Jericho making sense, again

Business leaders should stop whingeing about Australia’s competitiveness | Business | theguardian.com

Greg Jericho is in fine form having a go at big business and its complaints, particularly the odious way Gina Rinehart pines for low wages for her mines and funds climate change disbelief.

Speaking of miners, what's with the ridiculous excuse for a newspaper The Australian and its thorough tongue bathing of Andrew Forrest and his welfare ideas this week?   Sure, Forrest has a  reputation for being genuinely concerned about poverty (unlike Rinehart, who gives the impression she's been envious since childhood of Uncle Scrooge being able to actually swim in his money,) but even so, why has the paper been so busy promoting his welfare report?   And then, it seems today that Shanahan's job has become to explain to the public why the Abbott government won't adopt it.

It would be intriguing indeed to see the emails (or listen in to telephone calls) that go into and out of the head office of The Australian at the moment.  

Update:   I see that Andrew Bolt tries to be helpful [/sarc] today, by criticising Forrest for saying aborigines are "economically jailed" (an oversimplification, I would agree), but then goes on to say it's not the fault of white people - it's the entire dysfunctional aboriginal culture that's at fault.  (!)

Well, that'll earn him points in the aboriginal reconciliation stakes.   It's entirely their fault they're stuck in poverty and a cycle of drug dependence, hey?

And here I thought my take on the matter (that in large part it is to do with aboriginal communities being often stuck in areas with extremely limited opportunities to do anything of economic value, and a reluctance to have policies encouraging them to move to areas where their children may have a future job) was an oversimplication.

Stimulus and austerity

I've been reading a few things on the matter of great economic debate of stimulus versus austerity.

First, Justin Wolfers says that survey results show that top flying American economists are nutty outliers (my wording, not Wolfer's) if they hold the position that the Obama stimulus of 2009 didn't help the economy.  They are more divided on whether it was worth the cost, but even then it runs more than two to one in favour of "yes, it was worth it."

Secondly, I stumbled across this article by Florian Schui which I thought gives a nice succinct summary of the intersection of politics and economics on this issue:

This is an evolutionary argument familiar from radical liberal thinkers such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Hayek. Crucially, their perspective does not give great prominence to questions of economic efficiency. Indeed, free societies a likely to experience periods of economic waste: periods of low growth may leave labour, capital and other resources underused. But free societies do better in the long run because they are better at evolving and adapting. The political aim must therefore be to contain the size of the state in order to leave space for the creative forces of society. That remains true even if cutting back the state hurts growth and economic efficiency in the short term. If you accept this view, it makes no sense to adapt the size of the state to the cyclical fluctuations of the economy. Rather, what is needed is a permanently smaller state to unleash the creative powers of society.

This argument has its merits but from an economic perspective there are some substantial problems associated with the Olympian perspective adopted by thinkers like Humboldt and Hayek. Mainly, they do not say how long the long run is. Other approaches to economic policy allow the public to verify concrete results after a few quarters or after a couple of years at the latest and decide whether to continue with a specific set of policies or not. But it is not clear when we can undertake a similar evaluation of the results of this kind of radical laissez faire. Every crisis no matter how long or deep may be interpreted as an unpleasant but necessary stretch on a superior evolutionary path. In practice, this means that economic results become irrelevant as a yardstick against which to judge economic policy. This is exactly what is happening in the case of austerity. There simply is no economic outcome that can convince proponents of austerity that they are on the wrong track. Their cause is not about economic efficiency but about a political goal: the preservation of liberty.

There are also social problems associated with the Olympian perspective of the likes of Humboldt and Hayek. Prussian aristocrats and tenured professors are in a position to look at economic crises, even if they lasts a decade or longer, as a mere transitory phase of hardship that is part of a superior evolutionary trajectory. More ordinary citizens may not be able to afford this kind of detached perspective on the economy. A longer crisis can ruin the life plans of individuals and lead to the collapse of social and political systems. That is why Keynes warned that the ‘long run is a misleading guide to current affairs’.

One may object that there is nothing wrong with giving priority to political values over the pursuit of economic maximisation and social welfare. Why should the defence of freedom not trump economic and social considerations? After all maximising growth and maximising human happiness can be two rather different things and most people would agree that the latter is more important. The preservation of liberty may very well warrant austerity policies that cut the state to size, even if they hurt economically.

