Gerard Henderson watch

 I am both bored and busy. Yeah I know that is contradictory but there you go.

Our old mate Gerry is at it again.

He claimed that Anthony Fauci and Steve Bannon did the same thing with congress yet only Bannon went to gaol. This is complete shite. Both people were served subpoenas by congress. Fauci turned up whereas Bannon refused to comply hence his arrest, conviction and gaoling. Our Gerry has a law degree so he knows that so why the crap? Also he said Trump was the victim of lawfare or words to that effect by the Biden DOJ. Hang on he was  indicted on his January 6 conduct in lieu of the attempted insurrection and of course the stealing of documents and obstruction of justice . Both indictments were many pages in length and highly specific in their charges. So again Gerry is having a lend of us.

He claims Ian Dunt is left wing. Our Gerry has produced no proof of this however dunt has written at least three books. If he is left wing then so is the economist magazine. They share the same philosophy!

He also claims David Speers wants people to call him Speersy on Insiders. Our Gerry has provided no evidence of this and i have never heard this at all on Insiders.

He also has a juvenile habit of calling people he clearly ddoes not like comrade. gosh I wonder why he does that?

Our Gerry is well over 80 and that must be the reason why he did not get the pun by Mark Kenny about counsel culture.Don't worry he still says Kenny said cancel. Our Gerry has a credlin problem although she admitted she was wrong but went on with her wortles rant about the census

He also does not like the minefield on radio national. Perhaps his clear declining cognitive powers has something to do with that.

He also never watches sky after dark. ( yes I know there is a name change but I like the name). They have soft interviews after soft interviews. They aslo get a lot of things wrong and indulge in misinformation.

Can you bear it!

A pot pouri of things

 Tobaccy

One nation has proposed a cut in tobacco excise of 75% and the LNP wants 80%. This will reduce the market share of illegal tobacco. Sorry I do not get it. Illegal tobacco will still be lower than legal tobacco. Why would any consumer then buy more expensive tobacco when they are not doing it now. how do consumers go from being unpatriotic to patriotic? It doesn't make sense to me. Even if you do not tax tobacco at all illegal tobacco is still much cheaper!! One should also realise illegal tobacco can still reduce their prices and make money.

'woke 'education.

According to the National party leader teaching boys to respect girls' is woke education. Apart from being unable to define 'woke' when it is bad to teach boys to respect girls. Parents should be doing this so this is reinforcement.

burning the flag

The LNP want to make this a crime. Surely this is interfering with a persons freedom of speech. Flags are not monuments. If I want to burn the flag for any reason then I should be able to. I find it ironic that the very people who want to make this a crime are saying regulating social media is against free speech!

Germany

The far right almost won a state election.It is interesting that the racist attack on immigrants is a world wide phenoma.however these burkes want to support russia against ukraine amongst other wacky policies.That well-known fascist elon musk supports them. ( he is the right kind of immigrant, white)

Around the Traps 4/9/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps .

Ausssie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Mark the Graph on who-fights-inflation, potential-speed-limit-for-economy
• Fei Gao on why-some-us-republicans-want-to-punish-australia-over-new-charges-for-tech-giants
• Mick Ryan on US-army-lost-ukraine-would-australia-do-better
• Alan Gamlen on australia-has-spent-25-years-stopping-the-boats-but-thats-not-the-same-as-controlling-migration
• Diane Krael on richard-denniss-is-calling-for-a-gas-export-tax-but-an-effective-royalty-system-would-be-a-better-option
• Danielle Thielke and Kelly Jauzems on heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-teens-and-sexual-choking
• Ross Gittins on do-our-pollies-really-want-a-more-affordable-housing-market-we-re-about-to-find-out
• Michelle Grattan on did-albaneses-language-against-one-nation-cross-a-line-or-is-pauline-hanson-just-playing-victim-politics
• Mathew Crocker on australias-government-now-has-1-trillion-in-debt-four-charts-on-how-we-got-here-and-its-cost
• Greg Jericho on australia-economy-gdp-growth-rba-expected-raise-interest-rates-again 
• John Hawkins and Peter Bartos on australias-economy-grows-by-2-1-but-peoples-living-standards-arent-keeping-pace

