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Eight logics of higher education funding in Australia

https://www.ppesydney.net/eight-logics-of-higher-education-funding-in-australia/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 06:00

In 2023, a panel appointed by the federal government will be conducting a much-needed review of Australia’s higher education system. The recommendations of the panel, led by Professor Mary O’Kane, will feed into the Australian Universities Accord that the federal government has committed to implementing.

It is timely, then, that Sydney University Press has just published a book titled Australian Universities: A Conversation About Public Good. The book is edited by Julia Horne and Matthew A.M. Thomas and features essays by over 20 authors reflecting on different aspects of the role of public universities in Australia’s economy and society. The book is full of ideas about how Australian universities can better advance the public good, and should be compulsory reading for Accord panel members.

Labour forces Holocaust survivor out of party with expulsion threat email

https://skwawkbox.org/2023/01/30/labour-forces-holocaust-survivor-out-of-party-…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:57
Stephen Kapos says he has a duty to teach others about his experience whether Starmer and co like it or not As Skwawkbox predicted last week, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos has been driven out of the Labour party in yet another demonstration of the antisemitism and arrogance of the Labour right. Kapos, who survived the […]

How Not to Fight Inflation

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2023/01/30/how-not-to-fight-inflation/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:44

A careful look at US economic conditions supports the view that inflation was driven mainly by supply-side disruptions and shifts in the pattern of demand. Given this, further interest-rate hikes will have little to no effect – and will cause far-reaching problems of their own.

The post How Not to <span class="dewidow">Fight Inflation</span> appeared first on Roosevelt Institute.

Are there any emails?

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/30/are-there-any-emails/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:30
If not, this is just fine. Carry on. Former President Donald J. Trump’s golf courses will host three tournaments this year for the breakaway league that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is underwriting, deepening the financial ties between a candidate for the White House and top officials in Riyadh. LIV Golf, which in the past year has cast men’s professional golf into turmoil as it lured players away from the PGA Tour, said on Monday that it would travel to Trump courses in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia during this year’s 14-stop season. Neither the league nor the Trump Organization announced the terms of their arrangement, but the schedule shows the Saudi-backed start-up will remain allied with, and beneficial to, one of its foremost defenders and political patrons as he seeks a return to power. This man, his half-wit spawn and all of his followers are trying to turn Hunter Biden’s old business dealings into a major corruption scandal and he’s doing this right in front of everyone’s eyes while he’s running for president.

The common currency for the Mercosur — Matias Vernengo

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-common-currency-for-mercosu…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:26
Lula's visit to Argentina, during the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) meeting, brought about a brief discussion of the possibility of a common currency. I have discussed here (as well as many guest bloggers) both currency unions, in particular the euro, and it's consequences. Note that the FT piece linked suggested that the common currency was the first step in a long process. I doubt it, in part because, if the end goal is a real currency union, it would be a terrible idea. The actual proposal by the current finance minister, Fernando Haddad, and one of his collaborators, Gabriel Galípolo, falls short of a common currency area. It is still a bad idea....

In my view, the point of this announcement was purely political, and to suggest that the integration between the two countries, one with a threatened economy [Argentina], the other with a threatened democracy [Brazil], is a priority. Both left of center presidents stand together.… There is no circumstance in which a movement in the direction of a common currency makes any sense. 

Russia’s gas union eyes Pakistan, India — M. K. Bhadrakumar

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/russias-gas-union-eyes-pakistan…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:14
The big growth in this century is expected to be in Asia, including Central Asia and Southeast Asia, and Africa — unless the West can either control the regions or disrupt their growth. Growth requires increased energy use and alternative energy other than nuclear is not there yet. And even with nuclear energy, much of the planet's uranium now comes from Kazakstan and Russia. Russia also constructs nuclear power plants. 

This article is mostly about natural gas along with the geopolitics and geo-economics involved.

India Punchline
Russia’s gas union eyes Pakistan, India
M. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service and former ambassador.

Remembering Paul La Farge

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/remembering-paul-la-farge
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:02

McSweeney’s mourns the passing of Paul La Farge, a brilliant writer, teacher, and scholar. We were lucky to publish an early novel by Paul called The Facts of Winter, and he contributed often to our Quarterly and The Believer. He was one of the most gentle and genuine of colleagues, and we miss him dearly.

- - -

My favorite memory of Paul is when we were all very young, and he lived in San Francisco in an apartment of artistic friends they called Paraffin House. I forget why—a sign they stole somewhere? It was the kind of generous, joyous bohemian life I’d come to San Francisco to find. And Paul brought me into it. His intelligence and talent were evident to the world, but his kindness is what everyone will remember.

— Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less is Lost

Miss Piggy Does the “Cool Girl” Monologue from Gone Girl

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/miss-piggy-does-the-cool-girl-monologue-fro…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 05:00

With apologies to Gillian Flynn. And Jim Henson.

