Around the Traps 27/5/22

 it is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Dennis Muller on i-dont-think-i-know-how-5-words-from-the-french-president-triggered-a-ruinous-run-on-morrisons-character
• Zareh Gazarian on victoria-turns-red-and-teal-as-liberals-are-all-but-vanquished-in-greater-melbourne
• Paul Williams on queensland-bucks-the-national-trend-again-and-this-spells-trouble-for-both-the-liberals-and-alp
• John Phillimore on swing-when-youre-winning-how-labor-won-big-in-western-australia
• Stephen Duckett on labor-has-a-huge-health-agenda-ahead-of-it-what-policies-should-we-expect
• Saul Eslake on a-new-dawn-over-stormy-seas-how-labor-should-manage-the-economy
• Mark Kenny on morrisons-great-electoral-bungle-leaves-the-liberals-decimated-and-heading-in-the-wrong-direction
• Sam Roggeveen on china-morrison-legacy-and-beyond
• Ben Scott on strategy-uncertain-times
• Ross Gittins on whos-in-government-matters-but-pollies-not-in-total-control, replacing-misbehaving-scomo-is-easy-act-for-albo-to-follow
• Mark the Ballot on did-we-have-polling-fail-in-2022
• David Walker on shorism-triumphs-in-australias-federal-election-sort-of
• renew economy on soaring-electricity-prices-start-to-bite-but-worst-delayed-until-after-election, australia-has-the-resources-to-be-a-renewable-energy-superpower-now-it-needs-a-plan, household-power-bills-jump-as-coalition-hands-energy-market-mess-to-labor, how-expensive-coal-and-gas-blew-up-the-queensland-electricity-market, morrisons-legacy-is-higher-power-prices-bowen-pins-price-spike-on-coalition
• John Quiggin on the-election-showed-australias-huge-appetite-for-stronger-climate-action-what-levers-can-the-new-government-pull
• Adrian Beaumont on why-labor-is-likely-to-win-a-house-of-representatives-majority-despite-a-33-primary-vote
• Patricia O'Brien on on-the-pacific-the-new-government-must-be-bold-and-go-big-heres-how-the-repair-work-could-begin
• Peter Martin on lifting-the-minimum-wage-is-anything-but-reckless-its-what-low-earners-need
• Mathew Hornsey et al on the-election-shows-the-conservative-culture-war-on-climate-change-could-be-nearing-its-end
• Dennis Muller on how-the-reality-distorting-machinery-of-the-federal-election-campaign-delivered-sub-par-journalism
• croaking cassandra on 2022-vs-2008, reading-the-mps
• Greg Jericho on anthony-albanese-has-some-tough-economic-problems-on-his-plate-here-are-seven-of-them
• Cain Polidano et al on super-co-contribution-has-cost-10-billion-to-help-the-wrong-australians-so-lets-scrap-it
• Michael Keating on memo-to-labor-you-need-more-tax-working-out-how-much-more-is-urgent
• Jenny Gordon on where-trade-policy
• the tally room on mapping the major party swing
• Jonathan Pickering on laggard-to-leader-labor-could-repair-australias-tattered-reputation-on-climate-change-if-it-gets-these-things-right
• Bruce Mountain on expect-more-power-price-hikes-a-1970s-style-energy-shock-is-on-the-cards

Northern America

• Nicole Narea on georgia-kemp-trump-perdue-governor-endorsement
• noahopinion on are-tech-workers-going-to-be-paid-much-less-now
• Barkes on what-is-worst-part-of-current-inflation
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-barry-jones-shinn-ramirez, supreme-court-uvalde-guns-violence-second-amendment-heller-scalia
• Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Stern on ginni-and-clarence-thomas-steal-2024-election-coup
• The News on the-news-a-yet-unbroken-chain Thanks Brad
• Gina Schouten on why-were-polarized-part-1
• Menzie Chinn on some-time-series-data-on-mass-shootings
• Rick Sarre on arming-teachers-will-only-make-us-school-shootings-worse
• Peter Wehner on southern-baptist-convention-abuse-report
• Russell Moore on southern-baptist-abuse-apocalypse-russell-moore
• Sue Halpern on americas-redistricting-process-is-breaking-democracy
• new deal democrat on inflation-reversals-as-unique-markers
• Tyler Cowen on how-much-are-republicans-and-democrats-polarized-really
• the conversable economist on the-shape-of-the-federal-budget
• Christopher Poliquin onafter-mass-shootings-like-uvalde-national-gun-control-fails-but-states-often-loosen-gun-laws
• Robert Spitzer on how-the-nra-evolved-from-backing-a-1934-ban-on-machine-guns-to-blocking-nearly-all-firearm-restrictions-today
• Nicole Narea et al on uvalde-mass-shooting-gun-violence-control
• Justin Peters on uvalde-shooting-sandy-hook-politicize-tragedy
• sandwichman on and-babies
• Geoffrey Skelley et al on support-for-gun-control-will-likely-rise-after-uvalde-but-history-suggests-it-will-fade

