JOHN QUIGGIN

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion

WORLD EVENTS

John Quiggin 8 Comments. Reading about the recent military coup in Myanmar, I’ve seen the view that Biden’s criticism of the coup is undermined by the fact that the pretext for the coup, a supposedly stolen election, was exactly the same as that raised by Trump and the Republican Party in response to Biden’s 2020 election victory. CCS VS HAZELWOOD (UPDATED) CCS vs Hazelwood (updated) September 7, 2015 John Quiggin 33 Comments. It’s often hard to get an idea of the scale at which different technologies are operating. For example, there’s a lot of discussion about Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS or ‘clean coal’), though less than there used to be. To get an idea of current and near

COGNITIVE BIASES

Ross Gittins cites some interesting questions used by some of my QUT colleagues to assess cognitive biases before undertaking a study of investment behavior. Here you go: Try to answer before reading on or checking comments: Give me high and low estimates for the average weight of an adult male sperm whale (the largest of

RAWLS AND BENTHAM

Rawls and Bentham. May 19, 2003 John Quiggin 4 Comments. Rereading what I said earlier about Rawls and utilitarianism, I think it needs a correction. Rawls really is proposing something different in its approach from classical utilitarianism. In particular, his approach focuses attention on the idea that we might want to pay attention to

things

CARNABETIAN

The crucial line turns out to be. Everywhere the carnabetian army marches on, Each one an dedicated follower of fashion. It’s obvious when it’s written out that carnabetian is a reference to Carnaby Street, the fashion centre of Swinging London in the 1960s, but I don’t think I would ever have worked it out by ear. Post navigation. TWO BILLION EXAMPLES OF INNUMERACY Two billion examples of innumeracy. In the leadup to the recent British Royal wedding, it was repeatedly suggested that the event would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide, that is, about 30 per cent of the world’s population. It says something for the quality of the news media that none of those reporting this estimate offered a

source

ISLAMISM AND TERRORISM Islamism and terrorism. September 7, 2004 John Quiggin 19 Comments. As Ken Parish observes, in my recent post about Chechnya, I discussed the issue of terrorism and its causes in generic terms and didn’t have anything specific to say about Islamism. So, I’ll start by observing that most of what has been written on this topic is, in my THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A COUNTRY There’s a lot of ruin in a country. So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop FAREWELL TO EARTH SANCTUARIES The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I'm one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia's most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation.

JOHN QUIGGIN

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion

WORLD EVENTS

John Quiggin 8 Comments. Reading about the recent military coup in Myanmar, I’ve seen the view that Biden’s criticism of the coup is undermined by the fact that the pretext for the coup, a supposedly stolen election, was exactly the same as that raised by Trump and the Republican Party in response to Biden’s 2020 election victory. CCS VS HAZELWOOD (UPDATED) CCS vs Hazelwood (updated) September 7, 2015 John Quiggin 33 Comments. It’s often hard to get an idea of the scale at which different technologies are operating. For example, there’s a lot of discussion about Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS or ‘clean coal’), though less than there used to be. To get an idea of current and near

COGNITIVE BIASES

Ross Gittins cites some interesting questions used by some of my QUT colleagues to assess cognitive biases before undertaking a study of investment behavior. Here you go: Try to answer before reading on or checking comments: Give me high and low estimates for the average weight of an adult male sperm whale (the largest of

RAWLS AND BENTHAM

Rawls and Bentham. May 19, 2003 John Quiggin 4 Comments. Rereading what I said earlier about Rawls and utilitarianism, I think it needs a correction. Rawls really is proposing something different in its approach from classical utilitarianism. In particular, his approach focuses attention on the idea that we might want to pay attention to

