Around the Traps 11/9/20

It is time again for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Greg Jericho on australia-needs-public-investment-during-the-covid-recession-not-tax-cuts, the-morrison-governments-decision-to-cut-jobseeker-does-not-square-with-the-slow-recovery
• Danielle Wood and Tom Crowley on morrison-is-right-all-governments-will-need-to-spend-more-to-get-us-out-of-the-crisis
• Laxman Bablani and Driss Quakram on slow-and-steady-exit-from-lockdown-as-victorian-government-sets-sights-on-covid-normal-christmas
• Stephen Duckett on victoria-now-has-a-good-roadmap-out-of-covid-19-restrictions-new-south-wales-should-emulate-it
• renew economy on esb-puts-coal-exit-strategy-at-centre-of-energy-market-shakeup, act-secures-two-big-batteries-for-canberra-and-record-low-price-for-wind, energy-incumbents-query-aemo-governance-in-move-to-clip-its-wings
• croaking cassandra on pandemic-income-insurance, lsap-deposits-bonds-house-prices-etc, more-facts
• Melissa Tyler on morrisons-foreign-relations-bill-should-not-pass-parliament-heres-why
• Mathew Sharpe on is-cultural-marxism-really-taking-over-universities-i-crunched-some-numbers-to-find-out
• James Laurensen on australia-all-not-lost-despite-china-s-trade-tantrums
• Ross Gittins on memo-generals-china-is-our-inescapable-economic-destiny
• Brendan Coates and Mathew Cowgill on now-well-need-100-120-billion-why-the-budget-has-to-spend-big-to-avoid-scarring
• Rowan Callik on journalists-have-become-diplomatic-pawns-in-chinas-relations-with-the-west-setting-a-worrying-precedent
• Richard McGregor on no-news-not-good-news
• Don Driscoll et al  on research-reveals-shocking-detail-on-how-australias-environmental-scientists-are-being-silenced
• Richard Holden on vital-signs-batch-testing-and-contact-tracing-are-the-two-keys-to-stop-the-lockdown-yo-yo
• Ben Phillips et el on winding-back-jobkeeper-and-jobseeker-will-push-740-000-australians-into-poverty
• Michelle Grattan on when-grief-meets-politics-it-is-sad-and-ugly
• Andrew Elder on the-press-gallery-is-broken

Northern America

• Alex Ward on atlantic-trump-military-suckers-losers-explained
• Barkely Rosser on how-bif-of-hoax-is-that-dirty-dossier
• the grumpy economist on more-on-debt
• Macromania on cochrane-on-why-debt-matters, cochrane-on-debt-ii
• Ezra Klein on african-american-republican-trump-black-vote
• the conversable economist on shifts-in-how-fed-perceives-us-economy, misperceptions-and-misinformation-in-election-campaigns
• Mary Harris on biden-trump-2020-election-polls
• Robin Wright on is-america-a-myth
• Barry Eichengreen on /us-pandemic-crisis-will-worsen-in-october Thanks Brad

Europe

• Iain McGillvray on what-turkey-s-end-game-libya
• Nikola Mikovic on how-russia-benefited-belarus-turmoil
• Mainly Macro on in-uk-treasury-cutting-deficit-generally-takes-priority-over-the -health-of-the-economy
• stumbling and mumbling on on-press-freedom

Asia

• Ji Rose on myanmar-election-fractured-process
• Shara Hameiri on debunking-myth-china-s-debt-trap-diplomacy
• Michael Sainsbury on rising-protests-sinking-economy-spell-trouble-thailand

Wonk

• Tim Harford on we-fall-in-love-with-the-new-but-not-everything-old-is-obsolete
• Adam Scott on why-vaccine-nationalism-could-doom-plan-for-global-access-to-a-covid-19-vaccine
• Benjamin Reilly on pandemic-democracy
• the conversable economist on what-is-good-job
• Rodger Shanahan on islamic-state-s-new-battleground-courts

General

• the conversable economist on the-best-thing-for-being-sad-is-to-learn-something

