bicipolitics

The views expressed in this private paper are those of the author alone and may not be shared by his employing agency, the Australian Treasury.

2011-03-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

"The US, Japan, and Ireland are threatened by the spectres of deficient private demand, rising debt, and a tendency to deflation. This column questions current monetary policy directions, i.e. quantitative easing, and argues that printing money to directly finance fiscal stimulus may be a better option."

Nice column here- very interesting coming from an Aussie Treasury official.

Gareth Evans on the Labor Party

2011-02-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

"The quality of policy debate in the last election campaign was as desolate as it gets, including, it has to be acknowledged, on the Labor side: all Hill and no Light."

Couldn't agree more really.

Kevin Rudd on the Labor Party

2011-02-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

"There is nothing for any political party to fear from allowing the people who make up its vast membership to have the direct voice."

Can't agree more.

Inequality, leverage and crises

2011-02-14T18:14:00.000-08:00

Nice article over here at voxeu.

"This paper has presented stylized facts and a theoretical framework that explore the nexus between increases in the income advantage enjoyed by high income households, higher debt leverage among poor and middle income households, and vulnerability to financial crises. This nexus was prominent prior to both the Great Depression and the recent crisis. In our model it arises as a result of increases in the bargaining power of high income households. The key mechanism, reflected in a rapid growth in the size of the financial sector, is the recycling of part of the additional income gained by high income households back to the rest of the population by way of loans, thereby allowing the latter to sustain consumption levels, at least for a while. But without the prospect of a recovery in the incomes of poor and middle income households over a reasonable time horizon, the inevitable result is that loans keep growing, and therefore so does leverage and the probability of a major crisis that, in the real world, typically also has severe implications for the real economy. More importantly, unless loan defaults in a crisis are extremely large by historical standards, and unless the accompanying real contraction is very small, the effect on leverage and therefore on the probability of a further crisis is quite limited. By contrast, restoration of poor and middle income households’ bargaining power can be very effective, leading to the prospect of a sustained reduction in leverage that should reduce the probability of a further crisis."

Some cool books about behavioural economics.

2011-02-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

I have read and half-read a few of these- hopefully one day I can plow through a few others. "Nudge" really is great reading, I wasn't a massive fan of "Animal Spirits" though. "The Bounds of Reason" by Herbert Gintis is excellent but remains half digested. As for the blog - "what the smartest people on the net read"- plz!

Tunisian Leasons for Australian States

2011-02-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

From Joe Stiglitz:

"Nor is it enough to follow the dictates of international financial markets – that may get good bond ratings and please international investors, but it does not mean that jobs are being created or that standards of living are being increased for most citizens. Indeed, the fallibility of the bond markets and rating agencies was evident in the run up to the 2008 crisis. That they now looked with disfavor at Tunisia’s move from authoritarianism to democracy does not redound to their credit – and should never be forgotten."

AAA credit ratings do not guarantee that peoples' standards of living are improving- or that governments will be re-elected. People are happy when they have jobs and the trains run on time- forget this at your own peril.

Inflation: Fixed and flexible prices

2011-02-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

Krugman picks up a point that I have also recently followed in a Robert Gordon paper, namely:

"there’s an important distinction between the prices of wheat, oil, rubber, etc. that may rise or fall by double-digit amounts over the course of a year, then quickly reverse that rise or fall, and the prices of many services and manufactured goods — and most wages — which are set for periods of months or years. The latter are slow to develop inflation, but also slow to give it up, which is why policy should focus on whether those prices have started to rise too fast (or too slowly).

The question, however, is whether changes in the flexible-price goods feed into persistent inflation in the core. Phelps thought not: he believed that wages were set mainly in reference to other wages, implying that swings in oil or wheat prices were largely irrelevant to the story. I’d agree: if we think of wages as the ultimate core price, I don’t see any mechanism in today’s America whereby rising commodity prices translate into higher wage contracts."

Some prices are highly flexible- especially those that are set in auction type markets. Others are sticky owing to contractual relations- most notably concerning labor. What this says is that policy makers should pay attention to core inflation in setting monetary policy, and ignore seasonal fluctuations in auction markets. Especially now that unions have lost clout, and COLA contracts are less common.

This is at odds with some Economists who claim that the key measure to watch is the headline inflation number. Of course, a sub-issue here is how the core or trimmed inflation figure is put together. When is core-inflation really core-inflation versus a mere statistical squib? If we are simply knocking off the top and bottom 15% of price movements in a given period is this really portraying "core" inflation accurately?

Sarah Palin = farked

2011-01-13T14:55:00.000-08:00

Mark Green today:

"America will elect people from different parties but what Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama all had in common was that they either ran on or in fact were unifying figures who didn't hate others. Palin is the most divisive national political figure of my lifetime. Because she has not shown any of the experience, intellect, character or temperament to be a serious presidential contender -- and because Republican leaders are not politically stupid -- she has now officially been destroyed as a serious candidate not by the "lamestream" media but by herself. She's her own worst enemy."

Labor Force Data

2011-01-13T05:32:00.001-08:00

A quote from Prof. Bill Mitchell:

"At present, my summary is that the recovery that is occurring in the Australian economy is not providing any significant opportunities for our youngest workers. These workers are our future. We talk of the inter-generational demands on public spending and rising dependency ratios. But then we allow 25 odd percent of our active youth to remain idle and outside the skill development process. This waste ensures our future productivity growth will be lower than it otherwise could be.

How can we be happy about an economy that shuts out our youth from the recovery?"

Dropouts higher for students who work

2011-01-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

Not really surprising:

"Study authors Cain Polidano and Rezida Zakirova, from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, drew on data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth research program, which follows people between the ages of 15 and 25. They found that full-time students who worked between eight and 16 hours a week were 5 percentage points less likely to finish their courses than those who did not work at all.

Those who worked more than 24 hours a week were 14 percentage points less likely to complete their studies than those who did not work, the researchers said.

For those studying part-time, full-time work reduced their chances of completing their qualifications by about 12 percentage points."

I think this research is highly concerning, if not highly surprising, and demonstrates yet another aspect of unequal outcomes in our society. It goes without saying that kids from a poor background who have to work to finance study will not have as good academic prospects as those from a more wealthy background. It also points to the fact that these hard working people may be locked out of the upper end of the jobs market. I think this calls for a policy response that allows kids from a poorer background the opportunity to focus on their studies whilst at university.