Europe

• renew economy on offshore-wind-farm-balancing-german-power-grid-in-green-energy-milestone
• Mainly Macro on rapidly-reducing-carbon-usage-and-deficit-obsession-don't-mix
• Andreas Kluth on putin-is-losing-the-war-but-he-will-escalate-to-show-he-s-still-in-charge Thanks Brad
• Tony Ward on military-history-is-repeating-for-russia-under-putins-regime-of-thieves
• Melissa Tyler on ukraine-view-warsaw

Asia

• Rodger Shanahan on lebanon-celebrating-small-change
• Angela Zhang on china-regulatory-crackdown-tech-firms-golden-share-ownership-stake Thanks Brad
• Patrick Kaiku on png-and-solomon-islands-china-security-agreement
• noahopinion on japans-living-standards-are-too-low, ideas-to-boost-japanese-growth-part1, the-china-evac
• Timothy McLoughlin on john-lee-hong-kong-2022-chief-executive-election
• Phillip Sitowicki on black-ships-quad-and-space
• Kashish Shah on indias-renewable-energy-journey-two-steps-forward-one-step-back

Wonk

• Menzie Chinn on cross-country-core-cpi-trends
• Tim Harford on the-fun-way-to-predict-the-unpredictable
• John Quiggin on russia-and-the-end-of-nuclear-power
• value added on that-70s-show thanks Brad
• Barkes on expanding-brics
• Uneasy Money on hayek-and-the-lucas-critique
• stumbling and mumbling on capitalisms-self-preservation-society
• Magda Teter on rehearsal-for-genocide-pogroms
• economic history research on the-last-crusade Thanks Brad
• the conversable economist on competition-via-variety

General

• stumbling and mumbling on stealing-a-living
• Sascha Morrell on great-expectations-by-charles-dickens-class-prejudices-the-convict-stain-and-a-corpse-bride

Climate

• and Then Theres Physics on world-atmospheric-co2
• Andrew Freedman on climate-change-india-pakistan-heat-wave
• Dietma Muller et al on how-plate-tectonics-mountains-and-deep-sea-sediments-have-maintained-earths-goldilocks-climate
• Daniel Merino and Gemma Ware on india-and-pakistans-heatwave-is-a-sign-of-worse-to-come-podcast
• James Empty blog on how cold was the LGM
• skeptical science on glimmer-of-hope

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• film-dialogue-from-2000-screenplays-broken-down-by-gender-and-age
  
• what-happen-to-that-los-angeles-tunnel-that-axios-was-saying-was-coming-soon-in-2018
  
• yelp-reviews-for-scientists-or-pundits
  
• stylized-facts-in-the-social-sciences
  
• the-failure-of-null-hypothesis-significance-testing-when-studying-incremental-changes-and-what-to-do-about-it
  
• why-not-look-at-y
  
• public-opinion-isnt-always-as-polarized-as-you-think-gmo-food-edition
  
• the-worst-of-both-worlds-a-comparative-analysis-of-errors-in-learning-from-data-in-psychology-and-machine-learning
  
• more-implausible-numbers-from-columbia-universitys-u-s-news-ranking
  
• statschat on briefly
• Kaiser Fung on are-81-percent-of-elon-musks-twitter-followers-fake

Econometrics

• nuttin

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• all-the-cs-but-how-many-gs
  
• what-information-to-whom-and-do-they-want-it
  
• Tyler Cowen on 21st-century-monetary-policy

Vox Wonk

• impact-institutions-innovation
  
• russian-invasion-tests-eu-economic-resilience
  
• new-perspective-chinese-agricultural-development
  
• energy-sanctions-igm-forum-survey
  
• rising-cereal-prices-and-political-violence-croplands-africa
  
• education-innovation-gap
  
• consumption-effects-mortgage-payment-holidays-during-covid-19
  
• education-innovation-gap
  
• monopsony-makes-firms-not-only-small-also-unproductive
  
• effects-embargo-russian-gas
  
• reckoning-growing-demand-long-term-care
  
• empirical-analysis-budgetary-follow-eu
  
• foreign-work-permits-outrun-human-smugglers
  
• eu-gas-purchasing-cartel-framework
  
• war-ukraine-world-food-prices-and-conflict-africa
  

Why was Andrew Charlton successful and Kristina Kenneally unsuccessful

 At the election the ALP parachuted two people into ALP electorates.

