The Great Recession revisited

Laurence Kotlikoff has a quite controversial article on the origins on the GFC.

He says the main reason was a bad banking system that was built to fail.

Hmm it did not fail down under nor in Canada.  Regulation works??

The Government is in chaos

Is it a bit premature to think the Liberal party may disintegrate as the 'right wing' and the 'centre' cannot seem to agree on anything.
Mainstream parties are broad churches and if one side is not accommodated a split occurs.
It happened in the mid 50s to the ALP however Evatt was quite clearly not the full  quid. However this kept the ALP out of power for over a decade and Australia did not need that.

At present the Liberal party seems to be on that course. What I  find mystifying is why climate change has become part of the culture wars. Perhaps some believe what happens in the USA should occur here as well. however as we saw yesterday renewables is the way to the future as solar now has the same cost as EXISTING coal stations.
It seems to me only two sorts of people would be spruiking coal. Idiots like Craig Kelly for example or those on the coal payroll. 
With both the loss of Wenworth and now Julia Banks the government has given up on any thought of a legislative program.

No-one appears to know where to go in the government. They are desperate that Dutton is not referresd to the Court of Disputed Returns because they can only feel He will lose.

MP's who may lose pre-selection are threatening to go to the cross-bench.

It is a complete mess.

Australia cannot afford a split in the Liberal party just as it could not in the ALP. We also need a federal election as soon as possible.

Solar energy now the same in cost as existing coal stations.

I came to via Frank Josko who was critiquing ALP policy.
Solar energy now is now the cheapest option. for bulk energy. In Australia  according to Origin Energy solar power id as cheap as EXISTING coal stations. wind energy is marginally more expensive.
The cost of existing coal power is $40 MWh  which solar power has now reached except solar power has NO negative externalities.Wind power is at $50 MWh.
If we add in NEW coal powered power  stations costs are about $80 MWh and the fact units in coal powered power stations break down regularly on very hot days the future is looking one-way.

The Victorian Election

Well that was a surprise.

No-one but no-one was expecting a landslide in Victoria.

Why did it happen?
The one thing I do know is the ALP very heavily advertised the fact Morrison was aligned with both Abbott and Dutton and it appears this strategy worked very well.

You cannot run a scare campaign on law and order if people believe those whom are doing so have little credibility.

It means the ALP should be in Government for at least two more terms.

This is a bad thing.
The Government thus far has shown itself to be the very worst of a secular humanist government. Its support of euthanasia, the safe school campaign, abortion rights etc shows a government that has well and truly gotten rid of any of the social conservatism that was the bastion of the ALP when it started.
Indeed It is the type of an ALP government I could not possibly support.

I said before the previous election they should not win it after being in Opposition for only one term and they governed like that. The behaviour towards the CFA was disgraceful and I was quite amazes and the admittedly small corruption that a loot of MPS and their staff were found to indulged in was ignored by the public.

Victoria needs a Liberal government so the sooner they clean up their act the better

Around the Traps 23/11/18

It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Croaking Cassandra on exchange-rate-no-rebalancing-in-view, aid-and-economic-failure-png, blathers-away-when-directly-asked, not-adequately-reforming-the-reserve-bank, nz-and-the-prc-friday-bits-and-pieces
• Ross Gittins on benefits-from-big-data-at-risk-from-untrustworthy-politicians, why-morrison-has-changed-his-tune-on-immigration, how-about-robin-hood-carbon-tax-to-combat-climate-change
• Tim Harcourt on indonesia-matters-to-us-and-always-has-why-the-relationship-will-survive-morrisons-jerusalem-thought-bubble
• Richard Holden on fresh-thinking-the-carbon-tax-that-would-leave-households-better-off
• Mark the Ballot on morrisons-best-polls-ever
• The Kouk on the-rba-rolls-the-dice-on-house-pricesl
• Sam Roggeveen on beware-joining-us-cold-war-it-can-t-win
• Guy Dundas on labors-battery-plan-good-policy-or-just-good-politics

Northern America

• Barkley Rosser on mbs-guilty
• Stephen Grenville on us-versus-china-economic-model
• Ryan Nunn et al on americans-arent-moving-to-economic-opportunity Thanks Mark
• Promarket on how-the-ftc-protects-strong-employers-and-targets-weak-workers Thanks Mark
• Kruggers on tax-cut-fail-trump Thanks Mark
• Calculated Risk on comments-on-october-housing-starts ,comments-on-october-existing-home-sales
• Menzie Chinn on who-is-paying-for-the-trade-war-with-china
• Uneasy Money on was-there-a-blue-wave
• Alex Ward on trump-jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-history-murder
• New Deal Democrat on good-payroll-reports-will-probably-coninue-until-next-spring
• Livio De Matteo on becoming-sustainable-the-six-stages-of-provincial-territorial-government-health-spending
• Nate Silver on trumps-base-isnt-enough
• Graeme Wood on trump-releases-statement-support-saudi-arabia
• Robin Wright on trumps-utter-denial-about-saudi-arabia-and-its-crown-prince
• Justin Wolfers on business/trumps-tariffs-havent-transformed-trade-yet Thanks Mark
• the conversable economist on thanksgiving-history

