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Showing posts from March, 2014

Another short priced favourite on the interest rate indicator

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On the eve of the Reserve Bank board’s April meeting the Owl’s indicator pointed strongly to there being no change. You will find a ll the Owl’s current indicators HERE .

One for that Joe Hockey audit commission: change the font and save millions

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Chanel No. 5 perfume costs $38 per ounce. The equivalent amount of Hewlett-Packard printer ink can cost up to $75. So if you are a big printer like a government saving ink can produce a big saving. That was the theory of 14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani when he was given the task at his Pittsburgh-area middle school of trying to think of ways to cut waste and save money . CNN  tells the story : Interested in applying computer science to promote environmental sustainability, Suvir decided he was going to figure out if there was a better way to minimize the constant flurry of paper and ink. Reducing paper use through recycling and dual-sided printing had been talked about before as a way to save money and conserve resources, but there was less attention paid to the ink for which the paper served as a canvas for history and algebra handouts… Collecting random samples of teachers’ handouts, Suvir concentrated on the most commonly used characters ( e, t, a, o  and  r ). First, he

Strange words from Tony Abbott and other news and views for Monday 31 March

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I thought that Facebook post must have been based on a mistake or something but no. I checked  on the PM’s website  and he actually said it! China seizes $14.5 billion assets from family, associates of ex-security chief: sources  – “Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the centre of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said. More than 300 of Zhou’s relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, the sources, who have been briefed on the investigation, told Reuters.” Why Islamic parties don’t win Indonesian elections  – “Lost claims to moral superiority and a lack of ideological difference to secular parties has made it difficult for Islam-oriented parties to compete in Indonesian politics. Another lost selling point has come with the

Castrating hogs to cut through the media clutter in political campaigning

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I’m  Joni Ernst. I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So when I get to Washington I’ll know how to cut pork That’s the message as the relatively unknown Joni Ernst seeks the Iowa Republican Party’s U.S. Senate nomination.  Her television ad  is designed to cut through the media clutter without the huge expense of constant repetition. Brian Donahue, a strategist with Craft Media,  told National Public Radio  that when you see an ad like Ernst’s you’re also viewing a message based on political consultants’ understanding that emotion resonates more with voters than repetition. It’s that emotional reverberation that sends it viral. “That causes what we call ‘the Buzzfeed effect,’ ” Donahue says, whose firm counts Republican political campaigns among its clients. “It compels you to do more than just shape an opinion. It compels you to share it too. Which is why so many people are seeing an ad like this. “It did something different and it was so unpredictable,” Donahue sa

Paul Krugman on the economics book of the year and other news and views for Wednesday 26 March

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Wealth Over Work  – “It seems safe to say that “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year — and maybe of the decade. Mr. Piketty, arguably the world’s leading expert on income and wealth inequality, does more than document the growing concentration of income in the hands of a small economic elite. He also makes a powerful case that we’re on the way back to “patrimonial capitalism,” in which the commanding heights of the economy are dominated not just by wealth, but also by inherited wealth, in which birth matters more than effort and talent.” Apples Vs. Oranges: Google Tool Offers Ultimate Nutrition Smackdown Putin and the Laws of Gravity  – “The morning after, he was the hero of Russia. Some moronic commentators here even expressed the wish that we had such a “decisive” leader. Well, let’s see what Putin looks like the morning after the morning after, say, in six months. I ma

Will his wish be granted with the words "Arise Sir Alexander Downer"?

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I had always thought of my old paper the Sydney  Telegraph  as being a journal of record but it’s not so any longer it seems. Prompted by a twitterer I went looking for a Tony Abbott promise on the question of knights and dames, entered the code  http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/pm-tony-abbott-rules-out-reinstating-knights-and-dames-in-oz/story-fni0cx4q-1226788026229 – and this was the sad result: But for history’s sake I was grateful for this from  Sir Tim Ăže Enchanter  ‏@timb07  : https://web.archive.org/web/20131222085221/http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/pm-tony-abbott-rules-out-reinstating-knights-and-dames-in-oz/story-fni0cx4q-1226788026229 From where I rescued this: With these being the key pars:

Keeping it in the family – dad looks after his Murdoch boys

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The succession planning in the Murdoch empire has reached a new stage with dad Rupert promoting sons Lachlan and James to key posts at News Corp and 21st Century Fox. Lachlan now has the titles of non-executive co-chairman at both companies. James becomes co-chief operating officer at 21st Century Fox. In a statement the proud dad had this to say about Lachlan’s elevation at News: “This appointment is a sign of confidence in the growth potential of News Corp. and a recognition of Lachlan’s entrepreneurial leadership and passion for news, digital media and sport. “In this elevated role, Lachlan will help us lead News Corp. forward as we expand our reach and invest in new technologies and markets around the world. We have many challenges and opportunities ahead, and Lachlan’s strategic thinking and vast knowledge of our businesses will enable me as executive chairman and the company as a whole to deliver the best outcomes on behalf of our stockholders, employees and customers