Andrew Charlton won the seat of Parramatta with a swing to him. Kristina Kenneally lost the very safe seat of Fowler

Some may argue there was a media attack on Kenneally whereas Charlton was ignored. however if the media attacks in 'Teal 'electorates were unsuccessful then why they they succeed in Fowler. We can write this off.

Some have said their different characters affected voters with Charlton more likable. As this is just too related to above I think we can write this off as well.

Others have said the reasons for the parachuting were different. Kenneally was already in politics and was relegated to no. s in the senate for the ALP and thus unlikely to be in parliament after the election. Allied to this a local vietnamese born solicitor was bypassed. She was highly regarded  and had community links.

Andrew Charlton on the other hand di not elbow a local candidate out of the way and also was a highly successful businessman. He was in charge of Accenture at the time. I do like this but have no data to back this up.

The ALP will need to be very thoughtful about parachuting any 'star' candidates into safe seats in the future. If the candidates are good enough then surely they would win a pre-selection ballot.

Dutton has a hard road to walk

 It seems as Peter Dutton will be the new Opposition leader.

He has to come to terms with the fact the-election-shows-the-conservative-culture-war-on-climate-change-could-be-nearing-its-end.

He would need a road to Damascus conversion and even then he would still find it hard to gain credibility. I cannot state how important this is to the liberal party. If Dutton cannot gain credibility on climate change he will not get any of the 'teal' seats back. If he does not win back these seats the Liberals will not win back government.

Too many people from the Liberal side think he will be an effective Opposition leader because he is aggressive. They cite Tony Abbott as an example. Wait on. Abbott only gained success when the ALP started to fight among themselves. Just remember Abbott was never popular. The Liberals won despite him not because of him.

Being aggressive in parliament can be counter productive. More so when so many women have been elected. It also leads to many snafus which Dutton made as a minister.

He has not shown any strategic nous at all and like a lot of people ( like Albo) had a poor campaign.

Opposition leaders usually get rolled after a change of government. My guess is this will occur to Dutton.

Lessons from the election

 Okay let me say it again I was wrong. Climate change was THE big issue. clearly voters thought the Liberals were not to be trusted on climate policy ( because of the National party) and the ALP were not fair dinkum. They knew both the Teals and the Greens were. Let's face it the Greens have mad policies all over the place so it only makes sense to vote greens to ensure the ALP wakes up.

The Liberals are in a terrible bind. Having Peter Dutton as leader is bad enough as he is electoral poison but does anyone imagine he can convince teal voters to come back to the Liberals because they support polices to avoid climate change or  to set up a federal ICAC. It is highly pertinent to point out the Teals almost unanimously said a vote for the Liberals was a vote for Joyce and of course Canavan helped them enormously as well. Indeed Joyce and Canavan aped Bob Brown of the last election. At least he learned his lesson and shut up after the election was over.

There are arguments in some quarters to say Dutton will be a good opposition leader as he is aggressive like Abbott. Hang on Abbott was going now where until the ALP became disunited. Indeed those 'brilliant strategist' from the NSW right though they could still win when the ALP was in civil war because Abbott was Opposition leader.

Let us assume the ALP has learned their lesson. Its front bench is clearly superior to the LNP and has been for some time. Treasury has learned lessons from the 70s as well. Thus I do not expect any repeat of Whitlam.

Climate change will only grow as an issue in three years time as more and more evidence accumulates. This does bode well for the LNP. They will become the party for luddites if they are not careful. This will not be good for democracy.

The ALP has to do two things to my mind. First be more imaginative with regard to climate change. what about adopting a NED and advocate a price on carbon for the next election.

Secondly how will they do any budget repair? They said nothing on this in the campaign. Indeed their 'savings' measures were a joke. Treasury would undoubtedly want to  be more aggressive budget repair after the CPI rose so high (and will go even higher.)

We live interesting times

Marking my beliefs to market

 I do like the way Brad De Long marks his beliefs to market every so often. Thus the election proves the perfect time to mark mine.