Climate

• Moyhu on august-global-surface-templs-down-from-july
• Zebedee Nicholls and Tim Baxter on information-incentives-and-goals-in-election-forecasts
• Pep Canadell and Rob Jackson on earth-may-temporarily-pass-dangerous-1-5-warming-limit-by-2024
• David Appell on arctic-sea-ice-update

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• psychologys-zombie-ideas
• heres-a-question-for-the-historians-of-science-out-there-how-modern-is-the-idea-of-a-scientific-anomaly
• day-science-and-night-science-are-the-same-thing-if-done-right
• who-are-you-gonna-believe-me-or-your-lying-eyes
• information-incentives-and-goals-in-election-forecasts
• they-want-statistical-proof-whatever-that-is
• why-we-kept-the-trig-in-golf-mathematical-simplicity-is-not-always-the-same-as-conceptual-simplicity
• statschat on adverse-events-some-terminology
• Kaiser Fung on story-first-thinking, what-to-make-of-the-vaccine-pledge

Econometrics

• Freakometrics on insurance data analytics, forecasting methods (and copulas)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• n
• Warwick McFayden on book-review-seeds-authoritarianism

vox wonk

• open-economy-challenges-global-currencies-and-trading-networks
• design-choices-central-bank-digital-currency
• they-tried-make-me-go-rehab-and-i-said-yes-yes-yes
• socio-demographics-predict-behaviour-during-pandemic
• complex-europe-quantifying-cost-disintegration
• financing-larger-uk-companies-through-covid-19
• impact-global-economic-disruption-big-threat-low-income-countries-direct-effects-covid-19
• how-us-consumers-use-their-stimulus-payments
• assar-lindbeck-1930-2020
• immigration-and-welfare-state
• detecting-impact-policy-uncertainty-foreign-direct-investment

The best article on US elections.

Andrew Gelman is a gem. This year he and two others have constructed a model for forecasting the US Presidential election.
Thus courtesy of him we have information-incentives-and-goals-in-election-forecasts.

Quite easily the best article i have read on the topic.

A must read if you are interested at all in US politics

China is playing with fire part 2

The forced exit of two Aussie journalists who were based in China is disturbing.
See

1. Rowan Callik
2. Richard McGregor

This merely exacerbates what I wrote earlier about what China.

Companies must be quaking in their boots about any employees they have in China. It matters not whether they are expatriates or local chinese.

hostage diplomacy will not attract companies to china. Arresting local employees on so called national security grounds does the same thing.

What China is doing will do long term damage to their economy as companies simply make the decision is it too hard to trade with China or to have subsidiaries in China.

Media watch

Media watch is a great program.

Last night it devoted itself to three topics

1. A 'reporter for domain who simply made up stuff for her articles. She was fired
2. Mick Fuller been shown up tet again as a politician not a police commissioner.
3. Climate deniers who claimed the bushfires were started by arsonists did not  fess up after the NSW  Royal Commission found otherwise.

Excellent viewing.

Fathers Day

I had an enjoyable fathers day yesterday.

I am lucky in that I have a very close relationship with my two sons. Possibly because I was forced to become Mr mum a few times.

It got me thinking when did Fathers or mothers day for that matter become so big?

I do not recall it when I was growing up either when going to school or when in employment.

Why has it become so big? I suspect it is because of the business it creates.

