The Ashes

Well the first test is over and we lost big time.

Why?
Well the England played like Australasia and Australia played like England!!

The English bowlers bowled a disciplined line . They swung and seamed the ball. The batsmen were never in at any stage. They made the batsmen take risks and then the fieldsmen took their catches.

The English batsman guts it out and hit the bad balls for four. Joe Root hit a magnificent century and had back up.

Our batsman played extravagantly and probably not giving the bowlers the respect they were due.
Our bowlers tried to blast their batsmen out and when they didn't work did not have a plan B.

The pitch was a typical English pitch. Low bounce with the ball seaming around. When their was cloud around the ball swung and Jimmy Anderson showed just how good he is when it does.

As Boycs said on the BBC ( the BBC are an absolute pleasure to listen to. all the commentators are great except for Glen McGrath is is dead boring) on this type of pitch you need a good technique and it showed up all the Australians.

Onto Lords.

I do not believe the Poms can play as well as that again nor we as bad as that again but we shall see.
On the other hand the Poms come into the 2nd Test full of confidence and the Australians must have seeds of doubt in their heads.

I am definitely looking forward to Thursday night!

Whoopsy, I should have added I loved how little sledging went on. As a former player,  as a coach and now as an Umpire sledging is not allowed under the laws of the game. I wished the Umpires would intervene when it does in tests!

Greece is completely stuffed

James Hamilton puts the Greek tragedy succinctly here.

He gives some suggestions however they will not be taken up. What has been 'negotiated is a deal that means the Greek economy will fall further.
This means things will get worse and neither Greece nor its creditors will see daylight.
See KRUGGERS and John Quiggin. How could I forget the marvellous David Glasner??

If people want to read more on this the last two Around the Traps have a plethora of articles in the Europe section as will this weeks!

I am totally Shocked

I am staggered.Absolutely staggered.
Alan Jones was found to have made an inaccurate statement with regard to the UN report on climate Change.
He got it badly wrong ( ironically  when he accused the IPCC of getting badly wrong) because he based his 'insight' on two articles one of which was in the Australian and the other in the  Daily Telegraph. Both articles of whom were badly wrong and hence inaccurate.

Fancy that!
Thom Mitchell has more than me!

the myths of radicalisation

Via Jim Rose ( thanks mate) this is a very interesting article on myths-of-radicalisation.

I am a big fan of David Kilcullen and I see quite a few agreements here.

Around the Traps 10/7/15

It is time for Around the traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Andrew Elder on doubting-thomas , one-tony-abbott, the-brown-word
• Michael Brull on andrew-bolt-trashes-muslims-and-his-own-arguments-trashing-muslims
• Andrew Catsaras on tony-abbott-jumping-at-q-and-shadows, budget-2015-and-national-security.The-polling-pay-off
• David Walker on against-decentralisation-why-crowded-is-good
• Max Chalmers on australian-silence-endures-nz-joins-un-and-us-concerns-over-nauru
• Greg Jericho on whats-the-secret-to-happiness-in-life-the-answer-lies-in-the-statistics, the-one-graph-that-explains-the-worrying-end-of-the-mining-boom , chinas-stock-market-is-crashing-thats-scary-news-for-australia
• Croaking Cassandra on fiscal-policy-and-how-nz-and-australia-did-in-200809 , a-brickbat-and-a-bouquet-for-treasury
• Ben Eltham on not-end-bill-shorten
• Ken Parish on re-imagining-a-labor-election-manifesto

ASHES

• first-test-sophia-gardens

Northern America

• Richard Kogan on cbo-contradicts-itself-long-term-budget-picture-improving-not-worsening  Thanks Brad
• Nick Rowe on bad-news-on-gdp-vs-good-news-on-employment
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-mediocre-tranquility
• Menzie Chinn on the-information-content-of-the-alec-laffer-moore-williams-economic-outlook-ranking
• Kruggers on the-inconceivable-success-of-obamacare

