Still NO evidence and there never will be

It is now Thursday and Trump and his administration (?) have produced not a shred of evidence to back up his disgraceful claims about Obama spying on him.

Producing the evidence would not be hard for him to do. The President has to approve any request by the FBI to the Court so there are records in at least three places.

More over if Obama was the man portrayed by Trump why in the hell did he not leak the alleged recordings of Trump. They would have destroyed his campaign.
Also if said evidence is available then Obama. Clappers and Comey all know they will be caught out.
If Trump was SOOO worked up about these claims how come he tweeted about the Apprentice after this?

Let us be honest. Trump is a fruitloop. A little boy who has never grown up. People who defend are just as bad. They are defending the indefensible.

Imagine if you will how Trump would react in a REAL crisis. God forbid!

If the Democrats have any brains they should go full bore towards a senate inquiry into all of this.
Plenty of material to ensure embarrassment for many months.

Pauline Hanson shows her true colours

I have written previously about Pauline Hanson.

to be brutal she is not very intelligent and is ageing badly. Her claim that Asians were taking over the country was simply ridiculous. Just as bad was a similar claim about Muslims. There are more one nation voters than there are Muslims!

However in two interviews one on the ABC and another on Channel 9 she has shown she is simply yet another hate filled conspiracy theorist.
Her remarks concerning vaccinations was simply dog whistling about vaccines and autism. something that has been shown to be complete cobblers. In this she is encouraging your parents who are as stupid as her not to vaccinate their children. This is bad not just for their children but for children who go to school with those children.

Her admiration for Putin shows her liking for those men who have a dictatorial streak in them Does anyone really believe the Russians were not involved in blowing up the Malaysian airlines plane?

Finally her attitude to all Muslims is simply mind blowing. Could all simpletons please cogitate on this.
To implement Sharia law firstly you would have to get agreement form all Muslims what that in fact incorporates Sharia law.
More importantly people who are worried about Sharia law cannot count. For this to occur you would need Parliament to pass legislation in BOTH houses.
This means to the simple minded A government ( Muslim of course) would have a majority in both houses.
Given there are more votes for One Nation then there are actual Muslims living in Australia in what time period could this ever occur?

One Nation could very well be a  nuisance to major parties but views like those above means they will never be a major party.
They would either dissolve into intra party squabbling like last time and even now or some members might think they would be better leaders than the ageing Pauline!

John Quiggin on re-nationalising the electricity grid

John Quiggin has written a typical thoughtful paper on re-nationalising the electricity grid.
I had this in Around the Traps on Friday.

I support his argument. electricity is an essential good and therefore a public good.

Quite clearly the private market for electricity is not working. There are huge problems with the inter-connector ( a reason for not one but two blackouts in South Australia.)
The regulator AEMO is not up to task at all. They imposed yet another blackout on south Australia through their incompetence.

I agree with john that it is only by the State government's owning their electricity assets that all aims of electricity can be gotten.

Privatising these assets were very problematic at the time and in retrospect can be seen as simply disastrous. If the public sector holds assets that are easily traded in the marker then by all means privatise but when those assets are clearly public goods leave them well alone.

It is a shame this argument was never made when these assets were privatisied.

Steve Kates and Catallaxy are both a disgrace and complete and utter wood-ducks

We now know Donald Trump made a number of tweets to accuse Obama of wire tapping him  at his tower
See Steve from Brisbane HERE and HERE.
He offered no evidence to back this up.

Naturally when he did this our own made man in a white coat Katesy went overboard here and here.

Now let us get a few things right here.

• Trump has a history of making completely unsubstantiated allegations and then moving on people ask for evidence
• Trump is a great believer in fake news as we have seen in spades since he has entered office
• Trump had full access to all intelligence and security briefings once he had won the election
• Trump can authorise the opening of any damn file he wants now he is President
• Trump's allegations were made on the basis of a fakenews outlet not a briefing. A normal President would have had the official files to show what he was saying was true.
• No-one at the Chaos house can get their story aligned so there is no official file to provide evidence. 
• Clappers and Obama have fervently denied such a wiretap. Comey wants the FBI exonerated from such a charge as well.

Normal people would have completely and utterly rejected Trumps charges unless he provided evidence. Once is was apparent that Chaos House had no evidence whatsoever they would have at least retreated from this stupid and utterly highly inept charge.

Katesy and the rest of the fruit loops stand out as not only as stupid as you can get but willing to accept any mad thing Trump makes up.

Goebbels would be proud.

update:

I see the Catallaxy clowns have gone the full monty.
Let us assume their accusations are true. Why in the hel did Obama not leak what would have been highly damaging phone -call transcripts. Why did he do absolutely nothing with any of the information that was gathered?

As President Trump would be told of all phone tapps ( get it) re FISA. They are not automatically given. He would have known of this quite some time ago.

There is NO evidence.

Sam and Dave Live

The kiddies of today simply do not know what a good show is.

Here is Sam and Dave doing Hold on I'm coming live. Booker T and the MGs and some others support them.
You can feel the electricity ( renewable energy of course) in the air as they perform.
Why oh why did they never tour Australia!
Sam does a great performance of this with the Boss if you are interested.