Fannie and Freddie

2011-01-11T22:13:00.000-08:00

The reason they failed as told by William Black:

"Fannie and Freddie caused such horrific losses because they were private institutions run by officers who obtained a “sure thing” – great wealth through booking high yield in the near term without establishing meaningful loss reserves. OFHEO and the SEC had blocked Fannie and Freddie’s prior accounting scam (abusive hedge accounting) and limited Fannie and Freddie’s growth. Fannie and Freddie’s officers’ optimal remaining strategy, given OFHEO’s imposition of a constraint on growth, was to maximize reported short-term accounting income by purchasing very high (nominal) yield mortgage paper and not provide adequate loss reserves. Liar’s loans offered the best nominal yield (many subprime loans are also liar’s loans). Fannie and Freddie’s officers profited through the quintessentially private sector method of looting a corporation – executive compensation based on short-term, fictional, reported income followed by catastrophic losses and insolvency."

Interesting Comments on BASEL III

2011-01-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

Lot's of comments from a collection preeminent financial economists arguing that the Basel III reforms don't go far enough. These are very much "mainstream" types as well. So there is lots of pressure coming on at the highest levels of the economics profession at the moment for more stringent, simpler banking regulation.

Economic Reform

2011-01-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

Like this line from today's Australian from Swanny:

"There's a strange paradox in Australian political life where those who call loudest and most often for economic reform are those most likely to criticise any attempts to carry it out."

I'm just happy that Swanny has decided to get on the front foot in the new year. The post election period has been marked by navel gazing, a shocking state election campaign in Victoria, and a whole lot of nothing on the Federal stage.

If you have a good story to tell- get out there and tell it. For all Keating's weaknesses, this is one thing he was good at- getting the good news out there. People may not like you, but they will respect you if they are reminded of some of the results you are achieving.

What's more there is no point trying to hide from the conservative press. They're always banging on about economic reform, you give it to them and they are still unhappy. What do you honestly expect? Labor should get stuck into the conservative press. Pulling the pin on stimulus measures, the ETS, and the Human Rights Act will not win over the conservative nay sayers- the response will be (1) see we were right all along; and (2) Labor has lost the strength of its convictions. Lose lose.

It's good to see that Swanny has woken up to this paradox, and has the strength of his convictions to get out there and spread the good news in the new year. Although it does remind me somewhat of Shaun Carney's recent article about the decline of support for Labor in the community. There is no rush to Labor's defense from a dwindling grass roots supporter base, or the disillusioned new left that has moved to the Greens. The fortunate few careerists of the parliamentary party have to make the case for themselves these days.

More on Austerity

2011-01-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

Stiglitz today:

"It has become fashionable among politicians to preach the virtues of pain and suffering, no doubt because those bearing the brunt of it are those with little voice – the poor and future generations. To get the economy going, some people will, in fact, have to bear some pain, but the increasingly skewed income distribution gives clear guidance to whom this should be: Approximately a quarter of all income in the US now goes to the top 1%, while most Americans’ income is lower today than it was a dozen years ago. Simply put, most Americans didn’t share in what many called the Great Moderation, but was really the Mother of All Bubbles. So, should innocent victims and those who gained nothing from fake prosperity really be made to pay even more?

Europe and America have the same talented people, the same resources, and the same capital that they had before the recession. They may have overvalued some of these assets; but the assets are, by and large, still there. Private financial markets misallocated capital on a massive scale in the years before the crisis, and the waste resulting from underutilization of resources has been even greater since the crisis began. The question is, how do we get these resources back to work?...

Banks never wanted to admit to their bad loans, and now they don’t want to recognize the losses, at least not until they can adequately recapitalize themselves through their trading profits and the large spread between their high lending rates and rock-bottom borrowing costs. The financial sector will press governments to ensure full repayment, even when it leads to massive social waste, huge unemployment, and high social distress – and even when it is a consequence of their own mistakes in lending...

So this is my hope for the New Year: we stop paying attention to the so-called financial wizards who got us into this mess – and who are now calling for austerity and delayed restructuring – and start using a little common sense. If there is pain to be borne, the brunt of it should be felt by those responsible for the crisis, and those who benefited most from the bubble that preceded it."

Can't agree more really.

What do bosses do? Part II

2011-01-02T04:07:00.000-08:00

Just knocked off the second installment of the "what do bosses do?" series from Stephen Marglin:

"Whatever qualifications may be necessary to explain deviations from the norm, my hypothesis remains that capitalists as individuals, like workers, save principally when their incomes rise faster than they can manage to spend them. On a statistical basis capitalists may save a significantly larger portion of their disposable incomes than do workers, and for many purposes there may be adequate justification for reflecting this statistical regularity in the postulate that saving propensity is a matter of income class. But this does not in itself contradict the disequilibrium hypothesis: successfull workers become capitalists and failed capitalists become workers; the differences in savings rates are thus accountable in terms of income changes. In my view the significant dichotomy with respect to savings rates is not based on differences in individual incomes, but on the differences between individuals and organizations. It is not the size of the capitalists' income or a special set of attitudes, a drive towards accumulation, that matters. It is rather capitalist control of the production process that gives this class a dominant role in determining the rate of saving."

What do bosses do?

2011-01-01T04:16:00.000-08:00

I've been reading an interesting article today from Stephen Marglin of Havard challenging the notion that the benefits of industrialization lie primarily in the technological efficiency of the factory:

"A due regard for the role of economic power and the institutional constraints on the use of power are as important to understanding socialist economic development as to understanding the development of earlier economic systems. Under socialism (at least in its Soviet strain), no less than under feudalism and capitalism, the primary determinant of basic choices with respect to the organization of production has not been technology -- exogenous and inexorable -- but the exercise of power -- endogenous and resistible."

The Central Insight of Macroeconomics: DeLong

2010-12-29T21:03:00.000-08:00

Nice article from DeLong today:

"The central insight of macroeconomics is a fact that was known to John Stuart Mill in the first third of the nineteenth century: there can be a large gap between supply and demand for pretty much all currently produced goods and services and types of labor if there is an equally large excess demand for financial assets. And this fundamental fact is a source of big trouble...

The broad pattern is clear: the more that governments have worried about enabling future moral hazard by excessive bailouts and sought to stem the rise in public debt, the worse their countries’ economies have performed. The more that they have focused on policies to put people back to work in the short run, the better their economies have done.

This pattern would not have surprised nineteenth-century economists like Mill or Walter Bagehot, who understood the financial-sector origins of industrial depression. But it does seem to surprise not only a great many observers today, but also a large number of policymakers."