Around the Traps 4/9/20

It is time again for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Ross Gittins on were-edging-towards-change-in-economic-management, pandemic-inconvenient-for-privileged-rough-on-the-poor, itll-be-long-haul-to-get-economy-going-properly
• Neal Hughes et al on recovering-water-for-the-environment-in-the-murray-darling-farm-upgrades-increase-water-prices-more-than-buybacks
• Mary Louise-McClaws on what-is-the-covid-bubble-concept-and-could-it-work-in-australia
• Emma Dawson on workers-will-lose-in-the-long-run-if-the-morrison-government-ditches-its-commitment-on-super
• Robert Glasser on to-reduce-disasters-we-must-cut-greenhouse-emissions-so-why-isnt-the-bushfire-royal-commission-talking-about-this
• Jack Anderson on how-covid-caused-chaos-for-cricket-and-may-force-a-rethink-of-all-sport-broadcasting-deals
• Tony Walker on australian-government-must-act-urgently-on-detention-of-journalist-cheng-lei-in-china
• Rob Nicholls on if-facebook-really-pulls-news-from-its-australian-sites-well-have-a-much-less-compelling-product
• John Edwards on covid-recovery-long-term-test-australian-leadership
• Nick Gruen on orwell-that-ends-well-can-evaluation-save-us-from-ourselves
• statschat on perceptions-of-the-level-3-alert-in-auckland
• renew economy, cheaper-cleaner-more-reliable-how-renewables-are-winning-energy-trifecta, victoria-seeks-600mw-wind-and-solar-to-power-hospitals-schools-and-trains, spilled-energy-mining-giant-looks-for-next-step-to-100-renewables-grid
• Croaking Cassandra on macro-policy-pitfalls-and-options
• John Daley and Rory Anderson on when-it-comes-to-economic-reform-the-old-days-really-were-better-we-checked
• Peter Martin on six-graphs-that-explain-australias-recession
• Amy Maguire on the-israeli-supreme-court-has-cleared-the-way-for-malka-leifers-extradition-hearing-what-happens-now
• Richard Holden on vital-signs-how-do-you-fight-a-recession-without-precedent
• John Quiggin on have-we-just-stumbled-on-the-biggest-productivity-increase-of-the-century
• Quentin Grafton on morrison-government-plan-to-scrap-water-buybacks-will-hurt-taxpayers-and-the-environment

Northern America

• David Appell on trump-lying-about-greatest-economy-in-history
• Menzie Chinn on /the-net-international-investment-position-of-the-us
• Macromania on some-thoughts-on-yield-curve-control
• Institutional Economics on the-feds-new-inflation-targeting
• Timothy Lynch on republicans-have-used-a-law-and-order-message-to-win-elections-before-this-is-why-trump-could-do-it-again
• Ella Nilsen on joe-biden-trump-election-law-and-order
• Mathew Yglesias on donald-trump-america-rioting
• Barkley Rosser on should-we-fear-reappearance-of-inflation
• Ezra Klein on why-did-america-invade-iraq-the-ezra-klein-show-to-start-a-war-bush-trump-administration, trump-approval-rating-2020-election-voters-coronavirus-convention-polls
• Michael Luo on american-christianitys-white-supremacy-problem
• the conversable economist on are-americans-overworking
• Macro Musings on the-feds-new-framework
• Kristy Campion and Levi J West on trump-claims-left-wing-extremism-is-engulfing-the-us-conflating-protests-with-terrorism-is-the-real-danger
• Galen Druke and Nate Silver on trump-has-an-electoral-college-advantage-again-this-cycle
• Macro mania on the-feds-new-monetary-policy-framework

Europe

• stumbling and mumbling on tories-against-thatcher, clarity-who-needs-it
• Joakin Book et al on swedens-high-covid-death-rates-among-the-nordics-dry-tinder-and-other-important-factors
• Simon Tormey on tony-abbott-why-boris-johnson-would-want-australias-controversial-ex-pm-as-a-trade-envoy

Asia

• Craig Mark on shinzo-abe-japans-longest-serving-leader-leaves-office-a-diminished-figure-with-an-unfulfilled-legacy
• Purnendra Jain on abe-aimed-move-mountains-setting-japan-high-goals-future
• Noah Smith on abe-defied-expectations-build-better-japan
• Lydia Khalil on why-arab-street-so-silent-israel-uae-deal
• Nava Nuraniyah on unmaking-joko-widodo
• Shakti De Silva on where-sri-lanka-s-foreign-policy

