Articles from Club Troppo

Here’s Phil Lowe reporting on the RBA’s failure to meet its performance targets and refusal to do anything about it:

This decision [to cut rates by 0.25%] was not in response to a deterioration in the economic outlook since the previous update was published in early May. Rather, it reflected a judgement that we could do better than the path we looked to be on.

Yesterday I was chatting online about Wednesday evening’s dreadful shooting massacre in Darwin (like many shocked people here). I posted a comment listing the various murder scenes, saying: “A fourth was murdered at 18 Gardens Hill Crescent (or Gardens Rd, not sure which).”

There is a widespread consensus in Australian policy circles that Australia should follow the US in almost any foreign adventure, though preferably on the cheap. The shining example of this was John Howard’s decision to publicly support the US in its war in Iraq in 2003, and yet send only a 1,000 marines or so. Maximum alliance points, minimal actual risks and costs. Well done, John Howard.

This is a guest post by Brian Schmidt. Actually it isn’t, I’ve cut and pasted. I hope he doesn’t mind. Important stuff. HT: John Walker

Everyone in my office grew sick last week of my continual complaints about the state of the political polls. Not because of any insights into the results they were predicting, but because they were all saying the same thing with a collective similarity that violates the fundamentals of mathematics.