Europe

• Kruggers on austerity-arithmetic
• Robert Waldmann on austerity-arithmetic, oj-blanchard-defends-the-imfs-interactions-with-greece
• Kevin O'Rourke on mccarthy-and-mody-on-what-the-greek-fiasco-tells-us-about-the-ecb-and-imf , miscellaneous-irritations
• Coppolla Comment on a-new-deal-for-greece
• Chris Dillow on the-something-for-nothing-culture, the-worst-of-left-right
• John Quiggin on greece-decision-theory-and-the-sure-thing-principle
• Simon Wren-Lewis on against-decentralisation-why-crowded-is-good, why-germany-wants-rid-of-greece , austerity-is-integral-part-of-the-greek-tragedy , a-budget-for-our-next-prime-minister, the-non-independent-ecb
• Gregory Connor on thoughts-on-the-design-of-grexit
• Barkely Rosser on talking-proper
• David Walker on doing-over-the-creditors-greek-style
• Croaking Cassandra on greece-only-the-third-worst-performing-euro-area-country, greece-fourth-weakest-export-growth-among-oecd-countries-since-2007
• Kruggers on debt-deflation-in-greece, milton-friedman-irving-fisher-and-greece , argentine-lessons-for-greece
• Karl Whelan on After the Greek No what's next
• Coppolla comment on who-would-win-and-who-would-lose-from-grexit, tsipras-in-crucible
• Timothy Taylor on greece-and-its-slow-growth-problem
• Luigi Zingales on who-is-the-legitimate-leader-on-the-european-side-real-question  Thanks Brad
• Nick Rowe on its-the-absence-of-trust-simon, euro-moamoe-plus-drachma-moe
• Carmen Reinhart on lessons-greece-forcible-currency-conversions-1982-2015
• lse-letter-greece-crisis
• Henry Farrell on why-greek-debt-is-a-problem
• John McCormick on what-now-for-greece-and-the-euro
• Brad De Long on needed-large-greek-devaluation-or-large-scale-transfers-to-greece-with-bonus-godwins-law-violation
• Francesco Saraceno on are-we-sure-that-tsipras-caved-in  Thanks Mark
• JP Koning on there-wont-be-drachma-induced-recovery Thanks Brad

Asia

• Menzie Chinn on ongoing-developments-in-china , china-the-stock-market-meltdown-continues
• Croaking Cassandra on china-matters-to-new-zealand-and-to-the-world
• Roger Farmer on fasten-your-seat-belts-ride-is-about-to-get-choppy
• Noah Smith on the-psychology-behind-china-s-stock-market-bubble
• Matt Schiavenza on greece-china-crisis

Wonk

• Croaking Cassandra on real-economic-costs-of-financial-crises-part-2
• Menzie Chinn on some-recent-research-on-exchange-rates
• Paul Romer on why-information-grows Thanks Mark
• Carola Binder on trading-on-leaked-macroeconomic-data
• Chris Dillow on welfare-state-trade-offs
• David Glasner on in praise of Israel Kirzner
• Timothy Taylor on keynes-secular-stagnation-and-investment-shortfalls
• Noah Smith on a-tale-of-two-asset-pricing-models

General

• Noah Smith on the-forsaken
• David Rethery on nasa-mission-brings-pluto-into-sharp-focus-but-its-still-not-a-planet
• John Quiggin on derp-an-irregular-verb
• Tim Harford on in-search-of-the-perfect-match
• Natashe Ezrow on islamic-state-vs-al-qaeda-a-rivalry-that-dates-back-to-old-personality-clashes
• James Sweeny on twenty-years-after-srebrenica-ethnic-cleansing-has-become-a-defence-to-genocide
• Allan Taylor on 20-years-since-the-srebrenica-massacre

Climate

• David Appell on why-very-warm-events-are-much-more-probable-in-a-warmer-world
• Hotwhopper on oceans-could-not-be-more-important-and-time-is-running-out
• Jeff Masters on Germany breaks it alltime heat record
• Tamino on somethin-aint-right , actually , why-so-hot ,
• Idiottracker on is-nuclear-energy-expensive , anybody-notice-noaa-has-disappeared-el nino
• dana 1981 on  climate-denial-linked-to-conspiratorial-thinking-recurrent-fury

Andrew Gelman ( Mainly Stats)

• menstrual-cycle-phase-does-not-predict-political-conservatism
• discreteland-and-continuousland
• an-excel-add-in-for-regression-analysis
• evaluating-the-millennium-villages-project
• economists-betting-on-replication
• inauthentic-leadership-development-and-validation-of-methods-based-criticism
• Kaiser Fung on is-data-privacy-a-fundamental-right
• hey-guess-what-there-really-is-a-hot-hand

Genial Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• parallel-computing-for-data-science
• student-on-kurtosis
• Joel Caldwell on regression-with-multicollinearity-yields-multiple-sets-of-equally-good-coefficients

