Can a 3D printer cool the Planet? Stay with me on this.. As we once again hear that the 1990 IPCC Climate modelling for the planet is "on trend" or "coming true", I ponder the relationship between some of the major policy challenges Australia faces and see opportunity where at present we seem only to be experiencing confusion and much…
Category Archives Economics
A recent tweet from the NTEU ACT Division (@NTEUACT) Australia has 2nd highest level of insecure work in OECD - after Spain. We know that we are approaching 40% of the workforce undertaking insecure work. *Source: Lives on Hold - Unlocking the potential of Australia's workforce. We also hear much about "skills shortages" and the need for "flexibility", yet the…
Food for thought.. http://youtu.be/g8mynrRd7Ak Links: Frans de Waal - Dutch primatologist and ethologist Google Scholar - Teachers and Performance Pay Google Scholar - Does performance pay for teachers work? Debating the merits of merit pay - Andrew Leigh
The next time some-one, particularly a Politician, suggests climate anomalies and surface warming is not a [the] critical policy challenge of our time, ask them if they would bet their house or their life on tossing a coin 330 times and getting the same result? The average global temperature across land and oceans during August 2012 was 0.62°C (1.12°F) above…
We shouldn't have to! It appears from contact with family and colleagues at what appears to be the largest state-wide teacher stop-work action ever held in Melbourne, Australia today, we are still very much in the cycle of what I like to call "retail economics and policy planning". It is sad to see such limited public debate about what is…
Those in Australia interested in the debate about education, equity and long-term social mobility within societies would benefit from reviewing the latest from the Sutton Trust. It is interesting to place the work of the Gonksi Review in the context of this discussion. My thoughts on Gonski can also be found here. A very soggy Gonski [as predicted] Current [and somewhat…
Sometimes, the big picture gets lost in the day to day. Watch the video below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc KONY 2012 Thanks to @stephenfry and many others for raising awareness. To follow up, follow this link to the Invisible Children site on Amazon S3.
In the most recent quarterly report [August 2011] on Household Debt and Credit by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York it reports [amongst many other things] that for the student loans will exceed $100 billion dollars and all outstanding balances will exceed $1 trillion dollars. Staggering numbers. Links: Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit [PDF]
A new report, released in September of this year, conducted jointly by Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), Arthur D. Little and Chalmers University of Technology in 33 OECD countries, quantifies the isolated impact of broadband speed, showing that doubling the broadband speed for an economy increases GDP by 0.3%. A 0.3 percent GDP growth in the OECD region is equivalent to USD 126…