Data and anecdotes
By jquiggin | May 1, 2008
Among the outcomes produced by a market economy, real wages are arguably the most important single variable for most people. With inflation rising around the world, and sensitive prices like those of food and petroleum going up a lot, most people’s living standards depend mainly on whether wages grow faster than prices. I got a couple of pieces of info on this today, which illustrate the difference between data and anecdote.
In my morning email, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (pdf file) advised that the US employment cost index (hourly wages + benefits) rose by 3.5 per cent last year, less than the inflation rate of about 4 per cent*. This continues a trend of declining real wages since 2003.
This afternoon, I looked at the NY Times to see a story about stagnant real wages in Europe, which began with a lengthy voxpop about a couple who had bought a breadmaker because baguettes were too dear, and continued in much the same vein. Deep within the article was the information that eurozone prices have risen by 22.5 per cent since 1999. But despite various claims about the declining purchasing power of wages, there is not a single piece of statistical evidence on wages anywhere in the story. Instead, we got a lengthy and inevitably inconclusive discussion of what constitutes the “middle class.
A quick visit to Eurostat reveals that Eurozone wages have risen about 30 per cent since 2000. German wages have increased by about 20 per cent, so the article’s claims of stagnation appear to be about right for Germany, but not for the EU as a whole. Of course, to do things properly you’d want to consider the impact of food prices on low-income households. But given the focus on the middle class, it seems reasonable to suppose that the price index measures the standard of living for the average middle class household reasonably well.
It seems sad that the NY Times has to cover issues like this by anecdote, but I guess it gets them a lot more readers than the BLS email statistics series.
* The US Fed prefers to focus on the “core” inflation rate, excluding food and energy prices, a use of “core” even more impressive than John Howard’s. so it says the rate is about 2 per cent. And the reforms to the CPI introduced by the Boskin Commission in the 1990s reduced the measured inflation rate by a percentage point or so, meaning that the current rate is comparable to 5 per cent inflation on the measures used in the 1970s and 1980s.
Topics: Economics - General, Media | 18 Comments »
Substance and symbols
By jquiggin | May 1, 2008
I don’t have much comment on the government’s measures to remove a wide variety of discrimination against same-sex couples, except to observe that this ought to put an end to the canard that the Rudd government is “all about symbolism”. This is an issue where Howard tried hard to push the symbolism of gay marriage as a wedge, and deservedly failed.
Topics: Oz Politics | 17 Comments »
Wong on water
By jquiggin | May 1, 2008
I’ve been too busy to do a proper assessment of the water policy announcement made on Tuesday by Penny Wong. The good news is that the government is finally getting moving on buying back water from irrigators, on a “willing seller” basis. That’s a significant change from the previous government, who clearly viewed buybacks as a last resort. However, as the ACF has pointed out, the previous plan did identify $3 billion for this purpose. It remains to be seen whether the government will take the shift further by applying more stringent cost benefit analysis to the engineering works favoured under the previous plan.
So, as with most things under the new government, a good start, but we’ll have to wait for more.
Topics: Environment | 20 Comments »
When good spamcatchers go bad
By jquiggin | April 30, 2008
Akismet, my spam filter, is going a bit wild at present, after a long period when it worked fairly reliably. I’ve rescued six comments from the spam queue just now, but I may well have missed some.
As noted in a previous post, I’ve also become much harder on trolls, so there’s more going to moderation. If you’ve been banned and want to be readmitted on a promise of better behavior in future, you can write to me and ask. If you’ve been banned and you think your previous postings were just fine, post them somewhere else - I’m not interested.
Topics: Metablogging | 4 Comments »
Videoseminar today at ANU
By jquiggin | April 29, 2008
Sorry again for late notice, but I’ll be presenting a video seminar 1pm today at ANU on intergenerational equity. For details contact Ralf Steinhauser on ph: 61 2 6125 4667.
Report: This was a bit of a bleeding edge experience, though it worked OK in the end. The big problem was presenting slides at the same time as video of me talking. ANU was expecting a hardware solution (dual video) while UQ was expecting a software solution (NetMeeting or Bridgit). Fortunately, I had sent the presentation ahead of time, so someone at the ANU end was able to run it for me. But I’ll have to develop a standard procedure for this.
