Creative giving part 3

John Quiggin470 Comments

Aus-Halfmoon-Wattle-2

I haven’t managed to come up with a creative new idea for helping the tsunami aid appeals, so I’m going to copy Michele Agnew. From now until midnight Sunday, I’ll give one $A to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal for each comment[1] I receive on this post, up to a maximum of 1000.

To add a tiny element of novelty, I’m inviting others to join the effort by sponsoring this offer at whatever rate they can afford. You can work out your maximum exposure from the limit, for example, if you offer 5 cents a comment, you’re promising to give up to $50.

If you’re interested, please send me an email at j dot quiggin at uq dot edu dot au. I’ll record it in the updates with your name, pseudonym or anonymously as you prefer. When the appeal is over, I’ll write and tell you how much you’ve promised. Feel free to nominate a charity of your choice.

Update The Eudora mail server is running hot, with the first contributor to join the effort already coming through:
“William Burroughs’ Baboon” says pls put me down for 10c per comment
Update 10:12 pm An anonymous regular reader offers 50 cents per comment, nominating World Vision
rdb offers 50 cents per comment
Nicholas Gruen offers to match me dollar for dollar, in return for an ad. Accepted!
That’s $4.10 $3.10 per comment! (sorry for late-night arithmetic errors)

Update 6am
An anonymous regular reader offers 15c per comment
“Saint Straightjacket” offers 20c per comment, up to $300

So we’re up to $3.45 per comment, and the total amount raised is nearly $500, with most of the day still left to come.

It’s particularly good to see lots of visitors from Tim Blair’s blog – a reminder that, whatever our disagreements, we can all work together at a time like this.

In the comments, Tim has offered $100 if I shave my beard off. That’s nowhere near enough, but I’m eager to secure Tim’s money for the cause so I’m making a counteroffer in the spirit of national unity and cash for comment. If Tim will give $100, I’ll write a 200 word post saying exclusively good things about John Howard. I’m willing to increase the amount proportionally for further pledges from Tim’s (or my) readers, until I run out of good things to say.

Update 10:30am We’re well over 200 comments now, and thanks to the generosity of cosponsors, within sight of the original target of $1000, with the capacity to raise a lot more

wmmbb has offered 20c a comment, up to a total of 500
Mark Bahnisch has offered 10c a comment

I’m really impressed by all of this. Quite a few cosponsors have offered more, in relation to their means, than my starting offer. This is one area where I’m unreservedly in favour of competition, and I’m already thinking about my next move.

I’d also like to thank everyone who’s linked to the post. In particular, I now have a full set of Tims, at least among the blogs I read regularly: Tim Blair, Tim Dunlop, Tim Lambert and Tim T have all sent visitors this way. For any other Tims or non-Tims who want to link, there’s still more than 12 hours to go.

Update 1:34pm
Crossing the ideological divide, Andrew Norton offers 10c a comment
Paul2 also offers 10c
wmmbb offers 10c more
Harry Clarke offers 20c up to 500 comments

That puts us over $4 a comment, and with well over 300 comments, we’ve easily passed the original goal of $1000. But there’s still plenty of money on the table, so keep the comments coming in.

I forgot to mention it when I put this post up, and I’m not going to worry too much about it today, but this is a PG blog, so no more coarse language, please. Double entendres and dirty jokes are fine, as long as they’re funny.

I’ve had the first taker on the Howard challenge. “2dogs” has sent in his $50 to the Red Cross, and emailed me the receipt, earning 100 words of sincere praise from me for John Howard, to be published as soon as I’ve tallied up the donations and tied myself to the keyboard. Come on Howard-lovers, and set me a real challenge. I could write that much defending Don Rumsfeld, and have done so. 1000 words in praise of Howard might give me some trouble.

And here’s the ad I promised Nicholas Gruen, who’s agreed to match my donations. If you click here you can see a further generous offer from him.