Worth reading the whole thing.

Euroskepticism

2010-12-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

From Krugman today:

"So the academic euroskeptics have been proved right in their analysis. Now, that need not mean that the euro was a mistake: there were, after all, political economy considerations. And it certainly doesn’t have to mean that the thing should break up: doing that would be highly disruptive.

But there is, I think, a lesson here, namely that straightforward economic analysis has its virtues. Euro enthusiasts tended to be kind of cosmic about the whole thing, and dismissed the pedestrian cost-benefit approach taken by many US-based economists. Yet those costs and benefits did and do matter. And the crisis Europe is now having is very much the kind of thing those pedestrian analyses suggested was going to happen."

A nice summary of the cost-benefits approach to determining the optimal size for a currency union, and some of the factors that policy makers should take into account- labor mobility, fiscal integration, trade and ability to respond to asymmetric shocks are the main ones.

The Balanced Budget Multiplier: Shiller

2010-12-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

A nice article on the balanced budget multiplier from Shiller.

"Researchers haven’t pinned down the deficit-spending multiplier either, even though that has been the focus of their efforts. In fact, a recent survey article on the effects of government stimulus by Alan Auerbach at the University of California, Berkeley, and two of his colleagues has found that “the range of mainstream estimates for multiplier effects is almost embarrassingly large.” Last month, a Congressional Budget Office study revealed similar uncertainty. The trouble comes in estimating how people will react in generating those subsequent rounds of spending.

But the balanced-budget multiplier is simpler to judge: If the government spends the money directly on goods and services, that activity goes directly into national income. And with a balanced budget, there is no clear reason to expect further repercussions. People have jobs again: end of story."

This seems to pick up the benefits of balanced-budget government spending in a nutshell. Government spending creates jobs- period. We can argue to the ends of the earth about whether the multiplier is .6 or 1 or 1.5, but at the end of the day when the government spends money in a depressed economy people who otherwise wouldn't have jobs will have jobs.

Another good point Shiller picks up on is that the problems of economic recovery are primarily political at this point in time:

"AT present, however, political problems could make it hard to use the balanced-budget multiplier to reduce unemployment. People are bound to notice that the benefits of the plan go disproportionately to the minority who are unemployed, while most of the costs are borne by the majority who are working. There is also exaggerated sensitivity to “earmarks,” government expenditures that benefit one group more than another.

Another problem is that pursuing balanced-budget stimulus requires raising taxes. And, as we all know, today’s voters are extremely sensitive to the very words “tax increase.”

But voters are likely to accept higher taxes eventually, as they have done repeatedly in the past. It would be a mistake to consider the present atmosphere as unchangeable. It’s conceivable that an effective case will be made in the future for a new stimulus package, if more people come to understand that a few years of higher taxes and government expenditures could fix our weak economy and provide benefits like better highways and schools — without increasing the national debt."

I think this political case is quite compelling and simple. The corporate and rentier sector of the US economy has done incredibly well out of the last decade at least. Corporate profits have rebounded exceedingly quickly from the crisis, but unemployment is still stuck at 9.8%- this is telling us that we have a political and moral problem rather than a purely economic problem. Those who benefited from driving the real economy off a cliff are now profiting from the aftermath. If now isn't the time for more progressive taxation arrangements and greater direct government investment in infrastructure and human capital in the US I don't know when is.

American Military vs. American Schools.

2010-12-27T04:53:00.000-08:00

"The US military has fought five large-scale wars in the past fifty years, resulting in a draw in Korea, a defeat in Vietnam, and three inconclusive outcomes in Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan. That’s a record that makes the worst inner-city public school look pretty good. At least the majority of students, even at the worst schools, end up more or less literate."

Nice read here.

Krugman and Wells on Obama

2010-12-27T02:03:00.000-08:00

"Even if Obama were suddenly to find an inner FDR, would anyone notice? His aloofness has become so indelibly registered in voters’ minds that if he tried to change style—even if he wanted to, a big “if”—this would immediately come across as opportunistic. Having trusted and been disappointed by Obama once before, they are very unlikely to give him another chance."

Hard hitting stuff- "Change you can believe in" has morphed into an aloof yuppie Presidency.

Krugman and Wells are interesting on the policy response to the artificially low peg of the remnimbi:

"The obvious American response is to threaten, and if necessary actually impose, countervailing duties on Chinese exports—a step that is backed even by strong advocates of free trade, such as Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics."

And some closing thoughts on what liberals need to do more of in the future:

"In 2008, progressives fell for the fantasy of hope and change on the cheap; they believed Obama’s promise that the reforms America needed could float through on a tide of bipartisan reconciliation. It was not to be, and clinging to that illusion will only lead to more defeats. If progressives want to rebound, they’ll have to fight."

Balance Sheet Recessions

2010-12-22T22:41:00.001-08:00

Ken Henry was made somewhat famous for his "go early, go hard, go households" fiscal prescription to the GFC. It is within the context of Henry announcing his retirement earlier in the week that this article from Mark Thoma concerning the correct fiscal response to a balance sheet recession became more poignant:

"The perception that the government bailed out undeserving wealthy bankers while leaving households to fend for themselves is a big part of the backlash against the policies put into place to help with the recession. That perception is correct, for the most part, and it will stand in the way of repeating this policy the next time there is a financial collapse. When the next balance sheet recession hits, and another one will hit no matter how hard we try to avoid it, we need to do a better job of helping households. Not only is this good economics – we will recover faster with this policy – the politics of helping households are far superior to those associated with bailing out banks."

Ken Henry resigns

2010-12-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

Bernard Keane is great in Crikey on Ken Henry's resignation:

"It was on Rudd’s watch that Henry performed his greatest service to the nation. He had worked in Paul Keating’s office through the boom of the 1980s and into the savage recession that followed. He had seen, first hand -- indeed, been a part of -- an historic failure by Australian policymakers: a recession that, coupled with the Government’s embrace of micro-economic reform and the failures of state-owned banks, gouged deep holes in our social fabric that took a decade to repair.

Treasury’s response to the impact of the GFC, coupled with that of the Reserve Bank, made amends for that failure, to the extent that anything ever could. They stabilised our banking system, kept credit flowing, and launched two waves of stimulus that put a floor under falling consumer confidence and employment. Henry’s advice to Rudd and Swan "go hard, go early, go households" was the playbook for a spectacular policy success, mitigated only by some terrible implementation of one stimulus program by the Department of the Environment. But hundreds of thousands of Australians have jobs that wouldn’t have them if Henry, Stevens and their teams had repeated the errors of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s – chiefly using the levers of monetary and fiscal policy too late and ineffectively.