Europe

• Mainly Macro on poverty-in-uk-radical-social-reengineering, why-theresa-may-should-not-get-anyones-sympathy-vote
• Craig Berry on theresa-mays-deal-is-almost-exactly-the-brexit-the-uk-voted-for
• stumbling and mumbling on against-foxes, blinded-by-ideology
• Croaking Cassandra on brexit-and-uk-economic-performance, europes-economic-performance
• Bob Lo on going-legit-foreign-policy-vladimir-putin

Asia

• Gret Nabbs-Kelly on indonesia-elections-jokowi-ma-ruf-appeal-middle-ground
• Dominic O'Sullivan on bainimarama-wins-again-in-fiji-helped-by-muzzling-the-media-unions-and-the-church

Wonk

• Tim Harford on there-is-a-fine-line-between-stupid-and-clever
• Copplolla comment on some-governments-really-are-like-households
• the conversable economist on economics-of-mushroom-production, solow-on-friedmans-1968-presidential-address, catastrophe-bonds-primer, four-follow-ups-scandinavia-equal-opportunty-brexit-leveraged-lending
• stumbling and mumbling on why-the-left-needs-bottom-1
• Nic Bisley on after-apec-us-china-tensions-leave-cooperation-in-the-cold
• Cassandras Legacy on peak-oil-20-years-later-failed-prediction-or-useful-insight
• scientific american on the-tragedy-of-the-commons-revisited Thanks Mark
• global inequality on how-adam-smith-proposed-to-have-his-cake-and-eat-it-too Thanks Mark

General

• Andrew Gelman on tom-wolfe
• Tim Harford on self-help-books-that-work

Climate

• Andrew King and Clair Vincent on why-predicting-the-weather-and-climate-is-even-harder-for-australias-rainy-northern-neighbours
• Dasvid Appell on nic-lewis-owes-resplandy-et-al-apology
• and Then Theres Physics on co2-sequestration-during-glacial-maxima
• Peter Lewis on forests-need-more-than-raking
• Bill McKibben on trumps-utter-denial-about-saudi-arabia-and-its-crown-prince
• Real Climate on the-long-story-of-constraining-ocean-heat-content
• Davis Suzuki on ocean-warming-study-criticism-shows-how-scientific-method-works
• Skeptica; Science on did bombing in WW2 cool global temperatures

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• graphs-tables-tables-graphs
• the-hype-economy
• bayesian-take-ballot-order-effects
• new-improved-standards-proposed-for-adjudicating-sexual-misconduct-in-college-aclu-opposes-them-for-inappropriately-favoring-the-accused
• also-observed-results-smaller-studies-conducted-ngos-often-pilot-studies-often-look-promising-governments-tried-implement-scaled-versions
• hey-mathematicians-whove-never-read-proofs-refutations-whassup
• John Cook on midys-theorem
• Mayo on mementos-for-excursion-2-tour-ii-falsication-pseudoscience-induction-2-3-2-7, sist-posts-excerpts-mementos-to-nov-17-2018
• Kaiser Fung on know-your-data-24-trust-eroding

Genial Dave Giles (ecnometrics)

• a-new-canadian-macroeconomic-database
• No Hesitations on nearest-neighbor-prediction

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• its-all-in-kuznets

vox wonk

• international-production-networks-and-disaster-resilience
• disappointing-impact-encouraging-students-study-more
• ecb-s-measures-underlying-inflation-euro-area
• effective-policy-targeting-machine-learning
• exchange-rate-pass-through-significant-trading-relationship
• brexit-vote-and-eu-law-application-uk
• financial-supervisory-architecture-global-crisis
• changing-nature-work

Sinclair Davidson at it again.

Oh dear. Sinclair Davidson has been caught out again goebbelsising again.
Let us go through shall we.
The Grattan Institute is ALP funded. Any evidence? Of course not. HERE is their latest Annual Report.
If the ALP funded the Grattan Institute you would see it in two areas.
1) donations in income
2) the directors would represent the ALP.
no sign of that anywhere. Funny about that. They say this " We receive no ongoing government funding and reject commissioned work to ensure this independence."
Clearly they would be put under the microscope if not prosecuted if this statement was wrong.

The Grattan Institute supports the measure in question cause it improves the structural position of the budget. Davidson does not go anywhere near this. Presumably because he has supported in the past measures that created a structural deficit. He has NEVER recanted on this so like his mate Kates he in theory always wants a budget surplus but in practice heartily endorses measures that increase the structural deficit.

Next he alleges the people of whom would no longer gain tax credits under ALP policy do not pat income tax implying their income is very low.

The reason why these people do not pay income tax is because Peter Costello got rid of tax on superannuation benefits in his last budget. the worst policy measure they ever made.
Then he has the hide to call it an anti-robin hood tax
The only people who could have shares in companies together with a substantial superannuation benefit are the rich! The PBO shows this HERE

The question is does Davidson actually understand this. If so then he is simply plain out lying his head off.
Or is he so lazy he simply does not know.

As Harry Callaghan says

Please note the ignorant comments made

Added bonus.

Greg Barton plus more. Sinkers again.

Yep second option

A carbon tax that leaves most households better off

Richard Holden and Rosalind Dixon have a very interesting article on a variant of a carbon tax.
There is both a tax on miscreants and a carbon dividend to most households. It is also a progressive dividend.

A really interesting article where policy is made reasonably  simpler.
Me thinks the ALP should adopt this.