Tuesday , March 19 2024
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John Quiggin

Monday Message Board

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here. Share this:Like Loading...

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From micro to macro, Andrew Leigh’s accessible history covers the economic essentials: My review from The Conversation

Andrew Leigh’s The Shortest History of Economics is the latest in a series of such histories, mostly focused on particular countries. It begins with a striking mini-history of household lighting, focusing on the amount of labour required to produce the light now given off by a standard lightbulb: 58 hours for a wood fire, five hours for a candle based on animal fat, a few minutes for an early electric lightbulb, and less than one second for a modern light-emitting diode. The...

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Monday Message Board

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here. Share this:Like Loading...

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Old

In a few days time, I’ll be lining up in the 65-69 category for the Mooloolaba Olympic triathlon (1500m swim, 40km cycle, 10km run)[1]. People in this age category are commonly described as “aging”, “older”, “seniors”, “elders” and, worst of all, “elderly” (though this mostly kicks in at 70). The one thing we are never called is “old”. But this is the only term that makes any sense. Everyone is aging, one year at a time, and a toddler is older than a baby. Senior and elder are...

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Dutton wants a ‘mature debate’ about nuclear power. By the time we’ve had one, new plants will be too late to replace coal

My latest in The Conversation via my Substack If you believe Newspoll and the Australian Financial Review, Australia wants to go nuclear – as long it’s small. Newspoll this week suggests a majority of us are in favour of building small modular nuclear reactors. A poll of Australian Financial Review readers last year told a similar story. These polls (and a more general question about nuclear power in a Resolve poll for Nine newspapers this week) come after a concerted effort...

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Monday Message Board

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here. Share this:Like Loading...

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Back to the office: a solution in search of a problem

Managers need to recognise that the best way to dissipate authority is to fail in its exercise My latest in Inside Story Authority is powerful yet intangible. The capacity to give an order and expect it to be obeyed may rest ultimately on a threat to sanction those who disobey but it can rarely survive large-scale disobedience. The modern era has seen many kinds of traditional authority come under challenge, but until now the “right of managers to manage” has remained largely...

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Light-touch competition policy hasn’t helped Australian mortgage holders. It’s time to get tough

My latest in The Guardian Just two weeks after Prof Allan Fels reported on the extent of monopoly power and resultant price gouging, Australia’s supreme body on competition law has delivered its answer. The Australian competition tribunal has determined that the banking industry has all the competition we need and that no harm will be done by allowing ANZ to swallow one of the few competitors to the Big Four by acquiring the banking operations of Suncorp. This was the latest in a...

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Monday Message Board

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here. Share this:Like Loading...

Read More »

Monday Message Board

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here. Share this:Like Loading...

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