Between that and Henry's work on the GST -- first for Paul Keating in the Hawke years, then the real thing under Peter Costello -- he can lay claim to having been present at most of the key moments in recent Australian economic history.

Those hundreds and thousands of Australians remain entirely oblivious to their fate if Henry and Stevens hadn't got it right. Few of them would know who either was. Indeed, as is the way of things Henry’s reward for this remarkable feat -- not achieved anywhere else in the world – has been froth-mouthed abuse from conservatives, who first insisted stimulus wouldn't work and then insisted it wasn't necessary when it did work, none of them apparently equipped with the slightest understanding of or interest in the social and economic impacts of unemployment."

The stimulus was the right thing to do economically, morally and politically. We are lucky that Henry pushed so forcefully for its adoption.

Gordon Brown and the Financial Crisis of 2008

2010-12-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

Enjoyed reading this review of Gordon Brown's recent memoirs from Robert Skidelsky:

"Misled by his success of 2008-9 in stopping the slide into depression, Brown remains too optimistic about what summitry can achieve. His "global compact" for growth, jobs and poverty reduction is a noble vision, to which we may stumble, through many new crises, but may well not. One can only hope that this brave, thoughtful, and decent man, who rose to the highest challenges but slipped on the lower slopes of politics, can find a post-political life commensurate with his abilities, interests, and power to do good."

A good person, who got the economic crisis broadly right, but lacked the personal charm and character to be politically successful.

For those interested Stiglitz writes a good article on the book as well.

"Much of Beyond the Crash will be familiar to readers who care about economics and globalisation, but seeing the issues through a political leader who helped shape globalisation for more than a decade provides new insights. Like many of us, Brown's thinking was shaped by the east Asian economic crisis and the clear need for financial regulation and global co-operation demonstrated by that crisis. He doesn't dwell, however, on the mistakes of the past, either those that led to that crisis or the more recent one. What he tries to do is to learn the lessons – as different as they may be from the conventional wisdom that prevailed before the crisis. He clearly sides with those who believe that unregulated markets may be prone to excessive volatility, with booms and busts in real estate and destabilising capital flows. While many of the advocates of liberalisation found it difficult to recognise that, for instance, there may be a need for capital controls at certain times, he unabashedly expresses his support. In praise of Malaysia's capital controls, he writes: "For a short time at least controls on capital can prevent, or at least reduce, the uncontrolled flow of short-term funds across borders." While he supports Hong Kong's response to the "double play" that attempted to bring down their currency, American officials who pushed unbridled globalisation have yet to recant on their criticisms...

Brown is outraged by the bankers' excessive risk-taking, their pursuit of greed. I can only surmise that had he looked more carefully at America's banks' predatory lending practices and the abuses in the credit card systems, how the financial system preyed on the least educated and financially unsophisticated, he would be even more outraged. But he does not dwell on these issues, though he devotes his last chapter, "Markets Need Morals", to the subject. And while his claim that markets need morals is right, I am not sanguine about their getting these morals. In their absence, government regulation will have to do.

There is still a debate about whether Brown's policies were effective. I believe that were it not for the strong Keynesian policies that he pushed around the world, the global downturn would have been much worse. We were at risk of moving into a global depression. I believe, too, that if he had not pushed his alternative approach of equity injections rather than merely buying bad assets from the banks, our financial system would be in much worse shape. (The Irish Republic is the one European country that has tried the alternative approach—not exactly an example for others to emulate.) ...

Given the size of the U.K. financial sector and the extent to which it was overleveraged, the U.K.'s problems were enormous, and, in my judgment, the success of Brown's response should have been widely acknowledged.

What is clear from this book is that Brown knew what needed to be done and tried to do it at a time when others were paralysed, captured by the financial community, or deluded by their past mistakes into trying to underestimate the severity of the crisis that their policies had helped create."

what use are investment banks?

2010-12-19T22:29:00.001-08:00

Highly recommended reading from John Cassidy of the New Yorker on the social utility of Wall Street.

"Other regulators have gone further. Lord Adair Turner, the chairman of Britain’s top financial watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, has described much of what happens on Wall Street and in other financial centers as “socially useless activity”—a comment that suggests it could be eliminated without doing any damage to the economy. In a recent article titled “What Do Banks Do?,” which appeared in a collection of essays devoted to the future of finance, Turner pointed out that although certain financial activities were genuinely valuable, others generated revenues and profits without delivering anything of real worth—payments that economists refer to as rents. “It is possible for financial activity to extract rents from the real economy rather than to deliver economic value,” Turner wrote. “Financial innovation . . . may in some ways and under some circumstances foster economic value creation, but that needs to be illustrated at the level of specific effects: it cannot be asserted a priori.”

Haven't posted in a while: Housing prices

2010-12-16T19:36:00.001-08:00

Some interesting things that I'm just catching up on following this economist article on global housing prices back midyear.

And now this follow up from the IMF.

"The econometric analysis suggests an overvaluation of 5-10 percent depending on the model specification." This was compared to an earlier paper suggesting overvaluation of around 15%. So we are overvalued, rather than in a bubble according to the IMF. Seems about right to me.

TINA

2009-02-26T05:07:00.000-08:00

Are we really surprised
executive pay doubles
eighteen
hundred
and
fifty
are sacked
made redundant
if you will
It's enought to send a chill

Obama Inauguration

2009-01-20T22:41:00.000-08:00

Something that a lot of commentators haven’t picked up on was how “political” Obama’s inauguration speech was.

There wasn’t a lot of overt “unity” talk in the speech. On the other hand I did detect a string of not so subtle rebukes to George W Bush legacy, Reganism and republican ideology in general.

This was a political speech- there were many points where one had the feeling that a few liberal scores were being settled.

There was a reference to “returning science to its rightful place’ and ‘non-believers’- take that you evangelicals.

There was a reference to ending debates over the size of government, and focusing on the efficacy of government. Take that Reganites/ Monetarists.

There were allusions to “narrow interests”- a subtle jab at the Bush regimes/republicans links to industry lobbyists/ special interests.

Calls for Keynsian government expenditure programmes to create jobs. Centrally planned solutions to the economic problems afflicting the United States and Global economies (Hayek would be spewing).