MAGNIFICENT!

Around the Traps 3/3/17

It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Riaz Hassan on australians-arent-as-islamophobic-as-were-led-to-believe
• Croaking Cassandra on new-zealand-initiative-on-immigration-part-2 , new-zealand-initiative-on-immigration-part-3 ,what-proportions-of-migrants-in-and-out-reside-in-auckland , new-zealand-initiative-on-immigration-part-4 , new-zealand-initiative-on-immigration-part-5-house-prices , wellington-rental-market-a-problem-of-success , whats-wrong-with-auckland-and-wellington
• John Quiggin on sports-betting-and-corruption , another-perspective-on-the-new-zealand-initiative-report, Grid_Renationalisation
• Stephen Gordon on internal migration flows in canada
• Ross Gittins on cut-in-penalty-rates-another-win-for-bizonomics , how-we-can-get-better-school-results , the-news-is-good-but-not-for-reason-but-not-for-the-reason-we-have-been-told
• Greg Jericho on sundays-arent-so-special-according-to-the-fair-work-commission , company-tax-cuts-could-lead-to-lower-living-standards-for-australians , company-tax-cuts-could-lead-to-lower-living-standards-for-australians , the-economy-has-bounced-back-but-workers-arent-seeing-the-benefits
• The Kouk on despite-the-polls-labor-are-only-warm-favourites-for-2019-election , housing-affordability-still-favourable-according-to-rba
• Harry Clarke on population-growth-and-urban-development
• Charles Livingstone on tasmanias-pokie-problem-stress-and-disadvantage-exploited-more-than-anywhere-else-in-australia
• Kevin Davis on despite-superannuation-changes-one-tax-loophole-remains
• Marie Seagrave on we-need-to-hear-the-stories-of-exploited-unlawful-migrant-workers-not-just-deport-them
• Stephen Duckett and Lucille Danks on new-proposed-health-data-report-misses-many-of-the-marks
• Katherine Gelber on parliamentary-inquiry-into-free-speech-resolves-nothing-so-18c-should-be-left-alone
• David Walker on against-decentralising-why-crowded-is-good
• Glen Fitzgerald on how-climate-change-threatens-to-make-our-bread-less-tasty
• Hussain Nadim on how-islamic-extremism-seeped-rural-australia
• Andrew King et al on climate-changes-signature-was-writ-large-on-australias-crazy-summer-of-2017
• Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-one-nation-soars-as-Liberals-squabblel
• Ray Merkey on explainer-where-to-from-here-on-penalty-rates
• Lee Smales on three-reasons-businesses-are-paying-higher-dividends-rather-than-investing
• Bruce Bradbury on the-new-income-stagnation
• Mark the Graph on a-encouraging-gdp-print , social-assistance-payments

Northern America

• Anne Krueger on us-manufacturing-employment-imports Thanks Mark
• Larry Summers on revoking-trade-deals-will-not-help-american-middle-classes Thanks Mark
• Progrowth liberal on bmw-transfer-pricing-and-trump-trade-accounting
• Sarah Kliff on obamacare-nga-report Thanks Mark
• Menzie Chinn on the-media-fails-to-report-the-sun-rose-today , do-you-feel-lucky
• Jonathon Chait on trumps-health-care-nightmare-is-only-just-beginning Thanks Brad
• Sam Wang on homeland-security-memo-on-actual-sources-of-terrorism
• Scott Lemieux on will-trump-era-finally-kill-paul-ryans-wonkish-cred
• Menzie Chinn on guest-contribution-on-the-global-financial-market-integration-swoosh-and-the-trilemma, guest-contribution-identifying-state-level-recessions
• Timothy Taylor on the-declining-us-labor-share-explicated , the-decline-in-us-public-companies
• Cecchetti and Schoenholtz on inconvenient-facts Thanks Mark
• George Borjas on the-immigration-debate-we-need Thanks Mark
• Calculated Risk on real-house-prices-and-price-to-rent-ratio-in-November
• Ben Bernanke on why-dodd-franks-orderly-liquidation-authority-should-be-preserved Thanks Mark
• Kevin Drum on wsj-republicans-give-admit-they-cant-create-non-appalling-health-care-plan
• nicholas Crafts on whither econmic growth Thanks Brad
• newdeal democrat on do-healthier-longevity-and-better-disability-benefits-explain-the-long-term-decline-in-labor-force-participation
• Macroblog on can-tight-labor-markets-inhibit-investment-growth Thanks Mark
• Simon Johnson on trump-rolling-back-financial-reforms Thanks Mark
• Jared Bernstein on inflation-we-aint-got-no-stinkin-inflation Thanks Mark
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-more-on-dudley
• Kruggers on coal-is-a-state-of-mind
• FRB Cleveland on indicators-and-data/simple-monetary-policy-rules Thanks Mark
• Nate Silver on how-were-tracking-donald-trumps-approval-ratings
• Timothy Jost on examining-the-presidents-speech-to-congress (health) Thank you Jason
• FRB Richmond on are the effects of monetary policy asymmetric Thanks Mark
• Mark Thoma on Real-Test-For-Republican-Health-Care-Plan Thanks Brad (!)
• Livio De Matteo on federal-budgetary-comparisons-canada-the-united-states