While this is a valid argument it is questionable whether the trade-off between the size of the state and individual liberty really exists. The historical experience of Humboldt and Hayek certainly gave them reason to think of states as the enemies of individual freedom. In Humboldt’s time, towards the end of the 18^th century, absolutist states such as his native Prussia and republican states such as France were extremely ambitious in expanding their sphere of action, often at the expense of individual liberty. The same is true of the authoritarian states in Europe that Hayek witnessed in the 1920s and 30s.

However, a more complete vision of history also reveals the shortcomings of the simple equation of a larger state with greater oppression. Hayek predicted in the 1940s that planned economies would set mankind on a road to serfdom. In actual fact, the vast expansion of states across the western world in the post war decades coincided with an equally substantial increase of liberty for many contemporaries. Women and black people acquired more freedom than ever before and despite evident lapses western countries did rather well at protecting the individual rights of their citizens.

I think this sounds quite convincing, and goes along with my increasing feeling over the last few years that it is the small government ideologues who are truly ignoring history.   

And finally, this article in The Economist, which I've possibly linked to before, seems to give a very fair and balanced take on the matter.

History repeats - kinda

Why Did ISIS Destroy the Tomb of Jonah? | Mark Movsesian | First Things

From the post, a brief summary of the branch of Islam that ISIS represents:

ISIS is part of the Salafi movement, a branch of Sunni Islam that seeks to return to the practices of the earliest Muslims – the salaf—who lived at the time of the Prophet Mohammed and just after. The movement rejects the centuries of subsequent developments in Islam as
unjustified innovations–pagan accretions that adulterated the faith. In particular, the movement opposes the veneration of the graves of Islamic prophets and holy men. Salafis see this practice, which is associated most frequently with Sufi Islam, as a kind of idolatry, or shirk, that detracts from the absolute transcendence of God.

Salafi Islam prevails in Saudi Arabia, where it enjoys the patronage of the royal family. On the Arabian Peninsula, as now in Iraq, Salafis have destroyed the tombs of Islamic holy men. Indeed, when the Saudi royal family captured the city of Medina in the 19th century, Salafis
systematically destroyed the tombs of several of the Prophet Mohammed’s companions and family members, leaving only the Prophet’s tomb itself unmolested. There is some thought that the Saudi government plans on dismantling even that tomb, but hesitates to do so because of the uproar that would result in other Muslim communities.

In short, one should see ISIS’s destruction of the tomb of Jonah as an act principally directed at other Muslims, not Christians.

As someone says in comments following:

Can we just get this over with and acknowledge that ISIS is a 21st century version of Cromwell's army?

I initially thought that, given the images of heads on stakes in the media today, this may be being a bit harsh on Cromwell.  But I see that he was in fact ruthless, particularly in Ireland:

The first major town Cromwell and his army encountered when they landed in Ireland was Drogheda. He summoned the royalist commander and invited him to surrender. When he refused, Cromwell's model army seized the town and put the entire garrison of 2,500 officers and men to the sword. It was an act of ruthlessness which sent shockwaves of fear through the rest of Ireland. Other towns surrendered as soon as Cromwell's army approached, and their inmates were spared.

Only Wexford refused. During the siege there Parliamentarian troops broke into the town while negotiations for its surrender were ongoing, and sacked it, killing about 2,000 soldiers and 1,500 townspeople and burning much of the town.

 If one is desperate to find an optimistic take on this, I can try this:   Cromwell was operating pretty close to 1,600 years after the death of the founder of his religion.  ISIS is operating 1,400 years after the death of their's.   On this trajectory, Islam is perhaps 200 years ahead of Christianity's timetable towards becoming "mostly harmless", and everything should be looking good by 2200*.

*  Climate change will have given the world something else to fight over by then, anyway.

Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it...

I really think the sub editor coming up with the headlines at Slate is just trolling its readership with a title like this: 

Look Out Democrats.  The GOP's 2016 presidential hopefuls may be the best field in generations

I'll link to the article itself, not the headline.  The article seems to talk only about possible candidates we already know.  The headline is completely misleading...

Cell work not as careful as it should be

Contamination hits cell work

The article is all about the problem of mycoplasma contamination in laboratory cell cultures.

In fact, the problem is widespread. Hogenesch, a genome biologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and his colleague Anthony Olarerin-George have found that more than one-tenth of gene-expression studies, many published in leading journals, show evidence of Mycoplasma contamination¹. The infestations are undermining research findings and wasting huge amounts of money, Hogenesch says.