Jobs, schoolbooks, beds in hospitals- classic left liberal/ Labor rallying points.

Advocating diplomacy and peaceful dispute resolution before direct military action.

For all the talk of future/ liberal policy directions, the speech was a call for citizens to take more responsibility for their actions- economically, politically and in their relationships with one another.

Some have compared this inauguration speech unfavourably to Lincoln’s. I think this is to focus too much on style rather than addressing the substantive concerns facing the political economy.

Obama has laid out the issues facing the nation, and suggested some future directions for policy. His 80% approval ratings suggest that the public likes the cut of his jib.

To conclude with the words of one of the Tuskegee Airmen this morning. When asked what Obama needed to do to be considered a great President, he replied simply “More of the same”.

Amen to that, and may God bless America.

Shark Attacks

2009-01-18T19:15:00.000-08:00

Thank god for all these shark attacks, anything to distract a little hysteria away from the economy is probably a good thing at the moment.

So may there be more (non-fatal) shark attacks this summer.

May we fear sharks and spend more freely in the new year.

The Boss

2009-01-18T05:08:00.000-08:00

Some nice words from Bruce Springsteen :

"The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad. It will come and it will devour you, it will remove you from the present. It will steal your future and this happens every day."

It's been a while

2008-12-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd close out the year with a nice quote from Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton:

"the United States has chosen to deal with the financial crisis by buying up a significant fraction of the shares of the nation’s major banks and its largest insurance company, underwriting the loans of a large portion of the nation’s home-lending industry, and is on the verge of underwriting the nation’s largest automobile makers. Yet little if any of this largesse has found its way to the broader public – to homeowners in danger of defaulting on their mortgages and losing their homes, small businesses close to insolvency, state and local governments cutting public services because of budget shortfalls, families unable to afford health insurance, or young people unable to obtain loans to finance university tuition.

The ideology of a perfectly self-correctly free market has given way to what might be described as a raid by America’s biggest banks and corporations on the public purse, supposedly justified by benefits to the broader public which seem never to materialize. What happened to the ideology? On closer inspection, it turned out to be something of a cover all along."

The new year will be an interesting one, I'm hoping for a bottom up recovery, and many happy returns.

Justice

2008-11-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Cop kills blackman, does
no time. Blackman protest death,
he's doing hard time.

Aberdeen - South Dakota

2008-11-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Presidential Vote - South Dakota
McCain 53%
Obama 45%

And to all the cynics...

2008-11-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

For all those who think nothing will change- have a look at how moving his acceptance speach was.

The cynics will say “there he goes again”, all fine words, show me some substance.

But Obama has the words of a fine man, he has the manner of a fine man and the mind of a fine man.

We’re immediately in a much better position than has been the case over the last eight long years of Bush.

With the level of support Obama has received from the grass roots, we are likely to see change coming from the ground up in America for the first time in generations.

Obama has the means at his disposal to achieve great things, now is his time.

Although Camus once famously said that hope is the only thing leaders willingly offer the governed, I think we can rightly hope for a better future under Obama.

And as for the cynics, Paul Keating said it best: "the dogs have started barking, but the caravan has moved on".

Morning in America

2008-11-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

Sam Cooke said it best:

I was born by the river in a little tent
Just like the river I've been running ever since
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

I go to the movie and I go downtown
Somebody keep telling me don't hang around
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knocking me
Back down on my knees

Ohhhhhhhhh.....

There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

here we go

2008-11-04T03:39:00.000-08:00

Herald Sun Sub-Editors Plumb New Lows

2008-10-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

And I shouldn't really comment because this blog clearly has no standards.

But apparently Kate Ellis is "Australia's Sexist MP"

LOL

I was expecting some sexual harassment expose, but alas just a pretty picture.

PPP's

2008-10-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

John Quiggin has this to say about PPP’s in the context of the credit crunch, and the performance of the ratings agencies leading up to the crisis:

“In Australia, despite the fact that no state or national government has ever defaulted*, the agencies regularly threaten the withdrawal of AAA ratings if governments invest in infrastructure assets. One result has been the push to rely on private financing, through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). It seems likely now that many of the private partners in these deals will fail, and that the government will be left to clean up the mess.”

The little asterics is for Jack Lang in NSW during the depression, although technically this wasn't a default because the Federal government took on the loan obligations that the Lang government refused to pay.

But, the upshot of this analysis is that the time has come for Government's to go Keynesian again.

fallen leaves

2008-10-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

your words are like wind
roaring down an empty street
cold comfort to fallen leaves

On love

2008-10-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

"It seems we always fall short of the mark when we try to explain or justify love in terms of a list of qualities that the beloved contingently possesses. Worse still, those who go looking for love armed with a checklist of essential qualities of the kind to be found in personal advertisements, '35-40 years old, C of E, non-smoking, professional, sporty, good sense of humour, likes cats, arthouse movies and Sichuan cuisine' seem unlikely to find it.

And the reason is that love is essentially open-ended. In loving someone, we embark on a journey whose path and destination is largely unknown. Love takes us hostage to fortune. It binds us to the wheel and woe of the beloved in ways we could not have anticipated and cannot reject. To be genuinely open to being someone's close friend or lover, is precisely to admit to yourself that you're not entirely sure where the journey will take you. And this truism about love is one that the quality's view has a hard time accounting for."

Jeanette Kennett

First Home Buyers Accounts

2008-10-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

Ah, the barefoot investor, the person I go to for investment advice. He loves the first home buyers savings accounts, they're great:

"The only problem I can see with the FHSAs is that there's a minimum lock-up of four years on your funds. It's too bad if you find a house in year three or if you break up with your boyfriend, quit your job and want to use the cash to move to London, as you do."

Hmm yes not very flexible when set against the lives of your average first home buyer. Good point hero investor sensai.

Then this gem of wisdom:

"The problem is, Gen Y have never known hard economic times."

What, we didn't exist in the early nineties recession? We didn't exist when the stock market crashed in 1987? Tech wreck? Asian financial crisis? Just because we weren't active participants in these eras, doesn't mean that we didn't witness them in an indirect way.

What's more, how does this apply to people exposed to the dwindling manufacturing industries in Australia. Anyone with a passing exposure to these industries, through parents or older siblings, will probably not see the last twenty years as an unrivalled period of economic sunshine.

Then he closes with a great Delphic/ astrological piece of investment advice:

"Opportunities like this come around only every so often. Embrace it.

Tread your own path!"

