Posts tagged…People
Monckton Lecture, Melbourne Feb 1, 2010
Thu, Jan 28 2010
A number of people have asked for these details:
Monday, 1 February 2010, 5:30 pm
Ballroom, Sofitel Hotel (25 Collins St Melbourne)
Entry by $20 'donation' at the door (no reservations).
Christopher, Viscount Monckton is a serious analyst and good fun: he has mastered the art of keeping it simple and exaggerating (a little bit). So I expect a big crowd, a great atmosphere and some clever,…
Read more…A spoon-full of toxin
Mon, Apr 06 2009When 'Uncle Joe' Stiglitz criticizes a program for 'socializing losses', there must be something seriously wrong.
The Geitner Plan for the U.S. banking system appears on the surface to be a way to create and isloate bad banks. These new institutions will be built by a partnership of government and private investors who will buy-up and hold the 'toxic' assets pending the market placing a firm and…
Obama’s science advisor hates science
Tue, Feb 17 2009
Second update: I have to revise my assessment—made after reviewing his publication history—that Dr John Holdren is 'something of a crackpot' (now over the fold).
This transcript shows that Holdren is a publicist for fashionable apocalypses with little sense of proportion or respect for evidence that might get in the way of his hyperbole. He could reasonably ask, of course, to be excused for…
Diving into… Dromography
Fri, Feb 13 2009
Time to brush up our dromography, don't you agree?
"The comparative study of organisation, history, geography and logistics of local, regional and global trade routes, and other movement, transportation, and communication networks is called dromography (Gr. 'dromos' [way, street, route, corridor] + Gr.'graphos' [to write])" extract from "Old world trade routes project"
The most dedicated…
Gary Banks on evidence-based policy
Thu, Feb 05 2009
About two-thirds the way through his paper on how to make ‘evidence-based policy’, given as an address a couple of days ago to the Australia/New Zealand School of Government, Gary Banks, the Chair of the Productivity Commission quotes a sardonic aphorism of Keynes:
“There is nothing a Government hates more than to be well-informed; for it makes the process of arriving at decisions much more…
The WTO’s objectives
Wed, Nov 26 2008On 11-12 December, the Institute for International Trade will host a conference that Andrew Stoler (its Director) and I have arranged as part of our year-long research project to find a better way to negotiate WTO agriculture agreements.
In a paper he has prepared for the conference on 'Variable Geometries', Professor Peter LLoyd of Melbourne University poses a question about WTO's objectives.…
Science, dogma and dissent: Ross Garnaut’s Heinz Arndt lecture
Mon, Jun 09 2008What a disappointment.
I hoped that Prof. Garnaut would use his Heinz Arndt Lecture to describe the balance he intended to strike in his recommendations between evidence for risky climate change and a growing body of evidence that the risks are low to moderate (at most). Given his well-known views, I expected to find the balance tilted in favor of the former but I hoped to find that it would be…
Farewell to John Cargher
Thu, May 01 2008
John Cargher hosted Singers Of Renown on ABC's Radio National from 1966 until he decided—last week—to retire. He was the opera critic for the Bulletin for nearly as long. He died today having given me and millions of others years and years and years of delight and startling discoveries.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, when he was still young and a mystery to everyone, said (in the Tractatus)
If we take…
The astonishing Julio Lacarte and 60 years of GATT
Tue, Feb 26 2008
No one better represents the fun, dedication or optimism of the people who created the multilateral trading system than Ambassador Julio Lacarte Muró. This recent video interview with him, recalling his particpation in the Havana Conference (1947) that by it’s ‘failure’ gave birth to the GATT, is a reminder that the goals and principles of that long-ago era still shape our world and promise us a…
US Presidential Candidates’ trade policies
Fri, Jan 25 2008The Eyes on Trade blog summarizes remarks on trade policy by the economic advisors to Clinton, Obama and McCain. There has been little attention given to trade policies in the campaign so far. It's clear that one of the Candidates has a more populist -- less liberal -- approach than others.
No surprise that the populist is Mrs Clinton. According to her advisor, Gary Gensler, Mrs Clinton wants to…