Interesting article on living longer

Dan Buettner has a great article, The Island Where People Forget to Die, that looks at the Greek island of Ikaria where the local residents seem to live much longer than other Greeks, or indeed other people. A couple of things stand out for me: diet, lifestyle and the social conditions that cause them. The article is fairly long but it's well worth a read.

Ebook formats and DRM

Apprentice Alf has written Ebook Formats, DRM and You — A Guide for the Perplexed.

The link between unemployment and crime

"Possum Comitatus" has posted a great chart on Twitter showing Reported Robbery Offences as a function of unemployment for Queensland between 1997 and 2012.

Tax and Government spending is give and take

Ross Gittins in Be a happy taxpayer - the system benefits you has written a great article explaining how as we go through different stages of life we either subsidise others, or we are subsidised in turn.

See what all this proves? As well as redistributing income from rich to poor, the budget acts as a giant, multi-faceted mutual support scheme. At some points in your life you're a net contributor, at others a net recipient.

The system requires those without dependents to subsidise those with, particularly when the little blighters need educating. It requires the well to subsidise the sick. It requires those who work to subsidise those too old to work.

I think it's a good system, a sign we live in a reasonably caring, civilised society, where those in need get supported by the rest of us.

It's a reason we should pay our taxes with a lot less grumbling. The pity is, the system's so complex and convoluted it's not until you see a special study such as this that you realise how it works - it's inbuilt fairness and solidarity.

Something to think about next time you're tempted to justify a demand on government because you've ''paid taxes all my life''. You've also been benefiting all your life.

Decline in Amecian wages

Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney have looked at the decline in wages of many American workers in The Uncomfortable Truth About American Wages. They argue that the decline is actually worse than that reported because it is masked by changing role of women in the workforce and by the decrease in the male participation rate (the statistic only records people with jobs).

When we consider all working-age men, including those who are not working, the real earnings of the median male have actually declined by 19 percent since 1970. This means that the median man in 2010 earned as much as the median man did in 1964 — nearly a half century ago. Men with less education face an even bleaker picture; earnings for the median man with a high school diploma and no further schooling fell by 41 percent from 1970 to 2010.

They also report that women are also starting to see a decline in earnings:

Since 1970, the earnings of the median female worker have increased by 71 percent, and the share of women 25 to 64 who are employed has risen to 71 percent, from 54 percent. But after making significant wage gains over several decades, that progress has slowed and even reversed recently. Since 2000, the earnings of the median woman have fallen by 6 percent.

The authors attribute the downturn to a number of factors including "technological change, international trade and the decline of unions". However, what they are really concerned about seems to be the decline in skills and education:

Many of these forces have been around since the 19th century, but today, for what may be the first time in American history, we are failing to invest enough in our skills and productivity to stay ahead of these trends, and the impacts of this failure are reflected in the declining wages of many American workers.

Greenstone and Looney recommends improvements to the education system including college completion rates.

In the USA rich Democrat states subsidise Republican states

Matthew Yglesias in How The US Currency Union Works—Endless Subsidies To Low-Productivity Area:

Because rich people are Republicans but rich states vote Democratic, Democratic policies transfer wealth from Democratic places to Republican ones.

More evidence for global warming - ten charts

Joe Romm has put together Ten Charts That Make Clear The Planet Just Keeps Warming.

Why American politics is stuffed

A great article by Nick Bryant: Can Americans Agree ... On Anything?

Why I no longer buy The Australian

For most of my adult life I was an avid reader of The Australian and The Weekend Australian. I have to say that its been several years since I purchased either paper. With one exception I now no longer trust anything in The Australian or it's Saturday stablemate. The exception is the writing of George Megalogenis (but even then you sometimes need to ignore the headline).

Why don't I trust The Australian? I feel that it's no longer a newspaper of record. Instead it seems to have become an agenda driven publication. There is no way for me to tell if an article is accurate or biased.  To me the Australian is no longer impartial.

I also find the paper incredibly arrogant and thin skinned, even bullying and vindictive. Woe betide anyone who criticises The Australian.