OZ Climate

• pressure-mounts-to-make-balcony-solar-legal-in-australia-as-it-goes-on-sale-in-the-uk 
  
• fresh-hope-as-huge-hybrid-wind-and-battery-project-reaches-financial-close-in-the-sunshine-state
  
• changing-tack-on-victorias-energy-transition-will-throw-electricity-savings-into-reverse-experts-warn
  
• rooftop-solar-record-tumbles-as-battery-rebate-drives-1-gw-of-new-installs-over-just-three-months
  
• australia-wrote-the-worlds-best-rooftop-pv-rules-we-must-do-the-same-for-plug-in-solar-and-fast
  
• state-owned-big-battery-slapped-with-1-2-million-fine-for-pushing-up-power-prices-and-profit-maximising
  
• why-do-we-bother-australia-cant-compete-with-chinas-green-transition-but-it-can-leverage-its-success
  
• one-nation-is-channeling-regional-anger-about-renewables-that-doesnt-mean-it-understands-it
  
• Alison Reeve on australia-datacentre-battle-highlights-hidden-truth-renewables-gas-electricity-solar
• Emily Simpson et al on despite-years-of-rain-blue-mountains-forests-still-havent-recovered-from-the-black-summer-megafires
• Graham Readfearn on bom-forecasts-strongest-el-nino-on-record-as-research-points-to-alarming-climate-change-influence
• Mingming Cheng and Peta Ashworth on australia-needs-renewable-energy-fast-but-building-it-is-only-half-the-battle

Northern America

• Brad De Long on heading-for-a-large-rapid-fall-in-interest-rates , the-white-collar-canaries-in-the-AI-job-loss-coalmine-are-wide-awake-feeding-and-chirping--to-themselves, the-fed-chairman-who-would-prefer-not-to-say, crosspost-justin-wolfers-did-trumps-achieve-trumps-goals
• Peter York on trump-style-dictator-autocrats-design Thanks Nick
• institutional economics on in-defence-of-drucken-slop , investment-intentions-tariffs-and-plague 
• Kruggers on oligarchy-and-the-great-evasion , from-kakistocracy-to-cheatistocracy, the-plot-to-steal-venezuelas-oil, the-hits-keep-coming. imperialist-delusions-and-the-price-of-fuel, ingots-we-no-longer-trust
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-mail-voting-trump-major-questions-talwan, supreme-court-ballroom-standing-national-park-service-trump
• Menzie Chinn on seven-graphs-for-the-financial-system, the-cyclically-adjusted-budget-balance
• Fred Kaplan on pete-hegseth-generals-worried-reserves-military
• John Cassidy on how-much-is-the-iran-war-costing-americans
• Nancy Youseff et al on driscoll-hegseth-military-resignation
• Tom Nicholls on hegseth-driscoll
• Jordan Ascher on presumption-regularity-erosion-challenges-executive-action
• Rodger Shanahan on trump-chose-to-go-it-alone-against-iran-now-he-s-learning-the-value-of-friends
• Zack Beauchamp on trump-mail-voting-supreme-court-whistleblower 
• the conversable economics on us-energy-source-to-end-use, gross-and-net-us-investment
• home and away on secretary-of-war
• Harry Litman on the-other-side-of-dojs-corruption
• Jeet Heer on pete-hegseth-troll-army, fox-news-maria-bartiromo-lawsuits

Europe

• Musa Al-Ghabbi on jason-arday-and-me Thanks Nick
• Jack Grove on i-was-reported-police-over-arday-case-i-was-just-doing-my-job Thanks Nick 
• Nicole Townsend on landmines-and-remnants-of-war-pose-a-serious-threat-and-more-needs-to-be-done-to-solve-it
• Sascha-Dominic Townsend on europe-is-under-increased-russian-attack-are-we-seeing-an-undeclared-war

