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Category Archives: national
Obligatory election prediction
Barring any game-changing developments, Labor will win. They were going to win with Rudd as leader anyway, but they’ll probably do slightly better with Gillard. The deposing of Rudd will not be a big factor by the end of the … Continue reading
Where the Australian Greens go wrong
I have voted Green more often than I have voted Labor (I’ve never voted for the party I’m a member of, but that’s because there hasn’t been a candidate in my electorate yet). I do so for a number of … Continue reading
Posted in economics, national
Tagged capitalism, economics, environment, Greens, LDP, left, national, politics, regulation, socialism, tax, trade
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Censorship is ***** **** *******
Against the odds, Senator Conroy is going ahead with his ill-conceived plan to force mandatory filtering at the ISP level. Despite multiple experts from academia and the industry saying it’s a bad idea, he is going to ignore any dissent … Continue reading
Competition. It works, bitches.*
I’ve long extolled the benefits of companies competing for consumers’ business. According to orthodox economics, it reduces prices, and therefore profits, and thus shifts the division of the economic surplus towards consumers. Competition is generally a Good Thing. Unless you’re … Continue reading
Posted in economics, national
Tagged Australia, capitalism, competition, economics, law, protectionism, regulation, web comics
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Spoilt sports
Sport. Despite Australia’s rise up the obesity rankings, it holds an important place in our culture and identity. One may quibble that nowadays our self-image of a super-sporty nation is becoming apocryphal, but it’s still a strong belief. It’s not … Continue reading
Posted in national
Tagged Australia, health, international, public goods, sport, statistics
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Higher pay for MPs
Well, technically speaking it’s an increase in their electorate allowance, but anything left over at the end of the year is treated as personal income, so it’s not surprising that MPs consider it “a de facto part of their salary”. … Continue reading
Andrew Bolt is an idiot
But luckily, because I’m slow and lazy, a bucketful of bloggers have already demolished his idiocy about refugees so that I don’t have to. The best I’ve seen is by Possum Comitatus at Crikey: Bolt’s argument is as predictable as … Continue reading
Druggies join the ranks of the undeserving
Here in Australia, people getting unemployment benefits have to perform certain obligations in order to qualify. Centrelink describes it as having to “actively look for work, accept suitable work offers and undertake extra activities to improve your chances of finding … Continue reading
Posted in national
Tagged Australia, drugs, food, health, poverty, unemployment, United States, welfare
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Faulkner v Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, is getting a lot of negative press in the blogosphere for his idiotic insistence on pressing ahead with an idiotic internet censorship scheme. Rightly so – it will infantilise … Continue reading
Posted in national
Tagged Australia, censorship, free speech, freedom, idiots, internet, Labor, law, politics
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Resale royalties
I’ve been reading a recent House of Representatives standing committee report on the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Bill 2008 *. Essentially, it looks at the implementation and possible consequences of the proposed legislation to give a proportion of … Continue reading