<img src="wordpress/wp-content/images/Peachanimatedgifbanner.gif" href="http://www.peachhomeloans.com.au/quiggin.htm&quot;

Update 6pm We’ve passed 400 comments and raised more than $1500. Looking at the current pace, there should be more than 500 comments by the time the appeal ends, but probably not many more than 600. A number of cosponsors have limited their contributions to an upper bound of 500 comments, thereby giving themselves a fair bit of certainty. Now I’m appealing for some risk-tolerant types to cosponsor the remaining comments, starting at number 501. Why don’t you put in, say, 50 cents a comment. There’s a small risk that you might be hit for $250, but in the absence of a last-minute surge, it’s more likely to be around $50.

Update 10:30pm

Jack Strocchi and Claire Rodda have promised 10c per comment up to 500

Down and Out in Sài Gòn has promised 50c for each comment over 500. At this stage, it looks as if he(?) will get off cheaply, so let’s have a flood of last-minute comments.

Final Midnight has come to Queensland, and we ended up with 470 comments. I’m off to bed now, but in the morning I’ll send my own contribution, rounded up to $500, and advise commenters how much they’ve promised to pay.

fn1. At my absolute discretion, I’ll delete bots, spammers, repetitive commenters etc. If you don’t trust me to act fairly in this respect, don’t participate.

Please, not Beazley

John Quiggin31 Comments

It’s back to another round of Labor leadership speculation, and, inevitably, the first name pulled out of the bag is that of Kim Beazley. I’ve made all the usual arguments against him too often to repeat them, but there’s a new one that I think is relevant.

On current indications (these could change of course, but they’re what we have to go on), Labor is unlikely to win in 2007, so a successful appointment as leader would need to serve two terms in Opposition before becoming PM. Presumably, the party would want at least the option of two full terms from their leader in these circumstances. So, we’re looking at electing someone who (if successful) might still be leading the party past 2015. Beazley is 56 now, and not, at least in my perception, a young 56. Leaving aside the fact that (IIRC) Labor still has compulsory retirement at 65, can anyone see him as a credible leader for the next ten years and beyond?

Of course, that’s his whole attraction for quite a few of his backers. He’s a safe choice, meaning that he’s pretty much guaranteed to lose and go quietly after the next election, allowing a comfortable ride for [insert preferred name here].

It might be objected that John Howard was the same age when the Libs elected him leader, and that turned out well for them. But the electoral position was much more favorable and, after the demise of Hewson and the failure of the Downer-Costello dream team, there was no real alternative. In any case, Howard is, and always has been, a much more substantial figure than Beazley in all but the most literal of senses.

Labor isn’t short of options. I favored Rudd last time around, and I think he’s probably the right choice this time. But I’d also be happy with Gillard, and there are a string of reasonably able candidates who might turn out well, either in the long-term or to hold things together while the party recovers from the last election. Finally, although it’s looking unlikely that Latham can hang on, I don’t think he’s done a bad job in the circumstances, and if he does manage to recover in both health and political terms, I’d be glad of it.

Weekend reflections

John Quiggin9 Comments

This regular feature is back on line. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.

Please post your thoughts on any topic, at whatever length seems appropriate to you. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.

Yobbo with a beard, part 2

John Quiggin10 Comments

I’ve widened the page to 800 points, which looks better to me. If this breaks anybody’s browser could they advise me and I’ll put it back. Better still if someone could tell me how to get a layout that would be smart in these respects, they would get the priceless award of a free post on a topic of their own choosing[1]

fn1. I was thinking of a guest post, but actually, if someone could show me how to do this, I’d be willing to write a post on any topic they nominated (the more outlandish the topic, the more off-topic the likely result, of course). Also, how can I get my footnotes in smaller type? Is there a problem with WordPress and Textile?

League tables

John Quiggin6 Comments

Via the Fin, I learn that Australia now comes in 10-th place on the Economic Freedom Index ahead of the US at 12. This is, perhaps not surprising, as I’ve previously observed that big government is good for economic freedom, at least as measured by the EFI. I don’t think this is entirely a spurious feature of the Index. A strong state can achieve its ends with less interference in individual freedom (economic and personal) than a weak one. For example, a volunteer army, paid for by high taxes, is less intrusive on freedom than systematic conscription which in turn is less intrusive than a press gang, or the kind of backdoor draft now being imposed in the US.