Asia

• Dibyesh Anand on nepal-floods-chinas-strict-control-of-tibet-makes-it-harder-to-prepare-for-himalayan-disasters
• Mark the Graph on lets-not-mention-war
• Saima Afzal on india-can-redraw-the-border-with-myanmar-but-who-controls-it
• Justin Hastings on tracking-north-korean-dark-ship
• Juan Caceres and Shannon Brincat on why-israel-and-turkey-are-trading-insults-and-jockeying-for-power-in-neighbouring-syria
• Shadi Saif on pakistan-s-september-showdown
• Matan Cohen and Julian Borger on aid-workers-gaza-killed-in-israel-airstrike-investigation

Wonk

• Amerigo Buongiorno on anne-frank Thanks Nick
• Sam Kriss on everyone-loves-hitler Thanks Nick
• Carolyn Sissoko and Mina Ishizu on Preventing_financial_ruin Thanks Nick
• Mark the Graph on weekly-energy-update , what-real-bond-crisis-looks-like
• Brad De Long on crosspost-emily-bender-stochastic-parrots 
• Karryl Trajano and Brendan Lyut on no-mark-zuckerberg-the-future-is-not-yet-for-everyone
• Brad De Long on crosspost-david-albouy-jonathan-parker- john-steinsson, reading-lewis-carroll-1895-what-the-tortoise-said-to-achilles
• Sahara Hoff on the-us-has-struck-a-deal-to-control-venezuelas-oil-reserves-it-probably-wont-help-bring-down-fuel-prices
• Mainly Macro on is-the-fall-of-starmer-a-warning-for-the-democratic-party
• noahpinion on roundup-87-technology-bad
• Tyler Cowen on who-values-democracy
• the concis on the-coalition-of-the-doing Thanks Brad
• James Paterson on the-extremist-risk-behind-smart-glasses 
• Al Hynes on stop-declaring-world-war-III 
• Chris Dillow on buying-politicians
• Caitlin Dewey on gloria-steinem-death

General

• Stephen Pimentel on battling-all-the-way-home Thanks Nick
• open mind on boycott-everything-about-google

Climate

• open mind on i-dont-trust-the-usa-wildfire-data-from-our-world-in-data 
• Joshua Partlow on el-nino-effects 
• stoat on the-data-heat-island-effect
• Wesley Morgan on pacific-islands-forum-palau-summit-climate-change-greatest-threat
• Michael Mann on nepal-flooding-climate-disaster
• Tirthankar Ghosh and Levin Tielidz on the-collapse-of-a-mountainside-triggered-nepals-devastating-floods-as-the-regions-mountains-heat-up-it-wont-be-the-last
• Real Climate on koonins-temperature-of-the-lol-stratosphere
• renew economy on bloody-dangerous-territory-world-on-track-to-exceed-1-5c-warming
• Jacqueline Peel and Wesley Morgan on a-landmark-un-report-says-the-world-will-overshoot-the-1-5-c-climate-target-what-happens-now
• skeptical science on new_research
• essays concerning on the-five-stages-of-climate-denial-a-telegraph-case-study
• Mandy Freund on a-record-shattering-el-nino-is-almost-here-heres-what-that-means-for-the-worlds-weather 
• Jan McDonald et al on as-global-heating-heads-to-1-8c-is-it-time-to-consider-the-voldemort-of-climate-policy

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• why-did-anova-fall-out-of-fashion
  
• coyote-vs-acme-also-for-free-my-take-on-the-odyssey 
  
• fits-and-starts 
  
• shocked
  
• survey-statistics-logit-shift-and-raking
  
• yale-med-school-prof-tells-his-postdocs-work-extra-hours-at-my-command-or-youre-no-better-than-the-guy-who-charges-me-by-the-hour-to-cut-my-lawn 
  
• metascience-corner-what-can-we-learn-from-12-million-empirical-research-results 
  