Wonk

• Tim Harford on rats-mazes-and-the-power-of-self-fulfilling-prophecies
• the conversable economist on wearing-face-masks-mixed-evidence, the-wellspring-of-economics, when-government-debt-explodes-in-size-what-options-do-governments-have
• Variable Variability on primer-herd-immunity-Social-Darwinists
• Croaking Cassandra on reviewing-monetary-policy-us-and-spin-nz
• Mainly Macro on will-taxes-have-to-rise
• John Quiggin on assessing-the-lockdown-policy-a-baseline-comparison
• Xueyin Zha on who-s-watching-algorithms
• Glen Withers on how-much-should-facebook-have-to-pay-for-news-we-have-a-suggestion-how-to-calculate-it
• Tim Harford on we-fall-in-love-with-the-new-but-not-everything-old-is-obsolete
• the grumpy economist on debt-matters

General

• the conversable economist on Orwell and  english prose
• Darius Sepheri on a-doubtful-gleam-of-solace-reading-tennysons-in-memoriam-ahh-in-difficult-times

Climate

• and Then Theres Physics on tropical-cyclones-and-climate-change
• Robert McLachlan on climate-explained-sunspots-do-affect-our-weather-a-bit-but-not-as-much-as-other-things
• Laura Sonter et al on renewable-energy-can-save-the-natural-world-but-if-were-not-careful-it-will-also-hurt-it
• the conversable economist on the-best-thing-for-being-sad-is-to-learn-something

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• fda-statistics-scandal-update
• the-nba-strike-and-what-does-it-take-to-keep-stories-in-the-news
• update on discrimination
• an-example-of-a-parallel-dot-plot-a-great-way-to-display-many-properties-of-a-set-of-items
• more-on-that-fivethirtyeight-prediction-that-biden-might-only-get-42-of-the-vote-in-florida
• automatic-data-reweighting
• problem-of-the-between-state-correlations-in-the-fivethirtyeight-election-forecast
• post-stratified-longitudinal-item-response-model-for-trust-in-state-institutions-in-europe
• path-sampling-in-stan
• battle-of-the-open-science-asymmetries
• rethinking-rob-kass-recent-talk-on-science-in-a-less-statistics-centric-way
• grad-student-asks-why-is-the-government-paying-us-money-instead-of-just-firing-us-all
• Kaiser Fung on answers-on-excess-deaths-test-accuracy-and-quick-testing, a-story-about-poop-and-the-scientific-method

Retired but still retired Dave Giles ( econometrics)

• Econometric Sense on blocking-and-causality

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• Warwick McFadyen on book-review-seeds-authoritarianism
• Docs books on his-truth-is-marching-on-john-lewis-and-the-power-of-hope-by-jon-meacham

vox wonk

• private-and-joint-activities-household
• emergency-loans-and-consumption-evidence-covid-19-iran
• lockdown-accounting
• horrible-trade-offs-pandemic
• feds-quantitative-easing-boost-investment-burden-inflation
• covid-19-and-effects-social-distancing-economy
• corona-crisis-and-corporate-bankruptcies
• reproduction-numbers-tend-1-and-reason-could-be-behavioural
• supply-chain-effects-trade-protection-export-growth
• how-strengthen-european-industries-leadership-vaccine-research-and-innovation
• working-home-polarising-workplace
• internal-migration-and-spread-covid-19
• burden-non-transferable-property-rights
• analysing-monetary-policy-statements-reserve-bank-india
• dual-interest-rates-give-central-banks-limitless-fire-power

Renewable energy

Two recent articles makes me want to write a general statement on the topic.

• cheaper-cleaner-more-reliable-how-renewables-are-winning-energy-trifecta
• hydrogen

what do we know?

• New solar and wind and a lot cheaper than  old coal stations let alone 'new' ones
• South Australia now has the cheapest and most reliable energy in the wholesale market.
• We should reach 50% of total energy BEFORE 2030
• We could get to 100% by 2050
• The greatest challenge to reliability are the aging coal stations.
• Assuming Hydrogen works out then steel making and other industries will not need coking coal.