things

CARNABETIAN

The crucial line turns out to be. Everywhere the carnabetian army marches on, Each one an dedicated follower of fashion. It’s obvious when it’s written out that carnabetian is a reference to Carnaby Street, the fashion centre of Swinging London in the 1960s, but I don’t think I would ever have worked it out by ear. Post navigation. TWO BILLION EXAMPLES OF INNUMERACY Two billion examples of innumeracy. In the leadup to the recent British Royal wedding, it was repeatedly suggested that the event would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide, that is, about 30 per cent of the world’s population. It says something for the quality of the news media that none of those reporting this estimate offered a

source

ISLAMISM AND TERRORISM Islamism and terrorism. September 7, 2004 John Quiggin 19 Comments. As Ken Parish observes, in my recent post about Chechnya, I discussed the issue of terrorism and its causes in generic terms and didn’t have anything specific to say about Islamism. So, I’ll start by observing that most of what has been written on this topic is, in my THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A COUNTRY There’s a lot of ruin in a country. So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop FAREWELL TO EARTH SANCTUARIES The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I'm one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia's most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation. NUCLEAR POWER IS A STALKING HORSE FOR GAS Thank you JQ. Please consider asking for all prior appointees to be published. Only fair to show real Origin. I emailed to no avail. Note: you and others disappeared from; PHILOSOPHY – JOHN QUIGGIN A few years ago, I wrote a series of articles in Jacobin showing how Locke’s theory of property, on which most modern propertarianism is based, was entirely consistent with his personal involvement in American slavery and the expropriation of indigenous Americans. Historian Holly Brewer has come to Locke’s defence, pointing to more evidence about Locke’s involvement in American

ENVIRONMENT

September 1, 2020 John Quiggin 20 Comments. It’s now clear that we have the technology we need to run a completely decarbonized electricity generation system. South Australia is the world leader generating more than 50 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, and aiming for 100 per cent renewables by 2030. ECONOMICS – GENERAL – JOHN QUIGGIN As a starting point, I assume that we want to consider energy separately from market goods in general. Producing new energy requires inputs of both energy and market goods (including labour and capital). Think about this example. Technology A uses 1 Mwh of energy input and $180 of market inputs to produce 10 MWh of energy output.

ENVIRONMENT

Posts about Environment written by John Quiggin. There’s not a lot new to be said about the leak of documents from the Heartland Institute, revealing that the Institute was channeling funds from far-right billionaires and corporations to a large number of self-described sceptics, notably including our own Bob Carter, who’s apparently on a monthly retainer, despite his prior claims of BONEHEADED STUPIDITY At Five Thirty Eight, Maggie Koerth-Baker has yet another article bemoaning the way partisanship biases our views.Apparently, one side, based on eyeballing, thinks the earth is flat, while the other, relying on the views of so-called scientists, or the experience of international air travel, regards it as spherical, or nearly so. THE TRAGEDY OF GALLIPOLI 100 years ago today, Australian and New Zealand forces landed at what is now Anzac Cove in the Gallipoli Peninsula, suffering heavy losses as they attempted to storm entrenched Turkish positions. Eight months later, having failed to dislodge the Turks, despite the loss of more than 10 000 killed and 20 000 wounded the Anzacs

AUGUST 2003

August 31, 2003 John Quiggin. A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges. Among other interesting features is the fact that Borges has drawn on sources including Gangs of New York (which was only recently published at the time Borges wrote) and Life on the Mississippi. I haven’t read either and also missed the film of Gangs

of New

JUNE 2003 – JOHN QUIGGIN June 29, 2003 John Quiggin. Brian Weatherson links to a paper he’s written with the title ‘ imaginative resistance”. It’s about the fact that, whereas it’s easy to imagine fictional events, people and so on, or to imagine real people and things having properties different from those they actually have, it’s very hard to imagine MAY 2003 – JOHN QUIGGIN Economists v philosophers Round V. May 29, 2003 John Quiggin 16 Comments. Matt Yglesias accepts my invitation to demonstrate the naivety of economic thinking about consequentialism. He proposes the following example. John is at the casino and he puts $100 on the number 12 spot at the roulette table. While the wheel is spinning,

John dies suddenly.