So should we opt in or out?

Little bit contradictory there bro.

I guess maybe he should have of finished with: "if it suits what you want to do, then do it". That seems to be the gist of these inflexible savings accounts.

Or maybe he could have added, invest in stocks at the bottom of the cycle, and you may be better off than dumping your money in these accounts for four years- given that your life circumstances could change a lot over four years.

Ah well, if this is the kind of economic guidance we are getting in these challenging times, God help us all!

Guy Rundle

2008-09-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

I love Guy Rundle, this from todays Crikey:

"In the wake of this crisis, blame is being sheeted home to the average person, who is apparently running up too much debt. Well, mercy, what a surprise, it's the people's fault. Let's face it, people only consent to this crappy society because of what they can rack up on debt. If you're going to spend forty years of fifty hours a week – your whole one life on Earth – in the same office, doing crap you don't want to do, damn right you want a frikkin flat screen TV at the end of it. And to eat out. And drink stupid overpriced cocktails in awful resorts."

Amen

I see it but..

2008-09-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

I don't believe it.

House republicans have voted to virtually decimate Wall Street, against the wishes of the Bush whitehouse.

Wall street has been turned completely upside down and inside out by their (former) mates.

This can only be bad for McCain who also threw his weight behind the package (more like put his presidential head on the chopping bloke).

Not to mention terrible for all those people out there with home loans, business loans etc. Everywhere.

Troubling times indeed.

And for those who think it was the right thing to do, have a look at the markets reaction.

Utter chaos.

One on One

2008-09-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

via

Lying Maverick vs. Passive Hope

2008-09-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

“I was a little disappointed the media called it a tie but I think that means, when they call it a tie, that means we win,”

John McCain, after saturday morning's incredibly boring debate.

McCain seems to employ three strategies:
1. Lie or naively tell falsehoods
2. Back up premises with the robust rhetorical device that having met X or visited Y provides him with unequivocal evidence and experience to comprehend, take control of and overcome X or Y
3. smile like a pedo

Obama, on the other hand
1. refuses to go in for the kill

I dearly hope this strategy works.

Michael Turnbull????

2008-09-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

hmmmmm.

Do the sub-editors at the Herald sun know something the rest of Australia doesn't?

The Freedom Paradox: Clive Hamilton

2008-09-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

This book is basically a somewhat forlorn attempt to tie up all of Hamilton's political and ethical preferences into a grand philosophical statement based on the noumenon. Hamilton says he is constructing a 'post-secular ethics' but he ends up constructing a personal mysticism. Whatever offends Hamilton personally is an affront to the noumenon, and therefore bad. Whatever Hamilton views as positive, i.e. downshifting, is a triumph of the noumenon over the world of appearances.

I am also disinclined to Hamilton’s view that the existentialists are in some way responsible for consumer culture as he suggests in the book. The existentialists diagnosed the problem of meaningless and issued the challenge for people to create meaning in their own lives, largely through creative activity. It was not a philosophy that urged people to go forth and consume as Hamilton seemingly suggests.

If you have read Hamilton's other books you will probably understand where he is coming from on this one. It could have been titled 'all the usual hang-ups': Corporate paedophilia, consumer culture, growth fetishing, affluenza, downshifting, bestiality etc, etc. At the end of the day it wasn’t a bad read, but I don’t think his concept of the post-secular ethic will be wildly popular!

thought of the day

2008-09-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

"If the price is right, people will sacrifice the emotional attachment"

Subir Gokarn, chief economist for Standard & Poor's in India.

Hidden costs of war

2008-09-12T20:36:00.001-07:00

according to an ADB official, explaining the rationale for quite a decent loan to Georgia

"The month of August was not a very good month for [Georgian] tax collection,"

more here.

narrative?

2008-09-04T16:10:00.000-07:00

moar funny pictures

Noises

2008-09-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

la la la la la
la la boom crash drone bump bump
the noise my brain makes

Colin the Baby Whale

2008-08-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

I am lonely and
need your love. Will someone
heal my broken heart?

My haiku tribute to a sad little whale. I also loved this article from John Armstrong in Crikey!:

"Colin -- the abandoned baby whale, whose fate has been played out in public over the last several days -- is the new battle-zone in the interminable war of reason and emotion.

Colin invites two powerful reactions. Some people feel intensely moved by his story. He was left by his mother, he was innocent and in danger, he could not look after himself. People wanted to help -- wanted to keep in him their swimming pool, breast feed him, pay for his education -- but it was all too difficult; even the ADF couldn’t save Colin.

Then there were the hard-headed, hard-hearted people who spoke about Darwin and "nature red in tooth and claw", who reminded us that many baby whales die all the time, but don’t manage to do it in public places and so pass unwept.

I confess I’m less interested in Colin, more interested in our reactions. It’s sentimental to cry for a baby whale. That’s not because it’s sentimental to cry, but because the passion is not finding its real object. Colin was a symbol. People poured human sympathy into him; as if to say in a roundabout way: "I feel abandoned; I need to be rescued; I need love and kindness."

It wasn’t so much Colin people were grieving for, as for themselves. That’s why it is so dangerous to cross a whale lover; they react as if you had just insulted them -- and that’s the giveaway. In the secret recesses of imaginative projection, they are Colin. That’s why talk about Darwin and so on struck them as evil; it would be like spouting the survival of the fittest to a lost and frightened child.

And can’t we say much the same of the cool rationalists? Why do they hate it so much when people get worked up about Colin? Secretly, they can’t bear to see all that tenderness going in the wrong direction. Into themselves they shout:

You’re so feeling and generous to him -- what about me, sitting here: don’t I need love, don’t I need to be understood and rescued and have a few million dollars spent making me OK? But I just know that because I don’t look as cuddly as a baby whale you’d never spend that sympathy on me. I hate you and your stupid, ugly whale.

I imagine a good few relationships have soured over this: Colin bust ups, Colin divorces. It wasn’t his fault; it was all about us.

Particularly given he was actually Collette."

chart of the day

2008-08-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

it's 10am. i don't think i'll find a better one.

via

Nations that don't use the metric system

2008-08-13T15:58:00.001-07:00

Sisyphus

2008-07-31T02:42:00.000-07:00

I once dreamed of a
life less plagued. Now I push a
Rock up hill each day.

I love the NT News

2008-07-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

News Story

Not very news story

Which one did the NT news decide to run with as their cover story?

Well it wouldn't be a historic court victory for traditional land owners would it.