He should know. His lab quickly overcame an infestation last year, but a previous plague cost it some US$100,000 and a year of research. Mycoplasma takes hold quickly, he says. “All it takes is one person not to check, and — bam — you have it.” The bacterium often comes from lab workers, and is not killed by the antibiotics typically used to rid cell cultures of  contaminants. And unlike many other microorganisms, which turn the growth medium turbid, Mycoplasma leaves no visible signs of its presence.

I somehow thought they would already be more careful than this, but bacteria are hard to see, I guess.

Movie industry news, continued

I've had a few posts lately about how the international (especially Chinese) market is affecting Hollywood.

I'm surprised to read this morning that, within America itself, which is having a rather glum summer season in box office terms, the Hispanic market is really strong for cinema attendance.

You'd never know it from their presence in films, would you? 

For what it's worth, I'll repeat my criticisms of where the movie industry is at the moment:

*  Way too many comic derived superhero films.  Far, far too many.

*  A lack of particularly appealing young actors with clear star quality.

*  Comedy which has become too crude, made by men in permanent adolescent mode.

*  Too many sequels for films which barely deserve it.  More originality, please.

Why fly a stupid idea?

I heard Tony Abbott on the radio this morning saying that the "dole bludgers will have to apply for 40 jobs a month" was not firm policy - it was just a proposal and a "consultative" government does this to take on board public input before it decides, etc etc.

Oh sure.  This was the "consultative government" that gave us an enormous change in tertiary education, Medicare co-payments, and told the States that they're on their own to cover the increasing costs of health care, all without any consultation that I noticed.

This policy was a silly, over the top idea from the start, and it was stupid tactics of someone in this inept government to fly the kite just to watch it being shot down.

It again shows that the Coalition is, in large part, in a time warp when it comes to policy prescriptions.  (Mind you, any new ideas they do have are not that good either.)

What's the free marketeers' answer to this?

One problem with the world economy as noted by one Australian born OECD economist:

Another factor which Dr Blundell-Wignall says is holding back the recovery from the GFC is bank earnings.

"If you go back to 1980 the earnings of the financial sector of the S&P 500 companies was less than 10 per cent."

He says the proportion of Wall Street earnings by finance stocks is now more than 30 per cent, having risen above its share when the GFC hit.

"The financial sector is supposed to be the sector that intermediates between real savers and real investors. That's what greases the wheels of capitalism," he said.

"Where do we get of thinking that the financial sector can just rip one third of the earnings for themselves?

That does sound like a legitimate concern, and apart from letting banks and financial institutions fall when a crisis happens (and impoverishing millions of their customers in the process), I wonder what the small government, let business work itself out, types think about this.... 

An odd duck

Hans Christian Andersen’s painful fairy-tale life | TLS

I've never read much about HCA, but this review of a new biography of him is interesting.  I think I have heard of his disastrous meeting with Charles Dickens before, probably when reading a review of one of the latter's biographies:

Charles Dickens provides the best-known example of Andersen’s startling
capacity to misread the rules of social engagement (Sebastian Barry made the
awkwardness between the two men the subject of a thoughtful play in 2010).
Dickens and Andersen had much in common, both having worked their way from
unpromising beginnings to immense literary success. Dickens’s sympathy with
the underdog made him a natural ally for Andersen, and at first all went
well between them. But in 1857 Andersen went to stay with the Dickens
family, and failed to notice polite hints when several weeks passed, and it
was time to leave. Dickens was exasperated, while Kate Dickens called him a
“bony bore”. Binding passes over the embarrassment hastily, but he does
point out that Andersen must have found Dickens’s boisterous heartiness
baffling. Perhaps he was simply incapable of extricating himself from the
difficulties of the situation. He was an experienced house guest – in fact,
he never had a home of his own – but he was new to the rituals of
middle-class domesticity in England, and his grasp of English was never
strong. Andersen’s visit coincided with the final stages of Dickens’s dying
marriage, and Binding notes that Andersen’s unwelcome presence in the tense
household at Gad’s Hill may have influenced the preoccupations with class
and concealment in Great Expectations (1860), a novel crowded with
examples of people who can never quite fit in.

About the New York Times legalisation stance

The Injustice of Marijuana Arrests - NYTimes.com

This editorial piece in the New York Times promoting marijuana legalisation indicates what I have long thought is right - the overkill in drug criminalisation in that country (with severe compulsory sentences being one of the big culprits) is what is giving weight to the overly simplistic counter swing to the other "extreme" of complete legalisation.