I’ve attached the presentation (in PDF format)here
Topics: Economics - General, Environment | 16 Comments »
One less stupid idea to worry about
By jquiggin | April 29, 2008
The Queensland government has abandoned the idea of piping water from the Burdekin to the Southeast corner. A $350 000 study by GHD concluded that the proposal would be ruinously (as in $14 billion) expensive. I could have told them that for free, just by looking at the studies on Colin’s canal. Still, the Beatty government originally announced plans to spend $3 million on a feasibility study, so the GHD study is a bargain. And the big news is that the proposal is dead, once and for all.
Topics: Economics - General, Environment | 22 Comments »
War crimes trials?
By jquiggin | April 28, 2008
It’s not that surprising to read that former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has called for an international tribunal to try Western leaders with war crimes over the war in Iraq, nominating Bush, Blair and Howard in particular. Mahathir is well-known as a provocateur, with a fondness for extreme statements, which have included anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros and others. So it’s unlikely that anyone will pay much attention to him.
Still, his views on Iraq as a war crime are widely shared. It scarcely seems beyond the bounds of possibility that someone like Baltasar Garzon might find a legal way to file criminal charges (Wikipedia says he’s already threatened a civil suit.
Such charges would have enough factual and legal support to make the outcome unpredictable if they ever came before a tribunal. Apart from the general question of the legality of the war itself, the US in particular has openly denied the applicability of the Geneva Conventions and has engaged in many actions (torture of prisoners, bombing of occupied civilian areas, reprisal attacks of various kinds) that at least arguably violate the Conventions.
On the other hand, the prospect of Bush, or any US official, for that matter, actually standing trial, let alone being convicted or punished, seems unthinkable. The only consistent inference that I can draw from this is that, if charges are ever laid in any jurisdiction, the governments concerned will find a way to abort the process without allowing the substantive issues to come before a court. Since most of the doctrines that might be used to achieve such an outcome (sovereign immunity, non-interference in internal affairs and so on) have already been repudiated, it seems as if such an outcome could only be justified in terms of a bald claim of “reasons of state”.
Are there any legal experts who can help me out here? I have two main questions:
1. Where if at all, might charges be brought against Bush and others?
2. How would the hearing of these charges be prevented?
Topics: World Events | 132 Comments »
BrisScience tonight: animals and colour, sex and violence
By jquiggin | April 28, 2008
Very late notice, I know, but I thought I’d put in a plug for tonight’s Bris Science lecture at City Hall, on
WHY ARE ANIMALS COLOURFUL? SEX AND VIOLENCE, SEEING AND SIGNALS - Professor Justin Marshall
Details and future events over the page
Topics: Science | No Comments »
Monday Message Board
By jquiggin | April 28, 2008
It’s time once again for the Monday Message Board. Please post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
Topics: Metablogging | 16 Comments »
We shall remember them (reposted from 2005)
By jquiggin | April 25, 2008
On Anzac Day, there are two important things to remember
* Thousands of brave men died at Gallipoli and in the Great War and we should always honour their memory
* The Gallipoli campaign was a bloody and pointless diversionary attack in a bloody and pointless war. Millions were killed over trivial causes that were utterly irrelevant by the time the war ended. The 1914-8 War only paved the way for the even greater horrors of Nazism and Stalinism. Nothing good came of it.
From what I’ve seen of the last surviving Diggers they were fully aware of both of these things. At one time, it seemed possible that, as the generation who fought in the war passed on, we would forget the first of them. Now the danger is that we will forget the second. We should judge as harshly as possible the political and religious leaders who drove millions, mostly young men, to their deaths, and honour the handful who stood out against the War, including Bertrand Russell and Pope Benedict XV.
