February 06, 2009 | Graham

Japanese whalers are slow learners

When Japanese whalers were rammed in Antarctic waters by Greenpeace three years ago it took them days to get the evidence to support their side of the story up on the web. Today is the third time that they claim to have been rammed, but only the first time […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 9:58 pm | Comments (10)
Filed under: Media

February 06, 2009 | Graham

Hitchhikers guide to economics

Appropriately enough, if you have read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or heard the original BBC Radio series, this post is driven entirely by coincidence.
But has it struck anyone as a little odd that the answer to the current GFC is $42 billion, an answer which is derived […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 10:01 am | Comments Off on Hitchhikers guide to economics
Filed under: Economics

February 06, 2009 | Graham

Cash grants versus tax cuts

(Cross posted from What the people want)
Federal Parliamentarians are debating whether tax cuts or cash grants are more effective in encouraging spending. Our research suggests that it probably doesn’t make much difference.
Between January 30 and February 3, 1573 Australians gave us their views on politics and the economy. This […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 8:30 am | Comments (1)
Filed under: Economics

February 05, 2009 | Graham

Drought, but no mention of global warming

Scientists from UNSW, UTAS and CSIRO think they know what is causing the drought across Australia. Not global warming, or at least it doesn’t get a run in the news report, but the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
I don’t think this is actually new news, but the scientists are to […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 9:11 pm | Comments (4)
Filed under: Environment

February 05, 2009 | Graham

More evidence please

Kevin Rudd should be thanking Malcolm Turnbull for holding up his $42 billion recession buster bill. Not only will a process of review make the bill better, but he now has an opportunity to demonise the opposition and drive their vote down even further.
And we need a better process […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 8:31 am | Comments (8)
Filed under: Economics

February 04, 2009 | Graham

Treasury ETS modelling fails peer review

There’s a certain line of argument in the greenhouse debate that says only those documents that have been peer-reviewed are worth anything. It’s a strange line of argument. I have a vision of a queue of facts all in a quantum state, waiting for a bureaucratic process to either […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 11:45 am | Comments Off on Treasury ETS modelling fails peer review
Filed under: Environment

February 04, 2009 | Graham

Panic stations

The Australian government has announced a $42 billion “rescue” package for the Australian economy.
What sort of economic analysis says that we have gotten ourselves into trouble by maxing out the collective credit card to buy consumer goods, so here is another credit card, max this one out too and […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 7:53 am | Comments (5)
Filed under: Economics

February 03, 2009 | Graham

ETS another sub-prime?

At one stage I thought that an emissions trading scheme was probably the best way of moving away from a carbon economy, but the real world says it isn’t.
Federal parliament today sits for the first time this year and one of the issues on the notice paper will be […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 7:55 am | Comments (2)
Filed under: Environment

January 30, 2009 | Graham

Coverage converged on Obama

More people watched Barrack Obama’s inauguration via the web than on broadcast TV. (Hat tip to FastGov).
That may be the moment when television ceased to be Television anymore (to borrow from Nicholas Negroponte who said “[t]he key to the future of television is to stop thinking about television […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 12:32 pm | Comments (4)
Filed under: Media

January 28, 2009 | Ronda Jambe

And the beat goes on…..

It was stinking hot in Canberra, but I couldn’t very well use the heat as an excuse not to attend the Climate Action Summit, could I? I slid into my seat in the packed ANU auditorium as Clive Hamilton delivered some political truths, all bad news. That much I […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Ronda Jambe at 1:14 pm | Comments Off on And the beat goes on…..
Filed under: Environment
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