• confirmation-bias-in-software-testing-walnutpie-edition 
  
• updike-and-statistical-writing-more-on-honesty-and-precision
  
• update-on-i-dont-understand-this-paper-claiming-election-fraud-in-2024-in-pennsylvania
  
• Kaiser Fung on note-to-nyt-simple-math-aint-simple

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• summertime-reading
  
• Andrew Gelman on updikes-kaleidoscope-telling-a-life-through-a-set-of-unconnected-stories
• Thomas Jeffries on the-threat-of-biological-warfare-is-real-a-new-book-describes-the-potential-devastation
• noahpinion on why-you-wont-get-a-flying-car

Vox Wonk

• closing-gap-borrowing-costs-emerging-market-firms 
  
• financial-engineering-no-substitute-interest-rates-lessons-turkiye 
  
• beyond-exposure-predicting-ai-adoption-based-comparative-advantage 
  
• how-currency-hedging-moves-exchange-rates 
  
• europes-federated-democratic-learning-state 
  
• global-pension-asset-allocations-and-debt-markets
  
• european-banks-and-private-markets-mapping-linkages
  
• new-evidence-strong-slow-portfolio-responses-equity-premium-changes 
  
• implications-of-climate-change-for-monetary-policy
  

A very short explainer on why inflation is bad.

 HERE is an article outlining 10 reasons why but it misses the main point!

The main reason why inflation is bad is because it confuses consumers.

The capitalist system is based on relative prices. If the  price of Lindemans wines go up then I buy Henscke for example.

If inflation rises substantially then absolute prices will confuse consumers and suddenly relative prices are hard to detect. Yeah I know it is a simplified example but that's economics.

In the end the RBA wants the capitalist system to work effectively and it can't if inflation rises to high levels.

More climate denialist lying.

 Read this Real Climate article and weep.

and here are some articles on the implications of the Nepal disaster.

• nepal-flooding-climate-disaster 
  
• the-collapse-of-a-mountainside-triggered-nepals-devastating-floods-as-the-regions-mountains-heat-up-it-wont-be-the-last
  

To take a theological view original sin at work!

more on the battery

 Our battery ( 17kw)  gets full every month bar June and July. There are some days in both autumn and spring ( and a month before and after) when the battery is nil in the morning. This is mostly due to both showers and cooking.

Appliances such as ovens,stoves, heaters, microwaves,irons and air conditioning do use a wee bit of power and our hot water system needs a fair bit of power to recharge twice a day. others such as fridges,dishwashers, washing machines ddo not.

The savings will be less as charges to use the grid or just being part of it have increased a lot.

update:  the battery is 90% at 9.30!

A short not on EVs. We do not have one but I see a lot of ignorance on the subject. you would only have to recharge the vehicle once a week not daily if you basically use it for the city. If you buy the right car it can become a battery as well boosting your battery at home.

Australian stuff

 Interest rates

I'm afraid I agree with John Hawkins. Interest rates have to rise. alas prices rose across the board last week in the CPI release.No central bank can afford to gamble by saying we wil wait until next month to see what occurs. they have to be conservative thus have to raise rates.Just remember the trimmed mean is well above the target level.

One Nation.

They won a state by-election in WA.This was highly unusual. It was a safe seat. The WA government is popular yet they lost the seat. A by-election always promotes a protest vote but this was enormous. This was after Hanson had no idea of the difference between net and permanent migration. In fact they probably have no idea that the NOM includes Australians coming back home!

Sex

I am getting old but a 16 year old girl dying because she was being strangled while having sex leaves  me gobsmacked. When I was 'growing up' it was 'erotic asphyxiation' and yes people died from it. I am at a loss why anyone would attempt to do anything that could kill them simply to gain an orgasm. Grow up people.

Whoopsy

GST

The productivity commission released a report on GST 'carveups'

WA is clearly the wealthiest state yet it gets a share of GSt that is way over the top.

See Shane Wright and Robert Breunig.  Grrrr