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky + Book Reviews)

• talking-proper , be-happy-or-else

Vox wonk

• savings-after-retirement-survey
• de-industrialisation-new-speenhamland-and-neo-liberalism
• determinants-fluctuations-financial-system
• article/teaching-finance-after-crisis
• why-growth-finance-drag-real-economy
• brics-trade-strategy-time-rethink
• trade-agreements-and-trans-pacific-competition
• self-protection-investment-worsens-chinese-pollution-exposure-inequality
• capital-requirements-and-loss-absorption-capacity-large-banks
• surprising-decline-us-petroleum-consumption
• efficiency-and-welfare-costs-vat

A few things

I am not feeling so good .  One should not referee two games of football at my venerable age when you have symptoms of the flu.
I was coughing badly last night and my ribs on my right side hurt every time this occurred.

I am visiting my mother at Port Macquarie this week as well so writing could well be sparse.

A few things of note:

Greece
If classical economics worked at all then Greece should now be booming not mired in recession. The Troika want another large reduction in structural spending. This would mean more recession , more unemployment etc. It also means that creditors would never get their money back so go figure.

Q&A
The government has not come out of the Q&A furore very well at all. Both Paul Kelly and Tim Wilson were close to being inarticulate in explaining why Q&A was wrong,. Turnbull was also in attempting to claim a security threat. No explanation of why the question by Mallah was a bad one and if it was a gotcha question then how was it.?
No attempt to explain why the Minister lied blatantly about Mallah's case or how he could deport an Australian national

The government still wants to ban ministers from appearing on the program despite their lying and wilful lazy behaviour on Monis. No wonder the punters are bored by their behaviour.
Apparently Piers Ackerman won't be on tonight. One less delusionist!  Can we ask him to make it permanent!

Kates is mad
I see Katesy is saying Obama's keynesian economic policy has failed and he should copy what occurred in the 1920s.
Two problems and they are major. Except for the limited stimulus Obama has adopted a very restricted fiscal policy. The public sector has detracted from growth  not added to it like Reagan did!

The 1920s in the USA saw something unique. It had not one not two but THREE recessions in SEVEN years. Only a complete buffoon would advocate policies that allowed the USA to experience such 'bliss'
Please someone keep him in his white jacket throw him in a padded cell and then throw away the key.

Around the Traps 3/7/15 Grexit Edition

It is time for Around the Traps again. All Grexit articles are in the Europe section.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• David Rowell and Dorte Gyrd-Hansen on gambling-with-time-how-making-poker-machines-fair-would-reduce-the-harms-of-gambling
• Michael Harris on the-carbon-tax-wasnt-a-slug-to-the-economy-and-direct-action-may-be-a-waste-of-money
• Viviaan Gerrand on zaky-mallah-a-cautionary-tale-of-radicalisation-and-the-need-for-belonging
• Chris Graham on what-have-we-learned-zaky-mallah-news-corp-hypocritical-and-qa-thinks-were-all-stupid
• Brian McNair on making-sense-of-zaky-mallah
• Ross Gittins on debt-and-deficit-brigade-may-bring-us-down , security-scare-intended-to-hide-economic-failure
• Mark the Ballot on a-pox-on-both-your-houses, aggregated-polling-update
• Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-shortens-struggles-arent-shifting-voters
• Ken Wolf on where-does-abbott-really-stand-on-national-security
• Greg Jericho on unemployed-and-looking-for-work-whatever-you-do-dont-go-west
• Croaking Cassandra on snzs-productivity-growth-estimates , productivity-growth-worse-than-in-greece , criticism-of-the-rb-is-bizarre,brian-fallow-covers-my-criticisms-of-the-proposed-new-controls
• Max Chalmers on leaked-documents-confirm-restrictions-manus-refugees-and-reveal-disturbing-self-harm
• Andrew Elder on the-shadow-of-bill-shorten

