I haven’t had anything to say about the asylum-seeker issue so far in my blogging career, mainly because I don’t think either facts or arguments are going to change many people’s minds. But I agree with most of what today’s Oz Editorial has to say. For my thoughts as of last year, you can read this.

Let me welcome our latest ‘conservative’ blogger, Alan Anderson,in the traditional fashion, by slamming one of his posts. Alan writes:

“At last! A Higher Education Minister who is prepared to point out the stupidity of a small country having a dozen universities doing the same thing. A bit of specialisation would drive our education dollars a lot further. ”

My take:
(1) In a country the size of Australia, it makes sense to do most things in at least a dozen places (the capital city and one regional centre in each state). Does Alan (or Brendan) think it’s a good idea that all future pharmacists should go to Perth for their studies?
(2) Diversity and specialisation makes sense within a given city. But there was much more diversity 15 years ago, before competition and rationalisation forced everyone to converge on a common market-driven model. In the name of specialisation, nearly every university has introduced a ‘flagship’ MBA, while crippling Arts and Science faculties. At the same time they have converged on a top-heavy managerialist model with one administrator (or even more) for every academic.
(3) What is ‘conservative’ about a higher education system run on the basis of ministerial whim? Social democrats have learned from experience that central planning isn’t as easy as it sounds. This isn’t a reason for not planning, but it certainly suggests a bit of caution. By contrast, once politicians with a ‘free-market’ ideology take up interventionism, good sense goes out the window. Examples include: Jeff Kennett, Kate Carnell and the Howard government in election mode.
For my detailed views on this subject, you can go here.
Having got the bagging out of the way, it’s time for the welcome. It looks like Alan has plenty to say, and will be a welcome addition to our ever-expanding circle.

As Mickey Kaus would say, a new report making big downward revisions in estimates of US economic growth for the last three years “requires further study”. But the likelihood of a renewed recession, starting this quarter or next must now be at least 50-50.
My initial take on the US data is that it shows a declining trend in growth from 1999 onwards, overlaid by an ‘inventory cycle’. That is, when it became clear that the dotcoms were undergoing a meltdown rather than a correction (late 2000), businesses all along the supply chain found themselves stuck with unsalable equipment and stopped ordering, generating the mini-recession of 2001. The end of this process produced the current ‘recovery’. On this interpretation, the real recession, bringing savings back into line with investment etc, is yet to come.

(2/8/02): The Economist has more on this

I’ve just encountered the (apparently) infamous disappearing Archives problem with Blogger. This, and some other difficulties that are apparently chronic but not fixed, raises in my mind the question of whether I’ve done the equivalent of a computer newbie buying a Windows machine because “that’s what everyone else does.”
PS: The instructions for making archives reappear seem to have worked, though this took some time. But I’d still be interested to hear from users of Movable Type and other systems, or to be given pointers to sites where the merits of different approaches are discussed/debated.

An interesting post from Wafin.com; Serving Moroccans in the U.S. which discusses the prospects for Morocco’s “democratic European future”. Given that Morocco is in North Africa, this might seem something of a contradiction in terms. But the concept of ‘Europe’ is expanding all the time. I predict that the success or failure of the European idea will be the big historical issue of the first half of the 21st century, outweighing or subsuming such questions as American hyperpower and the conflict between Islam and the West.

A Labour-dominated committee of MPs has demanded an urgent review of Britain’s air traffic control network, warning that partial privatisation has created a debt-laden, “penny pinching” structure which could terminally damage national interests.
The MPs are proposing another application of the ‘British model’ for renationalisation, namely conversion to a non-profit trust with government backing.
To read my take on nationalisation and renationalisation, look at today’s AFR (registration required). I’ll post this on the website soon.