JOHN QUIGGIN

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion

JOHN QUIGGIN

Once again, I’m trying to combine exercise and fundraising, in this case for the MS Brissie to the Bay Appeal. Please donate to help me raise $2500 for multiple sclerosis research and help for patients and their families . I’m running a marathon in June, so I’m going to go with virtual fundraising, instead of taking part in the physical

ride.

WORLD EVENTS

Reading about the recent military coup in Myanmar, I’ve seen the view that Biden’s criticism of the coup is undermined by the fact that the pretext for the coup, a supposedly stolen election, was exactly the same as that raised by Trump and the Republican Party in response to Biden’s 2020 election victory. There’s a problem in this reasoning which is easy to see, but harder to resolve. CCS VS HAZELWOOD (UPDATED) The many negatives of this “technology” should have put an end to it decisively the moment it was first imagined. The 2 most obvious are the necessity to burn more fuel to capture and sequester the waste driving functional efficiency of the energy source further towards horrendous waste, and the second is the risk to all life of a sequester leak as CO2 is heavier than air in its condensed

COGNITIVE BIASES

Ross Gittins cites some interesting questions used by some of my QUT colleagues to assess cognitive biases before undertaking a study of investment behavior. Here you go: Try to answer before reading on or checking comments: Give me high and low estimates for the average weight of an adult male sperm whale (the largest of

CARNABETIAN

One of the great things about the internets is that you can instantly find song lyrics, even if you only recall one line of the song. In the case of The Kinks, Dedicated follower of fashion there was only one word I couldn't make out despite hearing the song many times. FAREWELL TO EARTH SANCTUARIES The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I'm one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia's most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation. TWO BILLION EXAMPLES OF INNUMERACY In the leadup to the recent British Royal wedding, it was repeatedly suggested that the event would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide, that is, about 30 per cent of the world's population. It says something for the quality of the news media that none of ISLAMISM AND TERRORISM As Ken Parish observes, in my recent post about Chechnya, I discussed the issue of terrorism and its causes in generic terms and didn’t have anything specific to say about Islamism.So, I’ll start by observing that most of what has been written on this topic is, in my opinion, useless or worse. First, there are a lot of people who start with the observation (more or less accurate) that, as THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A COUNTRY So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop action on climate change, overturn Roe v Wade, expand deportation and more.

JOHN QUIGGIN

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion

JOHN QUIGGIN

Once again, I’m trying to combine exercise and fundraising, in this case for the MS Brissie to the Bay Appeal. Please donate to help me raise $2500 for multiple sclerosis research and help for patients and their families . I’m running a marathon in June, so I’m going to go with virtual fundraising, instead of taking part in the physical

ride.

WORLD EVENTS

Reading about the recent military coup in Myanmar, I’ve seen the view that Biden’s criticism of the coup is undermined by the fact that the pretext for the coup, a supposedly stolen election, was exactly the same as that raised by Trump and the Republican Party in response to Biden’s 2020 election victory. There’s a problem in this reasoning which is easy to see, but harder to resolve. CCS VS HAZELWOOD (UPDATED) The many negatives of this “technology” should have put an end to it decisively the moment it was first imagined. The 2 most obvious are the necessity to burn more fuel to capture and sequester the waste driving functional efficiency of the energy source further towards horrendous waste, and the second is the risk to all life of a sequester leak as CO2 is heavier than air in its condensed

COGNITIVE BIASES

Ross Gittins cites some interesting questions used by some of my QUT colleagues to assess cognitive biases before undertaking a study of investment behavior. Here you go: Try to answer before reading on or checking comments: Give me high and low estimates for the average weight of an adult male sperm whale (the largest of

