Thursday, 17 July 2025

Around the Traps 18/7/25

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk

Wednesday, 16 July 2025

Prelude to the Ashes

 Well we have had two more tests. What did we learn?

England

Smith is the real deal and potential matchwinner. Archer is back and is quick. Carse is quick ( and will get quicker in OZ) and can swing the ball. Stokes is undeniably inspirational. His run-out and his lengthy spells in the second innings were just that and his captaincy was back at very good after a poor 2nd test. He actually got to 69 mph on occasions.  Some-one always hits a score as well. Their spinning stocks are poor.

Australia

We have batting problems. However our fast bowlers gets us out of problems. They used swing and seam in particular really well. Just remember the WI bowlers were faster than them and given they were bowling to much better batsmen much more impressive. Remember too our bowlers will only get slower not faster!

The last two seasons has seen fast bouncy bowler friendly pitches where spin bowlers get little action. Which team will this favour?

I cannot wait.

Tuesday, 15 July 2025

The eptstein crap

 Sorry but I cannot get excited about the Epstein saga. He was involved in getting minors so makles could have sex with them. THE reason people get excited about this is because both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump was in his orbit.

HOWEVER neither Clinton nor Trump ever had any history of having sex with minors. Although both were serial adulterers those acts were with adults. In clinton's case he was a charmerand a smooth talker. Trump simply used his position of power.

It is ironic that the Trump forces who alleged conspiracies about Epstein are now getting hammered by their own supporters because they believed this guff and think the government is part of the deep state.

From where I stand the only reason why all the documents have not been released is because there is something embarrassing in them. Embarrassing but not illegal.

The point is this is not going away.

A small point to make. One of the ways the Administration did to make this issue go away was to launch a DOJ investigation of both Comey and Brennan.

Two problems here.

  1. The statue of limitations on this issue is 5 years and it is about 8 1/2 years since it 'occurred'. Moreover Durham spent millions investigating this issue and interviewed Brennan for 8 hours and fought noughi
  2. They are setting themselves to fail again and upset the maga faithfull. There is no evidence but maga won't believe that!

Monday, 14 July 2025

While we are talking about Israel

 Somehow I found a site called The rest is politics on youtube. This episode is compelling. Indeed I feel I should nail my colours to the mast after hearing it.

I agree Israel is committing genocide. There were 32 hospitals in Gaza. All have been bombed on the assertion Hamas had sites under them or hamas operatives were sheltering there. NO evidence have been provided for these assertions. As the Israelis have banned any journalists in Gaza it is the IDF's word against palestinians living in Gaza ( and medical staff.)

If you want to ensure people leave a certain place then 1) deplete any medical outlets and 2) ensure people have little access to food and water. Perhaps even roundup all the population into a small piece of land and tell them they cannot leave unless they go to another country.

Almost every NGO says one thing is happening in Gaza and Israel says something else. Again who to believe? I will always go to doctors without borders rather than the IDF.

Finally it is readily apparent Israel has a one party state in mind. They want to get rid of all palestinians in gaza and then in the West Bank they steal palestinian land and allow terrorists to murder palestinians willy nilly.

No wonder this land is full of hate.

It is both depressing and seemingly hopeless

Sunday, 13 July 2025

Albo has to be wary on anti-semitic policy

 No-one who is rational believes anti-semitism should exist let alone be allowed to be publicly supported.

Jillian Segal brought down a report on the subject. She apparently does not understand what some of her key recommendations means.

See :

Defining anti semitism is hard. ( On a related issue the Nazis found it very hard to define a jew!) If you get it wrong criticism of Israel becomes anti-semitism. The Israeli PM always uses this line to deflect criticism of Israel.

Segal in an interview on radio national showed this by criticism an ABC storey on Gaza. What di that story have to do with anti-semitism? Nothing. It conflated the two topics

So you introduce laws which reduce comment on the middle east. 

The australian government needs to be very careful. 

Thursday, 10 July 2025

Around the Traps 11/7/25

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

Vox Wonk

Wednesday, 9 July 2025

The RBA has lost confidence

 First of all all of us has the same information the RBA has.

We know the disinflationary forces are at work. The trend has been there for a long time. ( Why oh why do we not have monthly CPIs that has all the data of the quarterly CPIs?)

The previous month we had a monthly CPI seeming out of whack with all the previous ones and inflation might be a problem. Last month's CPI showed that was a one-off probably  an outlier. Essentially Bullock is saying she has no confidence in monthly CPIs

The labour market is not a problem. most of the growth has been in the non-market sector. Hence wages have never been a problem.

Although fiscal policy is stimulatory it is not that large.

The case is there to cut and cut now. I am of the opinion we go to the neutral rate ( say 2.5%) and then wait as the economy is not booming but stuffed because of interest rates.

The RBA has patently lost confidence in making decisions and therefore waits like all people ddo with no confidence.