But if we are going to have international league tables, I’d much prefer that we continue the competition of the past few weeks, to see who can give the most generous, and effective assistance to the poor people of the world. There’s some more on this topic over at 52nd state. As is so often the case, I have a big post on this topic planned, but haven’t had time to write it.

Money-mouth intermediary needed

John Quiggin28 Comments

A decade or so ago, I wrote some modestly successful papers about the design of lotteries and the rationality or otherwise of buying lottery tickets. Having come to the conclusion that buying lottery tickets was (or at least could be) rational, it struck me that, apart from raffles and the odd birthday present, I’d never actually had a ticket in a proper lottery. So I went down to the newsagent on the assumption that I could hand over my money and get a chance at untold wealth. Instead I was confronted with a bizarrely complex lotto form (this was before scratchies, I think). I looked at it and decided it was too much trouble, and I would try to make my fortune the old-fashioned way[1].

Now I’m in a similar position. I’ve told the world the long-term US interest rate has to rise and, correspondingly, the price of US Treasury notes has to fall. Given that I don’t know when this will happen, I’m not willing to risk the unbounded losses of a short position. But I’d at least be willing to consider a modest flutter in put options, if the transactions costs weren’t too high and the settlement date were far enough in the future. However, although I’ve written plenty of papers about the properties of derivatives, the risks they pose to the world financial system and so on, I don’t know where or how to buy them, or what the costs are. The Sydney Futures Exchange seems to consider them too exotic. Any suggestions on easy ways to join George Soros and Warren Buffett will be greateful appreciated.

fn1. That is, as all Australian readers will know without being told, through real estate speculation.

Yobbo with a beard

John Quiggin17 Comments

I’ve still been getting reports that people have been having trouble reading the new WordPress blog. Fellow blogger “Yobbo” has kindly supplied me with his template, and I’ve followed his suggestion that I should differentiate by adding a beard. I’d very much appreciate reports on the change. At this stage, I want to focus mainly on blog-critical problems like unreadability due to overlaps between posts and sidebars, but I’ll also happily accept suggestions for colour schemes and so on. I’d like to hear from

* Readers who had problems with the old layout that have now been resolved

* Readers who have problems with the new layout that weren’t present in the old

* Readers who have continuing problems

Instant update The page looks too narrow for my liking, and I’ve already had one request to widen it. If it’s already filling your screen, and a wider format would cause problems, please advise me ASAP. If you agree that it’s too narrow, also please advise.

Curiouser and curiouser

John Quiggin9 Comments

My piece in today’s Fin puts the argument that long-term US interest rates must rise in view of the many pressures (increasing inflation, massive trade and budget deficits) in that direction, and that intervention to hold them down will eventually fail. (I’ve put it over the fold)

Coincidentally, the US trade deficit for November came in at $60 billion, easily breaking the previous records, and despite lower prices and a sustained devaluation relative to the euro, $A and other currencies (though not the Chinese renminbi).

This was, as far as I can tell a surprise to the markets (unchanged at $55 billion) was the par prediction, and the US dollar promptly weakened. But the 10-year bond rate remained unchanged. This makes no sense at all, but I’ve given up expecting financial market outcomes to make sense. General Glut has a chart from Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute on another aspect of the puzzle as well as detailed commentary on the trade figures summed up by the observation This report is ugly 1000 ways till Sunday

I think a partial resolution of the puzzle in the Scott chart is that the last turnaround in the trade deficit was achieved through a combination of depreciation, budgetary tightening, higher interest rates and demand contraction (that is, a recession). The same was true, broadly speaking, in Australia. There is, in general, no painless way of fixing a trade deficit on this scale.
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The IPA concedes

John Quiggin25 Comments

There’s an interesting piece in today’s Fin (subscription required) from John Roskam of the IPA. Looking at the possibility of big tax cuts from the current government, he bags Howard’s conversion to tax-and-spend social democracy before and during the 2004 campaign. He goes on to say

There is no overwhelming demand from the public to lessen taxes and, indeed, this is the nub of the problem confronting Liberal MPs and anyone else committed to tax reform

On the other hand, there is an overwhelming demand for better public services, and Howard has promised to meet that demand. Supporters of tax reform should seek to convince the public rather than taking advantage of an essentially accidental parliamentary majority to push through policies for which they have no mandate.