Europe

• FRB of St Louis on unemployment-rate-dynamics-us-europe
• Simon Wren-Lewis on the-budget-and-health-care, selfulfilling expecations led to a recession , does-democracy-require-implementing-the-referendum-result
• Stumbling and mumbling on labours-crisis-camerons-fault
• Dean Baker on it-s-hard-to-get-good-help-danish-edition Thanks Mark
• Nick Gruen on strategisation
• Lisa Stuart on marine-le-pen-and-spectre-frexit
• Daniel Woker on european-defence-policy-after-trump-and-brexit

Asia

• Yuki Tatsumi on abes-trump-moves-proactive-pragmatism-its-finest
• Michael Fullilove on south-korea-lost-without-its-mojo
• Kevin Drum on enduring-mystery-of-japans-economy Thanks Mark
• Malcolm Cook on de-lima-arrest-will-test-duterte-opposition
• Roger Shanahan on the-race-for-raqqa
• Colin Hawes on chinas-private-companies-are-unjustly-labeled-as-communist-party-plants
• Adam Cathcart on understanding-china-s-suspension-north-korean-coal-imports

Wonk

• Stumbling and Mumbling on neoliberalism-and-productivity
• promarket on ability-companies-subvert-operating-rules-market-deep-systematic-durable-force Thanks Mark
• Noah Smith on why-human-capital-is-capital
• Stephen Grenville on why-everyone-talking-about-universal-basic-incomes
• Noah Smith on historical-cycle-theories-are-sillyor-are-they
• Brad De Long on sluggish future
• Timothy Taylor on vulnerable-jobs-and-desire-to-migrate , some-economics-of-parental-leave
• Tim Harford on what-raspberry-farms-can-teach-us-about-inequality
• David Andolfatto on a-reply-to-lawrence-white
• David Glasner on richard-lipsey-and-the-phillips-curve-redux
• Lord Keynes on bibliography-on-post-keynesian-economics
• Nick Rowe on long-run-growth-and-the-end-of-the-end-of-monetary-policy-history

General

• A fine theorem on kenneth-arrow-part-ii-the-theory-of-general-equilibrium Thanks Mark
• Rajiv Sethi on reigns-of-error Thanks Mark
• Debraj Ray on kenneth-arrow-1921-2017 Thanks Mark
• Haris Aziz on kenneth-arrows-legacy-and-why-elections-can-be-flawed
• gender matters on marriage-markets-in-developing-countries
• David Walker on the-spirit-of-iffy-things
• Ryan Anderson and David Mitchell on now-for-some-good-news-regular-sex-benefits-your-mental-health-too

Climate

• David Appell on temperature-vs-logco2-since-1970
• and Then Theres Physics on oh-no-not-again, catastrophe-hoax-or-just-lukewarm
• Real Climate on something-harde-to-believe , the-true-meaning-of-numbers
• moyhu on record-low-sea-ice-minimum-in-Anarctica , ncepncar-rises-again-by-009-in-february
• Rabett run on temperature
• What up with that Watts et al on global-warming-hiatus-nope-not-even

Andrew Gelman  (mainly stats)

• forecasting-mean-sd-of-time-series
• trump-win-name-came-first-key-states-maybe-im-doubtful
• low-power-pose-update-ted-goes
• theoretical-statistics-theory-applied-statistics-think-talk-wednesday-today-415pm-harvard-statistics-dept
• yes-makes-sense-design-analysis-power-calculations-data-collected
• interpret-confidence-intervals

Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)

• No Hesitations on machine-learning-and-econometrics-v-time series
• Noah Smith on cant-we-all-just-get-along-econometrics-edition 

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• digitally-productive-households
• the-polarised-republic
• statistics-vs-truthiness
• pseudoerasmas on more_books

Vox wonk

• impact-natural-resource-windfalls-financial-sector
• understanding-global-role-us-economy
• understanding-long-run-effects-africa-s-slave-trades
• inequality-and-economics-tony-atkinson-s-enduring-lessons
• social-media-political-donations-and-incumbency-advantage-us
• unexpected-consequences-asymmetric-competition
• gdp-linked-bonds-primer
• contemporary-shadow-scramble-africa
• new-ebook-quo-vadis-identity-policy-and-future-european-union
• apprenticeship-and-rise-europe
• how-colonial-railroads-defined-africa-s-economic-geography
• firm-outcomes-and-local-migrant-worker-supply
• exchange-rate-forecasting-dsge-models
• christian-missions-and-development-sub-saharan-africa
• us-elections-interest-rates-and-europe-s-monetary-sovereignty

Does Peter Dutton understand what his department does?

Pewter Dutton has banned fast food outlets from using people with 457 visas from working in those outlets. He believes young Australian kids should do the jobs.

Does he understand what a 457 VISA IS?