Northern America

• The Bonddad Blog on why-i-support-obamacare-or-scotus-care Thanks Mark
• Sanjuana Martinez on  Mexican-2015-elections-citizen-triumph
• Lorenzo on cause-and-context , american-homicide-2
• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-events-continue-to-conspire-against-the-fed , fed-watch-ahead-of-the-employment-report
• John Robertson and Ellyn Terrey on new-atlanta-fed-series-shows-wage-growth-held-steady-in-may
• Calculated Risk on real-prices-and-price-to-rent-ratio-in-April , june-employment-report-comments-and-graphs , public-and-private-sector-payroll-jobs-under-various-Presidents, update-prime-working-age-population-growing again
• Nick Rowe on the-bank-of-canadas-stitch-in-time
• Timothy Taylor on focusing-on-high-cost-patients, puerto-rico-echoes-from-greece , fourth-of-july-economics-and-ruminations
• David Graham on tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi
• Dave Altig on far-away-yet-close-to-home-discussing-the-global-economys-effects
• Mark Thoma on austerity-the-public-sector-jobs-gap
• Menzie Chinn on the-international-aspects-of-the-employment-release
• Noah Smith on the-words-that-changed-world
• Croaking Cassandra on reflecting-on-puerto-rico

Europe ( Only grexit)

• Robert Waldmann on the-greek-crisis-and-referendum , german-history-and-greek-crisis
• Paul Fritjers on why-is-a-grexit-now-likely
• Sotiris Serbus on geopolitical-implications-of-europe
• Barry Eichengreen on path-to-grexit-tragedy-paved-by-political-incompetence
• Matt Schiavenza on greece-braces-itself-for-a-turbulent-week
• David Beckworth on was-grexit-invevitable
• Peter Dorman on greece-referendum-on-what-to-do-yesterday , next-up-in-greece-regime-change
• Joseph Joyce on greek-tales
• Thorsten Bleck on greece-day-after-time-fresh-start
• Charles Wyplosz on grexit-staggering-cost-central-bank-dependence
• Colm McCarthy on the-unpitied-calamity-of-being-repeatedly-caught-in-the-same-snare
• Karl Whelan on ECB Decision likely means Greek banks stay closed , greece-the-euro-and-gunboat-diplomacy, From Greferendum ot Grexit
• Croaking Cassandra on a-few-thoughts-on-greece
• Kruggers on the-awesome-gratuitousness-of-the-greek-crisis
• Tony Yates on greece, reversible-move-along-nothing-to-see-here , transfer-unions-and-contagion , syriza-and-the-snp-playbook , moralising-about-greece
• Coppolla comment on debt-and-morality-in-greek-crisis
• John Keane on the-european-madhouse
• Menzie Chinn on anil-kashyap-on-the-greek-crisis
• James Arvanitakis on grexit-and-the-impacts-on-the-average-greek
• Timothy Lee on euro-greece-crisis-mistake Thanks Brad
• Domingo Cavallo on greece-can-still-avoid-catastrophic-exit-eurozone
• Anton Muscatelli on greece-in-crisis-even-if-grexit-is-averted-the-eurozone-needs-a-fundamental-rethink
• Andre Broome on nine-things-to-know-about-greeces-imf-debt-default
• Barkley Rosser on who-are-the-very-serious-people-Greece edition
• Belen Giupponi on can-greece-bring-in-the-lawyers-to-avoid-getting-booted-out-of-the-eurozone
• Joe Gagnon on Can the Grexit lemon be turned into lemonade Thanks Mark
• Simon Wren-Lewis on greek-people-have-paid-their-governments-mistakes-and-errors-troika Thanks Brad , the-ideologues-of-eurozone , greece-and-political-capture-of-imf
• Phillip Inman, Larry elliot and Alberto Nardelli on imf-greece-needs-extra-50bn-euros Thanks Brad
• Nick Rowe on thoughts-on-the-news-from-greece
• Daniel Gros on meaning-referendum-austerity-and-sovereignty
• Paul De Grauwe on greece-solvent-illiquid-policy-implications
• Phillip Lane on perspectives-on-the-greek-vote , impact-of-the-economic-recession-and-subsequent-austerity-on-suicide-and-self-harm-in-ireland-an-interrupted-time-series-analysis
• Antonoi Fatas on did-imf-provide-support-to-syriza
• Sotirios Zartalaoudis on syriza-risks-an-eu-exit-in-a-referendum-wracked-with-problems
• Alan Ahearne on syrizas-illusory-silver-bullet-compounded-wasted-reform-opportunities
• John Quiggin on the-imf-an-inexcusable-incorrigible-failure

Asia

• Leon Wieseltier on michael-oren-israel-jews
• Nabil Echchiabi on waiting-for-arab-intellectuals
• Adam Chandler on isis-egypt-sinai-attack