The odd thing is, it seems that both of these two extremes spring from the two strands of the political Right - the conservatives are fond of the severe and disproportionate sentencing legislation, and the libertarian wing is only too happy to promote legalisation.

I remain highly skeptical that either of these approaches is right, and in particular, given the cultural climate in the country, find it hard to believe that legalisation will be good for the nation socially or economically in the long run.

Moving the sun

Cosmic Megastructures - The Shkadov Thruster or How to Move an Entire Solar System - Popular Mechanics

Just in case you want to leave the neighbourhood:

"Shkadov Thrusters are kind of awesome," says Anders Sandberg, a
research fellow at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute who
has studied Shkadov Thrusters amongst other megastructure concepts. "You
can use it to move the whole solar system."

The Shkadov Thruster setup is simple (in theory): It's just a colossal,
arc-shaped mirror, with the concave side facing the sun. Builders would
place the mirror at an arbitrary distance where gravitational attraction
from the sun is balanced out by the outward pressure of its radiation.
The mirror thus becomes a stable, static satellite in equilibrium
between gravity's tug and sunlight's push.

Solar radiation reflects off the mirror's inner, curved surface back
toward the sun, effectively pushing our star with its own sunlight—the
reflected energy produces a tiny net thrust. Voilà, a Shkadov Thruster,
and humanity is ready to hit the galactic trail.

Odd but interesting

ANZ: Consumer Confidence Has Fully Recovered From Its Budget Crash | Business Insider

Why would Australian consumer confidence be up, but voters are apparently not returning to the Coalition?

I'm guessing the explanation is that consumers are satisfied Abbott won't get much of his budget through the Senate; and they still want to punish him for coming up with the budget in the first place.

If that's correct - it wouldn't inspire confidence in Abbott to run a double dissolution.   Which is a pity, in a way.

The Right - for old, white men, and stupid younger people

Just as the US Republican Party has become the party for old white folk, and silly younger people who can't believe in climate change and think Ayn Rand had something useful to say about economics, the same dynamic is clearly operating here.

Adam Creighton writes today about some speech 84 year old Geoffrey Blainey gave:

AUSTRALIA’S greatest historian, Geoffrey Blainey, has called for swaths of the Canberra bureaucracy to be farmed out to India or Hong Kong. 
 
“While protectionism has died in primary and secondary industries, it is still very powerful in tertiary,” Professor Blainey said in a wide-ranging interview that canvassed a socialist revival in ­advanced countries.

“There’s a lot of protectionism still in the professions: Canberra naturally is a protectionist city; there are so many tasks that ­Canberra could farm out to India or Hong Kong — but not for your life. They say if you can’t compete in manufacturing … you must close down, but if you can’t compete in Canberra you’re all right.”

 Well, isn't that weird.  Small government types usually go on a lot about privacy too, but governments shipping private information off shore to India is going to be AOK, is it?  Not to mention wildly popular with the public, who just love to deal with call centres when they are querying their phone/electricity/credit card account.  Getting government functions shipped even further offshore is going to be fantastic.

Julie Novak thinks it's a great idea too, I see from a tweet.  No common sense operating there:  just "if it means smaller government spending, it's great" as per usual.

The report of the Blainey speech indicates he went on about socialism being revived internationally, risks of war, and new States being deserved in Northern Australia.  (Funny, that; given that a new State would involve a new level of that dreaded bureaucracy that should be shipped off shore.)

Either the speech itself, or Creighton's reporting of it, seems to be a complete ramble with hardly any overarching theme.   

I haven't read him, but assume that Blainey's history work was good in its day.   

But it's a sad indictment of the current intellectual decline of the Right in the US, and probably everywhere, that their heroes are all well past their intellectual peak. 
 

Still learning about Kubrick

Well, I learnt quite a bit about how Kubrick operated by reading this post (which, despite its title, does not concentrate all that much on his last, kinda oddball, movie.)   It really paints a completely different picture of how one imagines a control freak must have worked.  Well worth reading.

The Australian and the magnificent Tony Abbott

How do the writers at The Australian maintain any shred of pride in their work in light of the way they (have to?) spin Tony Abbott?

Case in point:  Dennis Shanahan rotating faster than a neutron star this morning over Newspoll results which show absolutely no change in a  bad TPP vote for the Coalition, but nonetheless (apparently)  it represents a magnificent turning point for Abbott because his negative approval rate has dropped to only -17%!

It's absurd, and undignified in the extreme.   

More realistic take:  "If this is as good as it gets, Tony, you should be worried."