CARNABETIAN

One of the great things about the internets is that you can instantly find song lyrics, even if you only recall one line of the song. In the case of The Kinks, Dedicated follower of fashion there was only one word I couldn't make out despite hearing the song many times. FAREWELL TO EARTH SANCTUARIES The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I'm one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia's most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation. TWO BILLION EXAMPLES OF INNUMERACY In the leadup to the recent British Royal wedding, it was repeatedly suggested that the event would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide, that is, about 30 per cent of the world's population. It says something for the quality of the news media that none of ISLAMISM AND TERRORISM As Ken Parish observes, in my recent post about Chechnya, I discussed the issue of terrorism and its causes in generic terms and didn’t have anything specific to say about Islamism.So, I’ll start by observing that most of what has been written on this topic is, in my opinion, useless or worse. First, there are a lot of people who start with the observation (more or less accurate) that, as THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A COUNTRY So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop action on climate change, overturn Roe v Wade, expand deportation and more.

WORLD EVENTS

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion PHILOSOPHY – JOHN QUIGGIN A few years ago, I wrote a series of articles in Jacobin showing how Locke’s theory of property, on which most modern propertarianism is based, was entirely consistent with his personal involvement in American slavery and the expropriation of indigenous Americans. Historian Holly Brewer has come to Locke’s defence, pointing to more evidence about Locke’s involvement in American

ENVIRONMENT

Posts about Environment written by John Quiggin. Quite a while back we had a discussion of the idea of Energy Return On Energy Invested

(EROEI) as

NUCLEAR POWER IS A STALKING HORSE FOR GAS 1 day ago · Thank you JQ. Please consider asking for all prior appointees to be published. Only fair to show real Origin. I emailed to no avail. Note: you and others disappeared from; ECONOMICS – GENERAL – JOHN QUIGGIN That’s the headline the Canberra Times gave to my article on the implications of the recent short squeezes on Gamestop and AMC.It’s uninformative, but maybe more clickworthy than WallStreetBets and financialised capitalism, the title I gave to the early version posted here.With a bit esprit d’escalier and ignoring word constraints, I’d now go for “You wouldn’t let a bookie manage SLOW BURN – JOHN QUIGGIN That's the headline for my latest piece in Inside Story, with the summary Hundreds more deaths will result from the particulates created by Australia’s current crop of bushfires At the time of writing, at least fourteen people have been killed by this season’s bushfires.

And with most of

ENVIRONMENT

Despite Fukushima and the failure of the US “nuclear renaissance”, nuclear power still has plenty of fans in Australia. A question which opponents routinely ask is “where are the nuclear power plants going

to go?”.

BONEHEADED STUPIDITY At Five Thirty Eight, Maggie Koerth-Baker has yet another article bemoaning the way partisanship biases our views.Apparently, one side, based on eyeballing, thinks the earth is flat, while the other, relying on the views of so-called scientists, or the experience of international air travel, regards it as spherical, or nearly so. ECONOMIC RATIONALISM Wonderfull discusion John. It seems that there are two very closely related stories. On the one hand, we have economic reasoning (including the presumptions of those who presume that particular species of this reasoning is the only permissable reasoning); on the other hand, we have the specific history of the popular Australian movement against economic rationalism; which has led to the term

AUGUST 2003

A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges. Among other interesting features is the fact that Borges has drawn on sources including Gangs of New York (which was only recently published at the time Borges wrote) and Life on the Mississippi.I haven’t read either and also missed the film of Gangs of New York when it came out. So I’ll have to follow Borges’ pre-hyperlinks.

JOHN QUIGGIN

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion

JOHN QUIGGIN

Sandpit. May 3, 2021 John Quiggin 21 Comments. A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand.

WORLD EVENTS

John Quiggin 8 Comments. Reading about the recent military coup in Myanmar, I’ve seen the view that Biden’s criticism of the coup is undermined by the fact that the pretext for the coup, a supposedly stolen election, was exactly the same as that raised by Trump and the Republican Party in response to Biden’s 2020 election victory. CCS VS HAZELWOOD (UPDATED) CCS vs Hazelwood (updated) September 7, 2015 John Quiggin 33 Comments. It’s often hard to get an idea of the scale at which different technologies are operating. For example, there’s a lot of discussion about Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS or ‘clean coal’), though less than there used to be. To get an idea of current and near MAY 2003 – JOHN QUIGGIN Economists v philosophers Round V. May 29, 2003 John Quiggin 16 Comments. Matt Yglesias accepts my invitation to demonstrate the naivety of economic thinking about consequentialism. He proposes the following example. John is at the casino and he puts $100 on the number 12 spot at the roulette table. While the wheel is spinning,

John dies suddenly.