Wonk

• Nick Rowe on bank-walks-and-options , seigniorage-transfers-and-runs-on-common-currencies
• Chris Dillow on inequality-the-rights-problem
• Brad De Long on hangover-theory-2008-2009-crash-fails-timing
• Croaking Cassandra on boe-chief-economist-on-policy-reversals
• Lorenzo on thinking-about-states
• Menzie Chinn on guest-contribution-macroeconomic-effects-of-high-frequency-uncertainty-shocks
• Mark Thoma on Problem-of-Completely-Free-Markets
• John Quiggin on happiness-and-unhappiness
• Tim Harford on the-psychology-of-saving
• David Glasner on gold-standard-or-gold-exchange-standard-whats-the-difference ,misess-unwitting-affirmation-of-the-hawtrey-cassel-explanation-of-the-great-depression
• Roger Farmer on behavioural-economics-is-rational-afterall

General

• Robert Farley on the-ultimate-what-if-world-where-america-never-invaded-iraq Thanks Brad
• Timothy Taylor on the-internet-of-things
• Ali Junespour on is-islamic-state-evidence-we-are-living-in-a-post-honour-world
• Noah Smith on what-if-uber-goes-unter
• Chris Dillow on inequality-the-state-the-left
• Recep Dogan on caliphate-a-disputed-concept-no-longer-has-a-hold-over-all-muslims
• Conor Friedersdorf on david-petraeus-on-attacking-iran-syria-and-the-threat-from-isis

Climate

• Lisa Song on most-extreme-weather-has-climate-change-link-study-says-global-warming-trenberth-ncar-sea-levels
• Robert McSweeney on solar-minimum-could-bring-cold-winters-to-europe-and-us
• Chelsea Coombs on alaska-glaciers-sea-level-rise
• The Conversation on declining-winter-sea-ice-near-greenland-spells-cooler-climate-for-europe
• Artic ice blog on ocean-circulation-and-arctic-sea-ice-retreat , 2015-sipn-sea-ice-outlook-june-report
• David Appell on gistemp-estimate-for-june-record-high
• Jeff Masters on Tropical Atlantic quiet, Pacific getting active , unprecedented heat on four continents
• Roz Pidcock on irreversible-loss-world-ice-cover-spur-leaders
• Rob Painting on Booster-of-Super-El-Nino
• moyhu on templs-v3-part-3-results , ncep-in-june-data-for-moyhu-ncepncar
• Greg Laden on global-warming-is-heating-up
• Tamino on wtfuwt , let-them-eat-curry , whats-wrong-with-this-picture , judith-curry-responds-sort-of-v2

Andrew Gelman ( Mostly Stats)

• interpreting-posterior-probabilities-in-the-context-of-weakly-informative-priors
• whats-so-fun-about-fake-data
• god-is-in-every-leaf-of-every-probability-puzzle
• introducing-statastan
• a-note-from-john-lott
• hey-this-is-what-michael-lacour-shouldve-done-when-they-asked-him-for-his-data
• where-does-mister-p-draw-the-line
• recently-in-the-sister-blog-9
• humility needed in decision making
• why-should-anyone-believe-that-why-does-it-make-sense-to-model-a-series-of-astronomical-events-as-though-they-were-spins-of-a-roulette-wheel-in-vegas

Genial Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• the-econometrics-of-temporal-aggregation
• july-reading
• Marc Bellemare on Metrics monday, Proxy variables  Thanks Mark

Dianne Coyle ( Quirky + Book Reviews)

• what-has-bill-clinton-been-reading ,aint-misbehaving , economists-behaving-badly , economics-meets-physics-literally, economics-of-empire-then-and-now , enlightenment-values-2
• Roger Farmer on the-economics-of-george-orwell

Vox wonk

• ancestry-and-culture
• explaining-black-white-wage-gap
• how-do-japanese-exporters-manage-their-exchange-rate-exposure
• studying-economic-research-europe-coeure-project
• sources-stock-market-fluctuations-new-evidence
• studying-economic-research-europe-coeure-project
• procyclical-emerging-market-policy-new-evidence
• japan-and-great-divergence-725-1874
• procyclical-emerging-market-policy-new-evidence
• cross-border-acquisitions-and-labour-regulations
• stock-prices-and-high-frequency-news-analytics
• first-day-criminal-recidivism
• mental-health-stigma
• firm-types-and-jobs-creation-developing-countries
• corporate-debt-bias-and-cost-banking-crises
• market-economy-s-stability
• currency-not-destiny
• determinants-banks-home-bias