reveals-about-our-planets-future-climate
• and Then Theres Physics on apocalypse-never

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• the-two-most-important-formulas-in-statistics
• validating-bayesian-model-comparison-using-fake-data
• this-one-quick-trick-will-allow-you-to-become-a-star-forecaster
• shortest-posterior-intervals
• understanding-the-average-treatment-effect-number
• the-value-of-thinking-about-varying-treatment-effects-coronavirus-example
• no-i-dont-believe-that-claim-based-on-regression-discontinuity-analysis-that
• James empty blog on blueskiesresearchorguk-like-phoenix

Retired but still genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)

• No Hesitations on pandemic-economic-forecasting-with-high-frequency-data , causality-and-generalized-impulse-rersponse-functions, entering-and-trying-to-exit-pandemic, outstanding-new-financial-econometrics-book

Dianne Coyle ( quirky+ book reviews)

• law-and-technology-power-and-truth
• Tim Harford on book-of-the-week-23-how-to-be-an-antiracist-by-ibram-x-kendi, book-of-the-week-24-dark-data-by-david-hand
• A;ex Tabarrok on when-police-kill

Vox wonk

• suppression-versus-mitigation-dilemma
• smoot-hawley-america-first-and-strategic-sovereignty
• saved-phone-urban-renewal-or-new-era-lawlessness
• world-s-poor-cannot-protect-themselves-well-novel-coronavirus
• impact-government-aid-firms-covid-19-pandemic
• cutting-labour-taxes-brings-back-jobs-lost-covid-19
• credible-emerging-market-central-banks-could-embrace-quantitative-easing-fight-covid-19
• assessing-keynesian-spillovers-covid-19-recession
• usable-bank-capital
• just-time-supply-chains-after-covid-19-crisis
• eight-priorities-strengthen-international-cooperation-against-covid-19
• how-non-standard-workers-are-affected-and-protected-during-covid-19-crisis
• covid-19-has-increased-and-broadened-inequality-psychological-distress-uk
• fiscal-discipline-and-budgetary-analytical-capacity-euro-area
• temporary-layoffs-measure-firms-forecast-future
• interstate-heterogeneity-and-combatting-covid-19-brazil
• how-banks-affect-investment-and-growth
• racial-inequality-and-artistic-enterprise-us
• impact-machine-learning-and-ai-uk-economy

We should offer the people of Hong Kong sanctuary

The decline of Chinese foreign service is no more apparent than in the Chinese handling of Hong Kong. The absurdity and evil policy means a lot of people from Hong Kong will wish to emigrate.

Australia should embrace them. They are well educated and love democratic polity.

Why has the Australian government been so silent? Even the Poms are ahead of us.

update:

The government is thinking of this. Thinking. everyone saw this coming. how slow are they.

Rowan Callick on Hong kong