RAWLS AND BENTHAM

Rawls and Bentham. May 19, 2003 John Quiggin 4 Comments. Rereading what I said earlier about Rawls and utilitarianism, I think it needs a correction. Rawls really is proposing something different in its approach from classical utilitarianism. In particular, his approach focuses attention on the idea that we might want to pay attention to

things

RIGHT-WING POSTMODERNISM Right-wing postmodernism. September 6, 2003 John Quiggin 7 Comments. Josh Marshall observes. the administration’s main obstacle has been the experts themselves–the economists who didn’t trust the budget projections, the generals who didn’t buy the troop estimates, intelligence analysts who questioned the existence of an active

nuclear

THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A COUNTRY There’s a lot of ruin in a country. So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop APRIL 2006 – JOHN QUIGGIN April 29, 2006 John Quiggin 38 Comments. The body of Jake Kovco has finally returned to Australia. It’s hard to imagine what his family must be going through, starting with the news that they had lost a husband, a father and a son, and then compounded with the series of FAREWELL TO EARTH SANCTUARIES The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I'm one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia's most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation.

JOHN QUIGGIN

Unsurprisingly, the forced grounding of an airliner flying over Belarus, and the arrest of a critical journalist on board has provoked a burst of whataboutery from Russia and a reciprocal round of ‘false equivalence’ from the West.. The parallel case is that of the forced landing of the Bolivian presidential plane, with President Evo Morales on board, on the basis of the false suspicion

JOHN QUIGGIN

Sandpit. May 3, 2021 John Quiggin 21 Comments. A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand.

WORLD EVENTS

John Quiggin 8 Comments. Reading about the recent military coup in Myanmar, I’ve seen the view that Biden’s criticism of the coup is undermined by the fact that the pretext for the coup, a supposedly stolen election, was exactly the same as that raised by Trump and the Republican Party in response to Biden’s 2020 election victory. CCS VS HAZELWOOD (UPDATED) CCS vs Hazelwood (updated) September 7, 2015 John Quiggin 33 Comments. It’s often hard to get an idea of the scale at which different technologies are operating. For example, there’s a lot of discussion about Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS or ‘clean coal’), though less than there used to be. To get an idea of current and near MAY 2003 – JOHN QUIGGIN Economists v philosophers Round V. May 29, 2003 John Quiggin 16 Comments. Matt Yglesias accepts my invitation to demonstrate the naivety of economic thinking about consequentialism. He proposes the following example. John is at the casino and he puts $100 on the number 12 spot at the roulette table. While the wheel is spinning,

John dies suddenly.

RAWLS AND BENTHAM

Rawls and Bentham. May 19, 2003 John Quiggin 4 Comments. Rereading what I said earlier about Rawls and utilitarianism, I think it needs a correction. Rawls really is proposing something different in its approach from classical utilitarianism. In particular, his approach focuses attention on the idea that we might want to pay attention to

things

RIGHT-WING POSTMODERNISM Right-wing postmodernism. September 6, 2003 John Quiggin 7 Comments. Josh Marshall observes. the administration’s main obstacle has been the experts themselves–the economists who didn’t trust the budget projections, the generals who didn’t buy the troop estimates, intelligence analysts who questioned the existence of an active

