Monday 31 July 2017

Lack of Hope in America

A fascinating article on this topic in Friday's Around the Traps from 'vox wonk'.
Whereas 'poor blacks in the USA have hope in the USA 'poor' whites do not.

Thus 'poor' whites suffer from depression much more than disadvantaged minorities in the USA.

Les Murray RIP

Les Murray or Mr Football has died.

Those of us who love the World Game are very sad at this. He and Johnny Warren were compulsive viewing. Yes they made mistakes in their prognostications but who cared it was great television and their passion for the world game was undeniable.
Les was a refugee from Hungary. He would not have been able to get to Australia let alone live here these days. As he tirelessly told people he only got out of Hungary via a people smuggler.
He came here, changed his name so it was anglicised and was an instant hit on SBS ( known affectionately as soccer bloody soccer).

He was a passionate and tireless supporter of football and could roll his tongue around any foreign name better than anybody.

Thanks Mate

See Roy Hay , Paul Connolly

Sunday 30 July 2017

Obamacare was a very conservative policy

One of the reasons Republicans are finding it very hard to repeal and replace Obamacare is because it was a very conservative policy.
See:


Republicans could have rejoiced and said we have won in the battle of ideas when it was implemented. Instead they battled to the very end to destroy it. It was for very political reasons. Obama could not have a victory.
The other thing of course Republicans then railed against obamacare but never put any thought into how this could be done.

Very sad.

Thursday 27 July 2017

Around the Traps 28/7/17

It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
Vox wonk

Wednesday 26 July 2017

Polling Update

Kevin Bonham again comments on the latest lot of polls.

He also examines the polls visavis Tony V Malcolm.

I again say it appears the electorate has made up its mind. Turnbull at present is very much like Gillard was. you can pass all the legislation you like and even though most of it is good policy the electorate does not give a stuff!

Tuesday 25 July 2017

The Murray-Darling Basin

Four Corners had an outstanding episode on the Murray-Darling basin.

In essence we saw NSW Departments giving irrigators information they gave no-one else and without a NSW Government badge. Plan B was to simply walk away from the Murray-Darling deal.
We actually saw some cotton farmers taking water illegally. The water was far too low for them to take water but they were caught out doing so.

The whole matter needs a judicial inquiry. At present we are spending billions of dollars for no benefit what so ever.
Get the evidence and charge the villains as soon as possible. The Murray-Darling basin is vital both to Australia over all and to the region.

It needs to be regulated well and the rivers brought back to health.

See also Ross Thompson

Dunkirk

The whole Family watched this movie tonight. I agree with Steve from Brisbane.

This is a fantastic movie.The direction is something else. The filming of the air fights is simply magnificent.

Do yourself a favour just go and see it. You will enjoy it.

Has to be the BEST movie of the year by a country mile

Monday 24 July 2017

Trump and Russia

Something stinks about this. First of all everyone involved call such stories lies.
Now it seems all those involved are saying they occurred, many more times than we first realised. There are lots of e-mails involved. how forgetful they were about them.
Three key Trump officials met with Russian operatives after being told they were official Russian 'players'!

It seems their key defence is either sheer stupidity or ignorance.  Even a key Trump apologist The New York Post is saying Junior's defence is that  he is stupid!
 Imagine if they key officials of Clintons campaign met with Russian operatives!

See:

Just remember Kushner's defence is a lot more sophisticated than Juniors!

Will anything occur? I doubt it. We must and should wait for Muller's report.
However Trumpists are not a rational bunch. Here is an example. Lincoln would say an idiot talking about idiocy to idiots.

Thursday 20 July 2017

Around the Traps 21/7/17

It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
  • nothing within a p value!
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
Vox Wonk

Wednesday 19 July 2017

Israel and Palestine

David Schullman in the New York Review of Books ( always one on the most enjoyable reads one can get because of the wide variety of topics) has a wonderful and somewhat sad article on the future of peace between Israel and Palestine.

Tuesday 18 July 2017

New Department and Terrorism

The Prime Minister announced a new 'super' department to 'fight' terrorism.
He failed however to give any evidence of how it would improve performance. There is an old saying . If it ain't broke then don't fix it. In fact the security and intelligence agencies have been doing a pretty good job. ( it always helps that in Australia the people arrested for terrorist crimes have been pretty stupid and pretty easy to discover.

Whether it is the private or public sector one looks at two things. The strategy involved and the execution needed to put that strategy into operation better known as structuring. We almost always hear about companies restructuring. We rarely ever hear about companies changing their strategy!
Yesterday we neither heard why the execution was bad nor that the strategy was off. It is pretty easy to agree with John Blaxland. This is all about politics. Turnbull is frightened about losing his job.
More insights from Geoff Kitney and again from John Blaxland.
Adele Garnier sees other problems for Immigration policy. Ric Smith also comments.

What makes this worse is that the Minister is Peter Dutton. He was hopeless as Health Minister and is repeatedly caught out brazenly lying in his current portfolio. See Andrew Elder 

Directly related to this is a new study which shows the new counter-terrorism measures PERMANENTLY reduce international trade!

Clearly both measures here have not been thought out properly.

Monday 17 July 2017

On media bias

Chris Dillow of Stumbling and Mumbling fame has a typical thoughtful piece on BBC bias.

Much of it could apply to Australia and the ABC.
Whenever anyone is interviewed on the ABC there is no difference on how the interview is conducted whereas on frequent commercial outlets there is a vast difference difference.  Pauline Hanson given feather duster treatment by some outlets. The very people who are so biased one way always accuse the ABC of bias without ever becoming specific. Think Andrew Bolt, former auctioneer Ray Hadley etc.

Sunday 16 July 2017

Cricketers dispute a great ad for joining a union

Greg Jericho has an article entitled australian-crickets-pay-dispute-is-a-wonderful-ad-for-joining-a-union.
He is right.We have had labour market deregulation from mainly the ALP. ( Howard actually re-regulated it to favour employers).

We now see the final fruits of this in wages.

Thursday 13 July 2017

Around the Traps 14/7/17

It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)
Vox Wonk

Wednesday 12 July 2017

Tamino is not amused

Tamino is back and he has a go at scientists who fail to do climate trend change correctly. He shows us how it should be done!

Monday 10 July 2017

Measuring the impact of Austerity

Simon Wren-Lewis of Mainly Macro fame writes a clear exposition on  measuring-impact-of-austerity.
As Brad would say it is a must read.

going to Blayney and won't be back for a while.

Thursday 6 July 2017

Around the Traps 7/7/17

It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy
Northern America
Europe
Asia
Wonk
General
Climate
Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)
Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)
Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)
Vox Wonk

Monday 3 July 2017

The Cricket Dispute

Will we have an Ashes contest?
What is going on between the Australian Cricket board and the Australian Cricketers Association?

Here is Geoff Lemon on the dispute. It is possibly the best article by a journalist I have read.
Also on the ever excellent ABC we have the normally so so Tracey Holmes doing a great job  on the whys and wherefores.
Also Braham Dabscheck who also pops up on the Tracey Holmes audio

I do think given the change in personnel on the ACB since the last agreement and the fact previous agreements have been good for both sides means we are looking at something else. In this case it is ideology and the subject union busting. A very middle class union at that.

Going away and will be back on Friday