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Cool Pig. Frogs always say that’s what they want. Cool Pig is cold. Cold-blooded, that is. A feat managed by sheer willpower overriding her mammalian biology and also regular ice baths. Cool Pig never gets embarrassed by the way her Frog dances, flailing his arms in the air as if he’s experiencing a grand mal seizure. She simply smiles and karate chops the bejeezus out of the evil fast-food chain owner chasing him down for his delectable frog legs.

Please support Pearls and Irritations: It operates on the faint memory of the smell of an oily rag

https://johnmenadue.com/please-support-pearls-and-irritations-it-operates-on-th…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 04:55
On the faint memory of the smell of an oily rag, John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations public policy journal daily publishes a range of opinion and insights that shames the lack of diversity in our much bigger and better resourced media. Most importantly, P&I provides viewpoints now rare in MSM – alternatives to the groupthink Continue reading »

Timor-Leste shaping up for legislative elections

https://johnmenadue.com/timor-leste-shaping-up-for-legislative-elections/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 04:54
The Timor-Leste March 2022 Presidential elections gave a resounding win in the second round to Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta, and this provided leverage for Xanana Gusmão in his efforts to wrest back the executive power he apologetically relinquished in February 2015. But Gusmão and his National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) must still win Continue reading »

The missing piece in the school reform debate

https://johnmenadue.com/the-missing-piece-in-the-school-reform-debate/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 04:53
Student outcomes in literacy and numeracy continue to go backwards. Why? Missing from the list of causes for poor learning outcomes, as it is from every such list, is the ineffectiveness of the Learning Assistance Program. Student outcomes in literacy and numeracy continue to go backwards, according to the Productivity Commission in a report released Continue reading »

Efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity loss are inseparable as new mass extinction looms

https://johnmenadue.com/efforts-to-combat-climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss-…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 04:51
Recently, I had a catch-up conversation on climate change and November’s UN climate change conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh with one of Hong Kong’s most conscientious students of the subject. As we began to wind up, I asked what we should be taking away from the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal – confusingly called COP15 – Continue reading »

Trump is committed

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/30/trump-is-committed/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 04:00
He’s back and angrier than ever. I’m talking about Donald Trump, of course. In what is being billed as his first official event since he announced his run for the 2024 GOP nomination, Trump said so himself: “They said he’s not doing rallies, he is not campaigning. Maybe he’s lost his step. I’m more angry now and I’m more committed now than ever.” He was referring to the fact that most of the media have been commenting on his lackluster performance ever since that boring announcement speech more than two months ago. The growing consensus is that he’s lost his mojo. So when he scheduled two small events this past weekend, first in New Hampshire at the annual GOP meeting and then at South Carolina’s Capitol building, both before crowds of about 400 people each, it reinforced that assumption. Gone were the days when he would land in his shiny Trump jet or Air Force one to rapturous crowds numbering in the tens of thousands. Now he’s just another Republican presidential hopeful hanging around diners and glad-handing the local officials.

Core Inflation Woes — Brian Romanchuk

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/core-inflation-woes-brian-roman…
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 02:49
Alex Williams recently wrote “What Is ‘Core PCE Services Ex-Housing’ Anyway?,” which dissects the measure that the Fed is using to get a handle on “underlying” inflation. The most interesting bit (for me) is that about 1/4 of this measure is an imputed price index, based on wages. This means that this component will track wages (giving a convenient analytical relationship) by definition.

The logic of following this measure is that the Fed convinced itself that the core (ex-food and and energy) personal consumption expenditure is the best measure of “underlying” inflation, but it turns out that the housing part of that has construction issues (too smoothed to pick up current events), and so they wanted to strip that out of the measure.

Wuhan and the nature of belief

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/30/wuhan-and-the-nature-of-belief/
Created
Tue, 31/01/2023 - 02:30
The helpless and their power-ups Why do people believe what they do? Why are conspiracy theories so attractive? Slate’s John Ehrenreich examines the persistence of the Wuhan lab leak theory behind the emergence of COVID-19. Yes, “Running Man” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)* is one of the first to suggest it. But in the end, why did the story take off on the right when most scientists find the disease’s animal origin more plausible? For one, Ehrenreich suggests, the lab leak theory plays into the right-wing distrust of “experts” and elites. Plus: People also generally prefer simple, straightforward stories that give them a sense of control over complex ones filled with ambiguity and complexity that foster a sense of helplessness. The lab-leak story is simple. Short version: Someone in a lab in China doing research on deadly viruses screwed up. The actions to take are clear: Blame China. Demand reparations. Tighten up regulation of laboratories doing research on disease-causing microbes. Bar gain-of-function research that alters viruses to make them more deadly.