• The election campaign would be too long to help the Liberals.  I was correct. Essentially this election was like 2013 in that the polls rarely changed at all.
• Morrison is not a great campaigner.  I was correct. He did not gain any votes in the campaign.
• Albo would get a rails run by journos in the campaign and they would be much harder on Morrison. I was wrong. They went very hard on Albo. Sometimes they were embarrassing. Morrison rarely answered questions which in the end exacerbated concerns about him. 
• Parachuting Charlton and Kenneally into Parramatta and fowler were two different propositions. Charlton was a high quality candidate whilst Kenneally vastly over-rated.  Lets say I was mostly right.
• News corp , Sky after dark ( and 2GB in sydanee) would get a black eye from their blatant biased coverage.  I was right on this.
• Climate change would not be the most important policy of the campaign. I was wrong big time on this. The climate wars are over. I hope the ALP understands this. They have won but others have gained.

Around the Traps 20/5/22

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Ausssie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• tallyroom on which seats swing the most
• Antony Green on tracking the early vote
• renew economy on direct-switch-from-coal-to-renewables-cheaper-than-going-over-gas-bridge, australian-carbon-market-splits-as-buyers-pay-more-for-high-integrity-units, australian-wind-market-takes-off-again-as-projects-and-turbines-get-bigger, gas-led-recovery-gas-generators-switch-to-dirty-diesel-as-prices-soar, australian-researchers-harvest-night-time-solar-to-provide-power-in-the-dark, how-the-coalitions-deflated-electricity-scare-campaign-was-probably-confected
• Ross Gittins on inflation-workers-being-unreasonable-or-bosses-on-the-make, modern-politics-goads-us-to-be-greedy-and-forget-the-needy
• Armarium Interreta on australian-polling-hasnt-been-getting-worse-over-time
• Greg Jericho on five-housing-policies-that-wouldnt-drive-up-prices-in-australia, australian-wages-in-real-terms-are-essentially-no-different-from-where-they-were-in-2013
• Stephen Hamilton on super-for-housing-or-the-government-as-a-co-owner-how-liberal-and-labor-home-buyer-schemes-compare
• Jada Fraser on aukus-more-meets-eye
• Croaking Cassandra on what-if-2, cavalier-policy-and-disconcerting-projections
• Sue Richardson on are-real-wages-falling-heres-the-evidence
• Peter Martin on elections-used-to-be-about-costings-heres-whats-changed
• Peter Dean on what-went-wrong-how-morrison-lost-control-khaki-election
• Andrew Podger on a-lazy-cost-saving-measure-the-coalitions-efficiency-dividend-hike-may-mean-longer-wait-times-and-reduced-services
• Rodney Tiffen on the-media-has-reached-peak-passivity-in-the-lead-up-to-the-2022-election
• Jim Stanford on proof-positive-real-wages-are-shrinking-wednesdays-figures-put-it-beyond-doubt
• Lucas Cernasak and Sussan Laurance on climate-change-is-killing-trees-in-queenslands-tropical-rainforests
• John Hawkins on at-3-9-australias-unemployment-rate-now-officially-begins-with-3-whats-next
• Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-2022-seat-poll-sludgefest
• Johanna Bowyer on power-bills-australia-take-hit-surging-global-fossil-fuel-prices

Northern America

• Brad De Long on would-somebody-please-tell-me-what
• Peter Sinclair on texans-under-power-stress-but-grid-ignores-efficiency
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-ted-cruz-fec-bribery-campaign-finance-first-amendment-john-roberts-elena-kagan
• noahopinion on greedflation-gouging-and-price-controls, why-i-love-the-new-labor-movement, it-looks-like-were-headed-for-a-soft-landing
• fullstack economics on joe-biden-has-a-smart-plan-to-tackle-the-housing-shortage Thanks Brad
• the message box on what-the-media-keeps-getting-wrong-about-trumpism thanks Brad
• Barkely Rosser on what-is-worst-part-of-current-inflation
• Menzie Chinn on archives/2022/05/how-much-did-euro-area-inflation-accelerate-relative-to-the-us
• Fabiola Cineas on replacement-theory-white-supremacist-violence
• Mary Harris on buffalo-shooting-wesley-lowery-media-great-replacement-theory
• Sherrilyn Ifill on stealing-the-crown-jewels-ifill-roe
• Tyler Cowen on the-new-covid-equilibrium, lets-eliminate-the-covid-test-entry-requirement-for-the-u-s
• Mark Stern on supreme-court-abortion-roe-california-new-york-colorado
• the conversable economist on designing-tax-incentives-for-charitable-giving
• Menzie Chinn on guest-contribution-do-foreign-yield-curves-help-predict-u-s-recessions

Europe

• Jen Kirby on finland-sweden-nato-membership-russia-ukraine-war, mariupol-evacuation-ukraine-russia
• Mainly Macro on when-did-things-go-wrong-2010-or-1979
• Christina Thornell on germany-eu-natural-gas-russia-dependency
• Charles Kupchan on ukraine-war-russia-putin-end
• Masha Gessen on inside-putins-propaganda-machine
• Ronald Suny on why-turkey-isnt-on-board-with-finland-sweden-joining-nato-and-why-that-matters
• Camille Nashert on new-plan-aims-almost-double-solar-capacity-europe-2030

