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Hayek in High School

Catallaxy - March 17, 2010 - 10:13am

The Texas School Board wants to add Hayek to the high school economics curriculum. This seems to have caused something of a fuss. Justin Wolfers has argued at the Freakonomics site that Hayek is unworthy. This on the basis of a citation search through JSTOR.

But searching for “Friedrich von Hayek” only yielded 398 articles; adding “((“Friedrich von Hayek”) OR (“Friedrich Hayek”))” raised his total to 1242 mentions; also allowing “FH Hayek” raised his count to 1561.

Oh dear. Friedrich Hayek’s middle initial was A. not H. Okay. Mistakes happen. Jacob Levy then tries to replicate the Wolfers exercise. Afterall this isn’t climate science – replicability is an important aspect of what economists do.

Next step, to get a ceiling estimate:
full-text search on Hayek . 12088 results. Browsing through these yields very few false positives– so now I’m suspicious. Read more »

Seat by seat thru Tasmania: Bass

The Stump - March 16, 2010 - 10:13pm

Bass is the electorate in the north-east of Tasmania, based on Launceston and including the Tamar valley to the north, the rural north-east, and Flinders Island. The middle class suburbs of Launceston are the largest strong Liberal area in the state; if Tasmania had single-member electorates like the rest of the country, this might have been the only place the Liberals recently would have won any seats.

Downtown Launceston

Downtown Launceston

This year, however, they’d be winning seats all over the place. Labor is on the nose, and that’s clearly in evidence in the north. Liberal (and Greens) posters, for example, all feature the name of the party prominently, but Labor posters just have a small and inconspicuous Labor logo down at the bottom. Read more »

The Troubles

Catallaxy - March 16, 2010 - 4:53pm

I don’t think there has been an issue quite like climate change in Australia in my lifetime. It is no longer a scientific debate, it is no longer a political debate – it has become a religion, a loyalty test and a focal point for inter tribal warfare.

The science has receded into the background in most of the fights. Most of the fighting is done by non scientists (with some exceptions) who have only a rough understanding of the science.

The politics hardly matter any more. Nothing Australia does will have any effect on global CO2 and, anyway, it seems highly likely that thee will be no international agreement of any substance.

Nevertheless, the fight is getting rougher and more malicious. Character assassination, offensive names, allegations of connections with creationism, tobacco denialism and other foolish or evil beliefs. It seems to me that more of the malice is coming from the believers but that might be just my biased impression. Read more »

With friends like this…

Catallaxy - March 16, 2010 - 5:01am

George Monbiot is lamenting the war on science.

The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science.

This idea of a war on science is very popular with the left. But I don’t see it. Rather I see politicised debate with some using science as a weapon and scientists as human shields. But I suspect that Monbiot isn’t helping his cause much by these comments. Read more »

State of the climate

Catallaxy - March 15, 2010 - 7:42pm

Today the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO released a six page document purporting to provide more evidence that climate change is to inflict damage on Australia.

The first four pages show some trends from 1960 to 2009. The fifth page shows trends in global CO2 concentrations (over different periods).

The final page shows a giant leap in logic (or rather, absence of logic) by asserting:

Australia will be hotter in coming decades;

much of Australia will be drier in coming decades;

it is very likely that human activities have caused most of the global warming observed since 1950; and

climate change is real.

I need make only three points. First, past trends are not evidence of the future. Second, correlation is not necessarily causation. And finally, the data just shows that the climate fluctuated between 1960 and 2009. That doesn’t prove that “climate change is real” for all periods. Read more »

Corporate tax is regressive

Catallaxy - March 17, 2010 - 5:04am

Andrew Leigh had a great piece in the AFR yesterday. It was a bit naughty.

On the morning that Tony Abbott released his proposal to pay for paid parental leave with a tax on Australia’s 3200 largest firms, I was reading Norman Lindsay The Magic Pudding to my three year old son. As you know, it involves a pugilist strolling around outback Australia, punching his enemies on the nose and promising his friends a free lunch. The Magic Pudding has a similar storyline.

No mention that Andrew is running for ALP preselection in Fraser.

It was the overall thrust of the piece that I liked. Abbott’s paid parental scheme is a form of corporate tax and the incidence of corporate tax is likely to fall on workers – low-income workers at that, so the tax is regressive.

Further down the pecking order, there are plenty of modestly-paid workers toiling in the retailers and banks that make up Australia’s largest businesses. If a company tax increase is passed on to employees, these are the people who will pay for parental leave. Read more »

When did Rudd know?

Catallaxy - March 16, 2010 - 9:22pm

From Hansard March 11, 2010 pg. 49 – 50.

Mr ABBOTT (2.50 pm)—My question is, again, to the Prime Minister. In light of the Prime Minister’s previous answer, is he seriously telling the House that he was never informed about the safety problems, fires and deaths under the Home Insulation Program? Will he now inform the House when he was so informed and who finally informed him?

Mr RUDD—I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. In my earlier answer to his question, I outlined the government’s decision-making process leading up to the commencement of the scheme on 1 July 2009. The honourable Leader of the Opposition asked questions about subsequent safety and compliance matters which arose. Let me provide him with the following information.

On 14 August, I received a letter from the then minister in relation to the Home Insulation Program proposing increased compliance requirements for the program. Read more »

Pssst! That’s our lecturer! In the Susso queue!

Larvatus Prodeo - March 16, 2010 - 2:02pm

This morning’s media reports that the Opposition now intends to support the Federal Government’s intention to bring back the Susso for several categories of welfare recipient including those on Newstart Allowance. Read more »

Seat by seat thru Tasmania: Braddon

The Stump - March 15, 2010 - 9:46pm

I’m in Tasmania for the week, visiting each of the state’s electorates in turn, so I’ll share some of my impressions here.

There are five electorates, each electing five members, corresponding to its five federal seats. That means they’re pretty stable – there are always five of them (each state is guaranteed that as a constitutional minimum, and Tasmania has never been close to getting more), and since there’s not much rapid growth in Tasmania their boundaries never change much: there’s always two in the south, one in the north, one in the north-west, and one consisting of all the bits left over. Read more »

Reckless spending

Catallaxy - March 15, 2010 - 7:25pm

With news that the Government is now going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to repair the problems caused by its insulation folly, and the waste from the education stimulus payments – driving up construction costs – it is worth remembering Kevin Rudd’s emphatic statement of November 2007:

Today, I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop.

I agreed with Mr Rudd then – some of the Coalition government’s spending during its last few years was wasteful. But has Prime Minister Rudd stopped reckless spending? No, of course not. He has recklessly spent more in 12 months than the Howard Government did in 11.5 years. Read more »