All this is a shame as The Australian can be a very good newspaper at times. It has carried out and reported on investigations that any editor would be proud of. But for me that's now all for nought, because as I said, I no longer trust it. Nor do I need it any more, the Internet now brings me other sources of news.

It is widely reported that The Australian runs at a loss and that Rupert Murdoch keeps it going for the influence it brings. But, one day Rupert will be gone. When that day comes many expect his replacement to close the loss making venture. I will be saddened when The Australian dies. Not for the loss of what The Australian now is, but for the loss of what it might have been.

Articles on the Australian
John Quiggin: The Oz is not a newspaper
Robert Manne: Margaret Simons and the Australian
Robert Manne: Payback: The Bullying Tactics of the Murdoch Press
David Marr: The Politics of News: David McKnight’s 'Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Power'
Tim Dunlop: Manne up: taking on The Australian
Sally Neighbour: The United States of Chris Mitchell: The Power of Rupert Murdoch and the Australian’s Editor-in-Chief

Sex offender registers don't work apparantley

Monica Attard in Sex Offender Sites. The Facts and Greg Barnes in Isolating sex offenders doesn't make us safer both write that sex offender registers, far from making your children safer, may actually increase the risk to them.

Will the rich destroy America?

Chrystia Freeland, in The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent argues that growing economic inequality in the USA will likely result in a long term decline in that country's economic well being. She compares the situation in the USA to the decline in Venice.

The story of Venice’s rise and fall is told by the scholars Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in their book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,” as an illustration of their thesis that what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society. Inclusive states give everyone access to economic opportunity; often, greater inclusiveness creates more prosperity, which creates an incentive for ever greater inclusiveness.

The history of the United States can be read as one such virtuous circle. But as the story of Venice shows, virtuous circles can be broken. Elites that have prospered from inclusive systems can be tempted to pull up the ladder they climbed to the top. Eventually, their societies become extractive and their economies languish.

Link for the Australian Real-Time Macroeconomic Database

Australian Real-Time Macroeconomic Database:

[P]rovides a macroeconomic database for Australia which includes measures of GDP, its components, prices, and key monetary and labour market statistics over the last fifty years as published and revised in real time. The vintages of data are collated from various sources and accommodate multiple definitional changes, providing a comprehensive description of the macroeconomic environment as experienced by Australian policy- and decision-makers.

Sexual inequality in the workplace

Jessica Irvine in Canberra's sex wars are underpinned by real sexual inequality in Aussie workplaces exposes some dreadful statistics highlighting discrimination in the work place:

5 : The number of female chief executives of Australia's top 200 companies listed on the stock exchange, or 2.5 per cent.

14.6 : Percentage of women on ASX 200 boards.

55 : Number of ASX 200 companies without a single woman on their board.

29 : Percentage of women in Parliament.

37 : Female members of the House of Representatives, out of 150 members.

29 : Female members of the Senate, out of 76 members.

$19.50 : Entry-level zookeeper hourly pay.

$15.90 : Entry-level personal carer or support worker hourly pay for providing care to our elderly on award wage.

17.5 : The percentage gender pay gap today between male and female full-time earnings, up from 15.9 per cent in 1994.

Evolutionary reasons for misogyny is no excuse

In Misogyny, Chauvinism, Sexism, or What? Mel Konner has an interesting take on the evolutionary reasons for misogyny, and why that's no excuse.

Australia's flexible labour market

Ross Gittins explains why Australia needs, and has, a "flexible labour market":

IF YOU listen to business, we still have big problems with the labour market. John Howard deregulated it, but then Julia Gillard reregulated it, and now we can't do a thing with it.

The business people are right to this extent: with an economy under so many pressures for change - the rise of the emerging market economies and the resources boom it has produced, the digital revolution, the return of the prudent consumer, and more - we do need a labour market that's ''flexible''.

But what exactly does flexibility mean? Well, not what some bad employers think: unilateral freedom to change their staff's working arrangements without recompense or consultation. That's one-sided flexibility.