No, man caught speeding and wanking at the same time, speed wanking if you will.

Bravo NT News, obviously there weren't any crocodile attack stories doing the rounds on the day, otherwise the lead story may have been bumped to second billing.

The only thing the story was lacking was a crocodile. Man caught wanking a crocodile while travelling at 150km/h in a beaten up old Land Rover- that's a lead story.

Ah well

"A TERRITORY man filmed himself speeding at 150km/h while masturbating at the wheel of his drug-laden car, a court heard."

Good stuff

One man, one dream...

2008-07-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

to make the world a better place for the children of tomorrow.

Sleepyhead

2008-07-29T02:25:00.000-07:00

It's so easy to
say what should and could have been.
Sleeping between dreams.

Missed it by that Much

2008-07-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhhhh

I don't know what Cadel has to do to win the Tour.

He could probably start with a team 100% committed to riding their guts out for him.

Maybe he doesn't inspire that sort of committment from his teammates?

Well if he doesn't, somebody in the team should be reading the riot act and making sure they ride themselves inside out to get him in the yellow on the Champs Elysee.

He has twice proven he's good enough to be up there.

I guess there is always next year!

Carn Cadel

2008-07-26T06:43:00.001-07:00

Please please please
let me
get what I want
Lord knows it would be the first time.

Now grab that yellow jersey Cadel...

or next time I see you riding up Kinglake I'm going to chase you down and step on your dog.

Grrr

consider yourself warned.

Onwards to victory, and a way into the hearts and mind of our nations largely ignorant sporting "experts".

For the last three weeks, all I've heard at work is "do you think he can do it".

To wit I have answered resoundingly "yes".

Now, can you please win it so I look like I know what I'm talking about.

Please!!!

Losing will mean office humiliation for me.

I have faith in you digger.

Souvlaki

2008-07-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was feeling wild
today, then Slowdive came and
chilled me the fuck out.

Marvellous Drop That

2008-07-20T17:54:00.001-07:00

Saunier's secret!

2008-07-19T04:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, you can't go past this article in Velonews for pure, unadulterated irony.

"Saunier's Secret"

I'm sure Mavic's all new lightweight rims helped a lot, but even Ricco could tell you the EPO helped a hell of a lot more.

SHEESH!

Tomorrow

2008-07-19T04:31:00.000-07:00

Standing on lands edge,
staring at the deep green sea.
She falls and exhales.

Good and Bad News from France

2008-07-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

First, the Good news: Cadel grabs Yellow at the Tour.

C'EST MAGNIFIQUE!

Now the bad news: Rose surpases white wine in sales volume in France.

MERDE!

Wednesday

2008-07-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

another hazy
start to a vaporous day
I drank too much wine

What will people vote for these days

2008-07-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

A concerning article from Gary Younge in the Guardian today regarding the rise of the BNP in the UK.

I think it touches on an interesting point: Will voters in Western democracies actually vote for a big idea or principal anymore?

"Just as there is more to racism in Britain than the BNP, the BNP's rise tells us more about Britain than just racism. It is a canary in the mine - an early warning system signalling the complacency of our political culture in which our political class has been complicit. Trapped in a hopeless spiral of negativity, people will vote against anything - immigration, the Tories, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Scottish nationalism, Gordon Brown or Europe, to name a few. But it seems a long time since large numbers of people voted for anything."

I think the obvious testing point for this hypothesis is climate change. Will people actually vote to address climate change, or will they complacently let time slip away.

I think it's also interesting from an Australian perspective in that the same people who gave John Howard a kick at the last election are lining up to give Rudd a kick at the moment.

Monday

2008-07-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

Time flies by so fast,
stand still and you're left behind.
I won't wait for nothing

Poo washes up at Bell's Beach

2008-07-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

One can't help but feel that the Herald Sun missed out on an amusing byline in todays paper.

And, no, it wasn't an environmental story.

Ah to be famous, every embarassing thing that ever happens to you finds its way into the newspaper.

What a joy to behold

Monday

2008-06-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

wipe away your tears
we all fall like autumn leaves
she whispered to me

The only hitches...

2008-06-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

Another Glastonbury comes and goes, and Amy Winehouse makes a special appearance:

"The only hitches were when her trademark beehive got stuck in her guitar strap and had to be freed by a roadie, and when she appeared to swing a punch at a fan."

I guess being a smacked up invalid whose husband is locked up really puts lifes tribulations into perspective.

surrender monkeys on bikes

2008-06-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

pictures of paris under nazi occupation

but don't let the apparent serenity deceive you:

Heart Warming Economic Story of the Day

2008-06-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

Treasury Secretary Ken Henry is "taking five weeks' leave to work with endangered wombats, it was reported on Friday."

ahhhh

and predictably, the Daily Terror goes nuts.

here

and

here

and the puns just keep coming and coming:

"Instead of working on a first draft of the Government's "root and branch" tax review, Dr Henry will be observing wombats eating roots and branches" decry the editors.

and then poor old Malcolm "moneybags" Turnbull:

"Who will be looking after the muddle-headed Treasurer in Dr Henry's absence?"

Slow news day anyone?

Nooooo!

rantwatch #1

2008-06-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian critiques Angelina Jolie's latest, Wanted

You could gargle bitumen and bin-juice for half an hour, and it couldn't leave a nastier taste in your mouth than this macho action thriller about a secret fraternity of assassins.....

It looks as if it has been written by a committee of 13-year-old boys for whom penetrative sex is still only a rumour, and the resulting movie plays like a party political broadcast on behalf of the misogynist party.

Aussie Shangri-La

2008-06-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

"Australians are fatter, drunker and have more sexually transmitted diseases than ever before...

The good news from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) biennial national snapshot is we live longer than any other nation except for Japan."

Fatter, drunker, rootier and living longer.

Sounds rather Utopian to me.

weekend highlights

2008-06-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

it's too far until next weekend, so lets dwell upon last weekend's efforts.

Business Ethics 101

2008-06-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

Cuddle up to the powerful, cast aside the afflicted and powerless.

Tim Lane tells it like it is.

I think the treatment of Ben Cousins is an ongoing disgrace.

Rather than face up to Cousin's problems, the AFL and West Coast have just put him in the too hard basket, and told him to go away.

The responsible thing to do would be to allow him to keep playing football. If there is one thing that kept his life on track it was playing football.

But the powers that be in their infinite wisdom would prefer to throw a talented footballer on the scrapheap, rather than face up to what is a community wide problem.