Asia

• Adele Webb on what-marcos-jr-presidency-philippines-means-geopolitics
• Annoulak Kittikhoun on diplomacy-indispensable-manage-mekong
• Menzie Chinn on china-economic-sitrep, china-gdp-forecast-revision
• Priya Pillai on philippines-justice-and-accountability-post-elections
• Khang Vu on lies-damn-lies-and-north-korea-s-covid-statistics

Wonk

• Tim Harford on the-intangible-economy-is-more-important-than-you-think
• noahopinion on what-kind-of-financial-asset-is-bitcoin
• Nick Gruen on the-ultimate-sanction, how-economics-found-science-and-lost-its-subject-matter
• Angus Houston and Marc Grossman on no-gas-lessons-poland-and-bulgaria-quad
• coppolla comment on the-great-unemployment-fudge
• IEEFA on ieefa-experts-trace-fallout-russias-invasion-ukraine-global-liquefied-natural-gas-markets
• Katherine Lawlor and Mason Clark on russian-annexation-occupied-ukraine-putin Thanks Nick

General

• Dereck Ward-Thompson on how-we-captured-first-image-of-the-supermassive-black-hole-at-centre-of-the-milky-way

Climate

• Moyhu on giss-april-global-temperature-down-by-0.23-in-march
• Skeptical Science on climate-transformative-optimism
• Simon Josey and Bablu Singha on subpolar atlantic ocean mixed layer heat content

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• causal-is-what-we-say-when-we-dont-know-what-were-doing
  
• a-much-bigger-problem-is-the-tension-between-the-difficulty-of-statistics-and-the-demand-for-it-to-be-simple-and-readily-available
• do-celebrated-scientists-have-the-free-will-to-admit-they-are-wrong-not-always
  
• i-had-big-plans-for-that-four-fifths-of-a-penny-false-precision-and-fraud
  
• doing-mister-p-with-multiple-outcomes
  
• am-i-the-cookie
  
• abortion-attitudes-in-oklahoma
  
• Kaiser Fung on reading-statistical-analytics-illustrated , the-musk-sampling-plan-thought-through

Econometrics

• James Mackinnon on cluster robust inference Thanks Brad
• the conversable economist on talking-econometrics

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• the-end-of-empire-in-asia
  
• Tyler Cowen on what-ive-been-reading

Vox Wonk

• algorithmic-stablecoins-and-devaluation-risk
  
• analysing-cost-push-inflation-using-world-input-output-tables
  
• central-bank-view-reforming-europe-s-fiscal-framework
  
• american-treasure-and-decline-spain
  
• assortative-mating-and-wealth-inequality-debate
  
• long-run-impacts-court-ordered-desegregation
  
• surprising-benefits-voting-change
  
• political-power-and-market-power-evidence-mergers
  
• sanctions-and-exchange-rate
  
• manager-pay-size-matters-and-so-does-monopoly
  
• identifying-monetary-policy-shocks
  
• understanding-unemployment-and-welfare-effects-china-shock
  
• manager-pay-size-matters-and-so-does-monopoly
  
• identifying-monetary-policy-shocks
  
• using-historical-newspaper-data-deal-measurement-error
  
• long-run-effects-climate-change-corporate-sector
  
• remote-wages-globalised-labour-market
  
• measuring-robot-quality
  
• russia-s-e-commerce-trade-aftermath-2022-invasion
  

Still no wage breakout

 The WPI came out yesterday. When we are at full employment the annual increase was a puny 2.4%. Given inflation is at 5.1% and climbing real wages are falling.

See HERE HERE and HERE

The RBA has egg all over its face and not for the first time on this very important topic. Me thinks it is because they have completely discounted the regulatory environment. THE ALP under Gillard further de-regulated the labour market rather than re-regulating it. This has led to further falls in union membership. You just aint going to get decent wage increases without increases in union membership.

Meanwhile Steve Kates, Judith Sloan and various Liberal politicians are still waiting like godot for that inevitable wages break out.  No they never mark their beliefs to market.

Given the election is in Saturday here are some interesting articles

• morrison-is-hoping-for-an-election-surprise-but-uncommitted-voters-rarely-turn-things-around-in-the-final-week
  
• modelling-2020-election-part-ii
  
• modelling-2022-election-closer-than-we-first-thought
  
• rolling-national-poll-roundup-2022