nuclear

THERE’S A LOT OF RUIN IN A COUNTRY There’s a lot of ruin in a country. So said Adam Smith a couple of centuries ago, and he will, I hope, be proved right, in the US, and elsewhere in the world. Trump and the Republican majority in Congress and (imminently) in the Supreme Court will, in all probability, repeal Obamacare, restore and expand the Bush tax cuts for the rich, stop APRIL 2006 – JOHN QUIGGIN April 29, 2006 John Quiggin 38 Comments. The body of Jake Kovco has finally returned to Australia. It’s hard to imagine what his family must be going through, starting with the news that they had lost a husband, a father and a son, and then compounded with the series of FAREWELL TO EARTH SANCTUARIES The remaining shareholders of Earth Sanctuaries Limited, among whom I'm one, have been advised that the company is to be wound up. ESL, which was floated with high hopes (a little too late to catch the dotcom boom, unfortunately) was Australia's most substantial attempt at private-sector biodiversity conservation. NUCLEAR POWER IS A STALKING HORSE FOR GAS 1 day ago · Thank you JQ. Please consider asking for all prior appointees to be published. Only fair to show real Origin. I emailed to no avail. Note: you and others disappeared from; SLOW BURN – JOHN QUIGGIN Slow Burn. That’s the headline for my latest piece in Inside Story, with the summary. At the time of writing, at least fourteen people have been killed by this season’s bushfires. And with most of January and all of February still to come, the number is sure to rise. But these dramatic deaths are far outweighed by the hundreds, perhaps NUCLEAR POWER IS A STALKING HORSE FOR GAS 1 day ago · That’s the self-explanatory headline for my latest piece in Independent Australia

A PODIUM FINISH

An extraordinary run. 2nd John Quiggin Time 04:19:46 Net Time 04:18:20. For comparison, I ran about 20 miles in 3 hrs. as a 16 year old, in a training run “to see if I could do it (20 miles) “. SANDPIT – JOHN QUIGGIN A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such. LABOR AND ITS IMAGINARY FRIENDS: WHY THE PARTY’S That's the headline for my latest piece in Crikey reproduced over the fold. Labor’s poor performance in the by-election seat of Upper Hunter, held by the National Party since 1931 has provoked a new round of soul-searching about the party’s failure to maintain the support of its traditional ‘base’. Implicitly or explicitly, the

‘base’ is

MONDAY MESSAGE BOARD Back again with another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the

following link

DISCUSSION POLICY

Discussion policy – please read before commenting. 1. This is a forum for discussion. I publish it at my own expense and in my own time. It is not a public place. There is no automatic right to comment here. 2. The purpose of the comments section is to allow constructive

ENVIRONMENT

Despite Fukushima and the failure of the US “nuclear renaissance”, nuclear power still has plenty of fans in Australia. A question which opponents routinely ask is “where are the nuclear power plants going

to go?”.

TWO BILLION EXAMPLES OF INNUMERACY Two billion examples of innumeracy. In the leadup to the recent British Royal wedding, it was repeatedly suggested that the event would be watched by 2 billion people worldwide, that is, about 30 per cent of the world’s population. It says something for the quality of the news media that none of those reporting this estimate offered a

source

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JOHN QUIGGIN

COMMENTARY ON AUSTRALIAN AND WORLD EVENTS FROM A SOCIALIST AND DEMOCRATIC VIEWPOINT ADANI BEWARE: COAL IS ON THE ROAD TO BECOMING COMPLETELY UNINSURABLE

__August 15, 2019

__John Quiggin __5 Comments That’s the headline for my latest piece in The Conversation. Although I use Adani as a convenient example, it’s about the bigger issue of whether insurers will flee from the potential litigation liability of insuring fossil fuel producers. Of these, thermal coal miners and generators are the most vulnerable because they are already marginal in economic terms. MONDAY MESSAGE BOARD

__August 12, 2019

__John

Quiggin __28 Comments Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and _idees fixes_ to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following

link

http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page

and at my

Economics in Two Lessons page HARD CASES MAKE BAD LAWS. BAD JUDGES MAKE THEM WORSE

__August 8, 2019

__John Quiggin __40 Comments Another day, another disastrous and anti-democratic decision from the High Court. The Court has already disqualified a large proportion (perhaps a majority) of Australians from standing for Parliament. It has now excluded a huge group from any participation in our democracy, beyond the bare right to vote. The case in question concerned a public servant, employed in the Immigration Department, who criticised the department under a pseudonym (which proved inadequate to conceal her identity). This was obviously problematic: anyone who directly criticises the policies they are paid to implement creates concern about their ability to do

their job properly.