The sad thing is that uncritically embracing the wealthy is seen as smart business in sport as in life.

I think collectively we have forgotten what sport is all about. Team play, all for one and one for all. If the West Coast football team was a team in the traditional, suburban sense, they would have done more for Cousins.

We need to end sport being treated as a business and political football by pointy headed lawyers, and get back to what sport is all about- a community organisation where people gather together for fun, entertainment and a sense of joint struggle.

In such a context, the events re Pratt and Cousins would be unthinkable.

Overheard in Canberra

2008-06-21T00:13:00.000-07:00

Maltese Diplomat: Whatcha' looking at, Romanian Diplomat?
Romanian Diplomat: Are they Syria?

Do yourself a favour

2008-06-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

I remember Molly Meldrum plugging this film clip on Hey Hey It's Saturday in the nineties sometime.

sweet clip

It’s my interview, so we’ve got to stay with me.

2008-06-17T00:02:00.001-07:00

An interview in the NYT with Gore Vidal.

At the age of 82, you will be publishing your new collection of essays this week, which seems likely to confirm your reputation as one of America’s last public intellectuals. Why do you think that critics have traditionally praised your essays more than your fiction, which includes “Burr,” “Myra Breckinridge” and 20 other novels?

That’s because they don’t know how to read. I can’t name three first-rate literary critics in the United States . I’m told there are a few hidden away at universities, but they don’t print them in The New York Times .

The joys of not caring, since the 1990s it's a lesson we too soon forget. Thanks GV.

Chardonnay Socialists?

2008-06-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

This may be your perfect tipple

Rebellion Ballarat Goldfields Chardonnay 2005
"A very complex wine; fully ripened melon, stone fruit and fig fruit; good oak handling, and a long finish. Screwcap 13.5° alc. RATING 94 DRINK 2018"

And at $14.90 from Dan Murphy's, that's a steal.

I bumped into a bottle of the 2004 on the weekend, and it was lovely.

The bottle even features a Eureka Flag motif.

GOLD!

When do you leave work?

2008-06-16T01:38:00.000-07:00

a) When the age online has posted its last update;

b) When there's no one in the office left to drink with;

c) When your boss pisses off to HIS "family"; or

d) When you have actually finished all your work.

queens birthday weekend, 2008. canberra

2008-06-16T00:53:00.001-07:00

There are some bad people on the right

2008-06-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

and when i get that feeling,

2008-06-09T22:45:00.001-07:00

radiohead - nude. remix.

2008-06-08T03:18:00.000-07:00

Bike Race

2008-06-07T07:43:00.001-07:00

I'm helping run a little bike race.

Results
Pictures

please come, it's fun

Henson

2008-06-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

Art
porn
I cannot say
I have not seen a single image
NOTHING
all I hear is
the usual
hysteria
slash
shit
people telling me what I SHOULD THINK.
but i have not seen anything
how do I know
what
to
think
all i know is that I am not allowed to make up my own mind
I must be told
and humbly
I SUBMIT
But heaven forbid
I should be able to think
waiter
pour another drink
I go online
I get

gavin henson
charlotte church
kermit the frog
it's so hard to think these days
but I feel very safe
and protected
from myself

Wrong Treats

2008-06-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

swervedriver
recovery
dylan lewis
jane gazzo
wrong treats
oh to be 14 again

Milf Wine?

2008-06-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

Sutton Vineyard Chardonnay 2004
An extra degree of concentration to the nectarine, peach and melon fruit; evident but restrained use of French oak and lees contact, though no mlf. One wonders whether the price is simply inspired by the old adage 'if you don't ask, you don't get'. Screwcap 13.2° alc. RATING 94 DRINK 2015

No milf?

Wonder what Halliday is getting at there?

2008-06-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

if i'm ever in nyc, i owe this foxy lady a beer for that.

400 posts

2008-06-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

400 hundred posts
have gone by
and I have decided to
make my first resolution...

be more NOW.

shorter, faster, meaninglesser

but more present

more prescient

more ethereal.

time to go to bed.

In the City

2008-05-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

Nice intro!

"myopic", I just like saying it.

Telling

2008-05-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

Some times people can quite innocently let slip the hidden agendas that motivate political parties.

I liked Pauline Hanson wannabe Kate McCulloch's Camden Islamic College motivated anecdote from today's SMH:

"Look, scores of people are coming up to me and saying, 'Good on you, Kate … you're saying what we're too scared to 'cos of racial vilification laws, but we all think it.' I would like to keep our place like it is and I guess [joining the] Liberals would be natural," she told the Herald.

I guess that is the unspoken, dog whistling view of the Liberal Party on race for you.

They aren't overtly racist, but if you want to vote for the team that keeps your white picket fence white, then vote Liberal.

hypothetical #1 of indeterminate set

2008-05-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

You've won US$50 billion on a scratch ticket that you picked up with the change from your big M.

Buy the Amazon

or

control Aids

i think i'd take the aids control. at least there's political will for mitigating climate change.

unless of course, it was a complete set of books from amazon.com. then humanity be damned. i'm locking myself away.

Legal Systems Sets New Standards of Justice and Efficiency

2008-05-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

Now we all like like truth and justice to prevail.

But haven't three supreme court justices got better things to do with their time than fighting for the pardon of a dead man, hanged 86 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a terrible miscarriage of justice.

But history is the realm of historians, not sitting judges.

Age of Consent

2008-05-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Phillip Adams wrote yesterday about lowering the voting age to 16 years.

I'm all for this idea, but why stop at 16 years.

Why not go further, why not 14 or 15?

I would imagine the average 14 year old is more than capable of making a rational political choice.

I mean, what's holding us back.

We can argue that Children can be easily lead, or bribed, but then so can adults.

If the aged and infirm can vote, why not the young.

The average 14 year old these days is much more tuned in to the wider world than a 14 year old of twenty years ago.

The Internet has meant that today's kids are constantly monitoring the events of the day.

I think the time has come to welcome young adults into the franchise!

But of course there were no teenagers at 2020 to lead the charge were there! All the more reason why we need to extend the vote to the young'uns.

Boris Lord of Londinium

2008-05-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

Ah well, poor old Red Ken was looking a bit long in the tooth.

Looks like New Labour is going the way of Old John Howard but.

Click on the image to get the full cock munching affect :D

Suffering

2008-04-24T21:22:00.001-07:00

Levi Stubbs Tears

2008-04-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite songs.