Topics: Life in General | 39 Comments »
Keating haters
By jquiggin | April 24, 2008
Throughout the days of the previous government, its media cheer squad denounced anyone who dared to criticise the government as a “Howard-hater”. This seemed to me to be either a silly piece of rhetoric or just plain wrong. To the extent that it was simply a label for anyone who disliked the government’s policies and therefore disliked the government and its leader, it was just a silly piece of hyperbole. A more natural reading is the claim that people who had no particular quarrel with the government’s policies opposed it because of a personal hatred of Howard. This seems to me to be just plain wrong. I don’t think I ever met anyone who liked the government’s policies but strongly disliked Howard himself (by contrast, other government ministers like Abbott and Costello were widely disliked on a personal basis). It’s notable that the only hostile nickname for him that ever really stuck (the Rodent) was due to one of his own backbenchers and didn’t emerge until 2004. The flipside was that very few people loved Howard in the way that many other political leaders have been loved. Liberal supporters stuck to him as long as he won elections, and forgot about him as soon as he lost one.
The only personal hatred that has any real force in Australian politics is hatred of Paul Keating. This emerged very clearly in relation to the 2020 summit but it’s true more generally that Keating has remained an energising figure for right wing culture warriors more than a decade after his departure. Whenever they go on about the chardonnay-sipping or latte-drinking elites it’s patently obvious that this stuff bears no relation to the current generation of Labor leaders. I have no idea what kind of drinks Kevin Rudd or Anna Bligh or any of the others favor, and Rudd is certainly more intellectually cultivated than Keating ever was, but the idea that they are members of some cultural class distinct from the ordinary Australians is patently silly.
Update: I posted this partly completed, there’s more over the fold now
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Oz Politics | 45 Comments »
The flame of nationalism
By jquiggin | April 24, 2008
As the Olympic torch touches down in Australia, it is hard to see how any good can come of the entire exercise.
After Kevin Rudd’s visit to Beijing, which seemed to herald a newly mature relationship between Australia and China, we’ve spent a week or more embroiled in a petty squabble, of a kind which is all too familiar in international relations, over the role of Chinese torch attendants/security guards, with the Australian government insisting that all security will be provided by our police and the Chinese saying that the attendants will “protect the torch with their bodies”.
George Orwell observed over 60 years ago that
Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.
and history since then has given plenty of examples. It looks as if the 2008 Olympics will join them.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Politics (general), Sport | 58 Comments »
RSMG blog back on air
By jquiggin | April 23, 2008
After a period of quiescence, the Risk and Sustainable Management Group blog is back on the air. Some recent posts:
David on Monopoly Buyers and Market Based Instruments looks at the buyback of water from irrigators
David on Aus gets bigger but has funding increased? asks whether the expansion of our territorial waters will be matched by an increase in management capacity. (JQ notes:Certainly the responsible minister, Martin Ferguson, seems concerned only with the possibility of striking oil).
Peggy reports on the International salinity forum
Wander over, read and discuss!
Topics: Environment, Metablogging | Comments Off
Elites
By jquiggin | April 21, 2008
The most amusing outcome of the 2020 summit has undoubtedly been the spectacle of Alexander Downer, grandson of Sir John Downer, son of Sir Alexander Downer, old boy of Geelong Grammar, former Director of the Australian Chamber of Commerce, former Foreign minister, now enjoying retirement on full salary at the expense of the Australian taxpayer, denouncing the participants as “elites”.
Of course, Downer has been backed up by his leading rival in the “anti-elitist” toffee-nosed snob stakes, Professor David Flint.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Oz Politics | 108 Comments »
2020
By jquiggin | April 21, 2008
The 2020 summit kept me too busy to blog. Looking back on the weekend I have a range of impressions.
* Rudd’s opening speech was inspiring, one of the best I’ve heard from him. The same was true of the opening ceremony as a whole.
* As numerous speakers said, the sense of new possibilities and a new openness to ideas has been one of the striking outcomes of the change of government, to an extent that has certainly surprised me.
* In many areas, including the water and climate change sessions, the real message was not so much the need for new ideas (though there were some good ones) but the need to act much more urgently on what we already know
* From the government’s point of view, the Summit had a couple of effects. One was to shake up the policy agenda, giving Rudd the chance to pick up a lot of ideas that are broadly consistent with Labor’s policy platform but got crowded out of discussion in the course of me-too election campaigning. The other is to raise expectations that the government will actually achieve things in areas like climate change and indigenous policy, rather than putting a better spin on marginal changes to the policies inherited from Howard.