No, what flexibility should mean is the ability of the labour market to adjust to shocks that hit the economy without generating excessive inflation or unemployment. There is some, but it doesn't linger for years. Another word for it is ''resilience'', the ability to take a punch, then bounce back. So how are we doing there? A lot better than business would have you believe.

Julia Gillard's speech - a timeline

Sally Baxter in Mussel flexing women destroy the joint has fleshed out some of the history to the recent controversy over Julia Gillard's speech in Parliament attacking Tony Abbott's sexism. Well done.

Why is the Southern Hemisphere getting drier?

In Southern Hemisphere Rainfall Is Decreasing, Leaving Scientists Searching For An Answer the Huffington Post is reporting on a possible reason for decreased rainfall in autumn in southern parts of Australia:

Since the 1970s, southern Australia — and other areas of the Southern Hemisphere —have seen decreased levels of rain between April and May, which is autumn in that part of the Earth. But what's causing this extended drought?

Previous research has pointed the finger at a southward shift in storm tracks and weather systems during the late 20th century.

But a study published today (Oct. 4) in the journal Scientific Reports takes the explanation one step further. Its findings suggest that changing storm patterns and the ensuing droughts are due to a southern shift in the Hadley cell, the large-scale pattern of atmospheric circulation that transports heat from the tropics to the subtropics.

The southward march of this circulation pattern has been greatest in the autumn, and has disproportionately affected southeastern Australia, according to a release describing the study from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

In Australia, it's led to a shift in the "subtropical dry zone," a region that stretches around the world and receives little rain, by 125 to 250 miles (200 to 400 kilometers) to the south. That's bad news for ecosystems in the area, which rely on fall rain to recharge.

As yet scientists do not know what is cause this phenomenon.

Growing income equality may harm the economy

Jonathan Rauch has written an essay called Inequality and Its Perils:

Emerging research suggests that the growing gap between rich and poor harms the U.S. economy by creating instability and suppressing growth. 

The essay appears to argue three points:

• Rising inequality reduces demand within the economy. This is because the rich tend to spend a smaller proportion of their income than those on lower incomes.
• To make up for this lower demand, Governments and banks ease credit requirements, thus creating a credit splurge.
• All the income at the top needs somewhere to go. It tends to end up in the financial markets and other forms of investment with high liquidity. In the US the financial sector ended up making up around 40% of the total profits in the economy. To quote the essay: "Alas, when the recession struck, the financial sector’s gigantism and complexity helped turn what might have been a brush fire into a meltdown."

This all results in an unstable economy that far from being resilient to shocks actually amplifies them.

Dr Martin Parkinson on the Australian Economy

Dr Martin Parkinson, Secretary to the Treasury, gave a speech to the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy titled Challenges and opportunities for the Australian economy.

In his speech Dr Parkinson discussed the rise of Asia on Australia's economy:

The consequences of the growth of emerging Asian economies can be characterised as coming in three waves. The first wave is the expansion of the mining sector that we are currently experiencing, most notably here in Western Australia. The second is the growing global demand for our agricultural products. And the third is the rise of the middle class in the Asia-Pacific region.

He also discussed some of the issues around tax reform.

One issue he also touched on was that of our perception of our economy:

Joining Professor Ross Garnaut and me on the panel were Professor He Fan from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Masahiko Takeda of the IMF. Mr Takeda and Professor He Fan both commented on what they, as outside observers, perceived as the strange disconnect between Australia's economy and Australians' perception of it.

Despite the continually good news about our short-term and medium-term prospects from sources like the OECD and the IMF, there is considerable, persistent and, in my view, unwarranted pessimism.

I wonder how much of the pessimism we express is due to the fact that our Governments are not running large surpluses? Perhaps the income tax cuts promised in the 2007 election, and delivered during the GFC, have not just cost our budget dearly; perhaps they have also indirectly had a negative effect on our mood.

Anyway, judging by the transcript, it appears to have been an interesting speech.

Are you really entitled to your opinion?

No, you’re not entitled to your opinion, at least according to Patrick Stokes, Lecturer in Philosophy at Deakin University. He makes some good points.