Butter Is Back – No evidence that saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease

via  Butter Is Back – NYTimes.com . Butter is back, and when you’re looking for a few chunks of pork for a stew, you can resume searching for the best pieces — the ones with the most fat. Eventually, your friends will stop glaring at you as if you’re trying to kill them. That the worm is turning became increasingly evident a couple of weeks ago, when  a meta-analysis  published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found that there’s just no evidence to support the notion that saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease. (In fact, there’s some evidence that a lack of saturated fat may be damaging.) The researchers looked at  72 different studies  and, as usual, said more work — including more clinical studies — is needed. For sure. But the days of skinless chicken breasts and tubs of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! may finally be drawing to a close.

Will the left handers give Wikileaks a Senate seat from West Australia?

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It appears we all have a tendency to veer to the left when it comes to voting. Not towards some philosophical left. Rather an actual geographic one. And left handed people veer left much more strongly than right handers. That, at least, is the finding of a recent experiment  published  in the journal  Political Psychology.   The paper,  Moderators of Candidate Name-Order Effects in Elections: An Experiment  by Nuri Kim, Jon Krosnick and Daniel Casasanto, was based on an experimental election of two hypothetical candidates, each diverging on issues and each randomly sorted into a left or right spot on the ballot. Just as previous studies have shown a donkey vote favouring the first named candidate when people vote down a list,  candidates listed on the left-hand side of this experimental ballot enjoyed a distinct advantage in gaining votes compared with those on their right. What made the finding different came when comparing the votes of left handed people with right handed ones. ”E

Australia on top of developed world growth list but be warned - it is just a forecast

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The group of economists polled regularly by  The Economist  on future trends have Australia growing faster than other developed countries during 2015.

Oh do shut up dear! The public voice of women and other news and views for Tuesday 25 March

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The Public Voice of Women  – A London Review of Books lecture at the British Museum by Mary Beard – ” I want to start very near the beginning of the tradition of Western literature, and its first recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up’; telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public.” For our most powerful and hypocritical leaders, crimes are those that others commit  – “Is there a better case study in brazen hypocrisy than the ongoing crisis in Crimea? Not just on the part of the loathsome Vladimir Putin, who defends Syria’s sovereignty while happily violating Ukraine’s, but on the part of western governments, too.” Ukraine and the Crisis of International Law  – “As frightening as the Ukraine crisis is, the more general disregard of international law in recent years must not be overlooked. Without diminishing the seriousness of Russia’s recent actions, we should note that they come in the context of repeated violations of international law by the US, the

The virtues of reintroducing risk into childrens’ playtime and other news and views for Sunday 23 March

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When one New Zealand school tossed its playground rules and let students risk injury, the results were surprising Why low-calorie liquor is doomed  – “”People don’t drink alcohol for health and wellness reasons,” says Spiros Malandrakis, a senior alcoholic drinks analyst with the consultancy Euromonitor. “Sometimes with marketers, navel gazing can become so much of a problem that you forget about how people go out and drink.” The Return of Terror: Violence Rocks Iraq as Elections Approach The Secret Auden  – “W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He kept it secret because he would have been ashamed to have been praised for it.” The Unwisdom of Crowds

 – Why people-powered revolutions are overrated  – “… a successful street revolution, like any revolution, is never guaranteed to leave anything positive in its aftermath—or anything at all… a successful street revolution, like any revolut

The banking industry has discovered that it can thrive without trust and other news and views for Thursday 20 March

You Don’t Say  – “Peter Eavis… highlighted a statement… by… William Dudley (formerly of Goldman Sachs, then a top lieutenant to Tim Geithner): There is evidence of deep-seated cultural and ethical failures at many large financial institutions…. In 2008… people probably thought that our largest banks were just guilty of shoddy risk management, dubious sales practices, and excessive risk-taking… we’ve had to add price fixing, money laundering, bribery, and systematic fraud on the judicial system…. Framing the problem as a ‘trust issue’—customers no longer see banks as trustworthy institutions—is beside the point. Wall Street’s main defense is that its clients already realize that investment banks do not have their buy-side clients’ best interests at heart, and clients who don’t realize that are chumps. And in the wake of the financial crisis, I suspect there are few individuals out there who believe that their banks are there to help them. The banking industry has discovered that it can