* It was already obvious that, with Howard gone, and Labor in office, the Republic issue would return to the agenda. It’s something we have to come to anyway, and is just awaiting the right mood of national optimism. To sustain what is bound to be a fairly lengthy debate, we need more than the natural optimism of an electoral honeymoon. For that reason, I hope, and expect, that concrete moves towards a Republic will be deferred for a while, until the government has some concrete achievements to celebrate.
Topics: Oz Politics | 77 Comments »
Monday Message Board
By jquiggin | April 21, 2008
It’s time once again for the Monday Message Board. Please post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
Topics: Metablogging | 11 Comments »
Guest post from John Mashey
By jquiggin | April 18, 2008
I got a very long comment from John Mashey caught in moderation, so I’ve decided to put it up as a guest post. John makes a number of important points, but doesn’t convince me that oil is essential to economic activity, for reasons I hope to spell out in a reply. In the meantime, readers are invited to chew on this. As always, but particularly for guest posts, civilised and courteous discussion please.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Economics - General, Environment | 58 Comments »
Food
By jquiggin | April 16, 2008
The big increase in food prices over the last six months or so raises lots of issues, of which I’ll try to cover a few.
The first arises from the fact that prices for commodities, including oil as well as most ag commodities, are typically quoted in $US. In a situation where, for obvious reasons, the value of the $US is declining against all major currencies, this can be quite misleading. Measured against the euro, the currency of the world’s largest unified economy, the increase looks a lot less steep. The declining usefulness of the $US as a unit of account is another step in the process of transition away from a world in which the $US is a reserve currency. More on what will replace it soon, I hope.
In substantive terms, the increase in $US commodity prices is a big problem for the many Asian economies that have pursued some kind of peg to the $US as a means of maintaining export competitiveness. The adverse impact on domestic consumers is now becoming obvious, and the only solution is to abandon the dollar peg and allow an appreciation. China is already moving in this direction.
A second important point is the impact of demand from the biofuel sector, particularly for corn in the US. The idea of making biofuels from food crops was always problematic and the subsidy regime in the US makes it more so. The current food crisis should make subsidies for food-based biofuels politically and economically untenable, pushing the industry away from this easy short term solution and in the direction of sources such as switch grass, grown on marginal or non-arable land.
Finally, the biggest increases have been in wheat prices, reflecting the drought in Australia and in some other wheat producing countries (Kazakstan?). It seems likely, though it’s still impossible to prove, that human-induced climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of drought. So, it’s important not to regard climate change as a problem for the future. In all probability, adverse effects are already here.
Topics: Economics - General, Environment | 85 Comments »
Trolls
By jquiggin | April 15, 2008
I’ve become much less tolerant of trolls lately and have banned several, here and at Crooked Timber. Simply put, after blogging for six years, I’m no longer interested in, and no longer have time for, dealing with people who are rude and insulting, particularly if they are rude and insulting to me (biased I know, but I do the work to produce this blog and it comes with my biases). I’ve given such people lots of warnings, but in most cases it hasn’t worked. So, from now on, trolls will get one warning if I’m feeling generous and none if I’m not.
Anyone who would like to whine about censorship is welcome to do so, but not here. There are many services offering free, and easily established, blogs where your complaints about being silenced can be published. This is my blog, and I publish what I feel like publishing.
I am interested in serious discussion from all reasonable points of view, from classical liberal to radical socialist in economic terms, all kinds of different positions regarding environmentalism, and so on. However, I no longer have the patience to deal with recirculated talking points from the rightwing parallel universe on the Iraq war, climate change and so on. If people sincerely want answers to such points, I’ll try to set them straight, but I’m not going to engage in prolonged debate on this kind of thing, or encourage it in comments threads.
Topics: Metablogging | 40 Comments »
Monday Message Board
By jquiggin | April 14, 2008
It’s time once again for the Monday Message Board. Please post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
Topics: Metablogging | 12 Comments »