So, the Court could easily have found against the employee in a narrowly drawn judgement that simply applied standard principles of employment. Instead, as in the s44 cases, they brought down a judgement with massive implications. The decision supports a code of conduct that, on its face, prohibits public servants from making any political comment, even on topics unrelated to their job. Given past behavior, it seems highly likely that the Court will take the broadest possible interpretation of this decision. The only remedy in this case is for the Parliament to restrict the application of the code to allow public servants the same rights as other Australians, to discuss and debate public issues, except where it impinges on their capacity to do their jobs. That’s unlikely, but at least more feasible than a referendum to fix s44. But if I could have the entire Court sacked and replaced by seven Australians selected by lot, I would certainly do so.

ARE SMRS VAPORWARE

__August 8, 2019

__John

Quiggin __21 Comments It seems as if nuclear fans in Australia have given up on conventional Generation III/III+ reactors such as the Westinghouse AP1000 and Areva EPR: unsurprising in view of the massive cost overruns and delays experienced in attempts to construct them. They’ve also gone quiet on the prospect of more advanced “Generation IV” reactors. Again that’s unsurprising. Most of the leading research projects in this field have been abandoned or deferred past 2030

,

even for prototypes. The great hope now is for Small Modular Reactors, which will, it is hoped, be assembled on site from parts built in factories. The idea is that the savings in construction will offset the loss of the scale economies inherent in having a larger reactor (arising ultimately from the fact that the volume of a sphere grows faster than its surface

area).

Lots of SMR ideas have been proposed, but the only one with any serious prospect of entering commercial use is that proposed by NuScale, with funding from the US Department of Energy. NuScale has recently claimed that it should have its first reactor (consisting of 12 modules) in operation by 2027. A couple of observations on this. First, when the project was funded back in 2014 the proposed start date was 2023

.

So, in the course of five years, the target time to completion has been reduced from nine years to eight. That suggests the 2027 target is pretty optimistic. Second, NuScale isn’t actually going to build the factory that is the key selling point of the SMR idea. The press release says that the parts will be made by BWX, formerly Babcock and Wilcox (who abandoned their own SMR proposal around the time NuScale got funded). So, is BWX going to build a factory, or is this going to be a bespoke job using existing plants (presumably much more expensive). I went to their website to find out. But far from getting a clear answer, I could find no mention at all of a deal with NuScale, or of any recent activity around SMRs. So, there you have it. Australia’s proposed nuclear strategy rests on a non-existent plant to be manufactured by a company that apparently knows nothing about it.

RETHINKING NUCLEAR

__August 5, 2019

__John

Quiggin __40 Comments Apparently, in order to placate Barnaby Joyce and others, there will be a Parliamentary inquiry into nuclear power. I was thinking of putting a boring submission restating all the reasons why nuclear power will never happen in Australia, but that seemed pretty

pointless.

Given that the entire exercise is founded in fantasy, I’m thinking it would be better to suspend disbelief and ask what we need if nuclear power is to have a chance here. The answer is in two parts: * Repeal the existing ban on nuclear power * Impose a carbon price high enough to make new nuclear power cheaper than existing coal (and, ideally gas) fired power stations

Read More »

MONDAY MESSAGE BOARD

__August 5, 2019

__John

Quiggin __10 Comments Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and _idees fixes_ to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following

link

http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page

and at my

Economics in Two Lessons page

SANDPIT

__August 5, 2019

__John Quiggin __9 Comments A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, _idees

fixes_ and so on.

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