Posts on sundry matters of life the universe and everything: Culture, Environment, Life, Politics & Government, Science, Social Science and Society, Technology etc.
While the findings are quite complex, the take-out message from a recent OECD study is:
Goran Roos, Adjunct professor at University of Technology Sydney, explains why advanced manufacturing is an essential feature of ‘economic complexity’ and that “a nation’s potential to create prosperity is a direct function of its economic complexity.”
Australia’s economic complexity has declined over the last 25 years, to the point where it ranked 53 among all countries in 2012. The top three were Japan, Switzerland and Sweden. Losing the car industry is likely to lower Australia’s economic complexity by a further 5-15%. The share of manufacturing in Australia’s economy is likely to be below 5%, compared to Switzerland’s 20%. Continue reading Innovation and economic complexity
The news comes courtesy of Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy:
Radio National’s Background Briefing is about to take a look at Turnbull’s NBN.
The program will go to air on Sunday, November 1 at 8am, repeated Tuesday, November 3 at 9pm. It will also be repeated on NewsRadio at 1pm on Sunday. Continue reading NBN alert
The WHO pronouncement on the linkage between processed meats and cancer generated a lot of misleading stories, like this one from The Guardian:
Newspoll has the LNP on a comfortable lead of 52-48 on TPP terms. Last week Fairfax-Ipsos came in at 53-47, which is landslide territory.
If you go to Fairfax Polls and click on “Poll of polls” and go to last week, you’ll find that Labor averaged 46.7 across the polls. Roy Morgan has been the most negative for Labor. Continue reading Should Bill Shorten give up?
Two articles have come my way which may be of interest to people trying to come to grips with the refugee situation in Europe. First:
Overall while there have been some protests and violent attacks, the German people have been welcoming. As leader, Angela Merkel has been very firm: Continue reading Europe’s dilemma over refugees
The ‘sharing economy‘ has crept up on policy makers. Perhaps best known are Uber and Airbnb.
Uber, which competes with the taxi business, has chalked up 2.5 million rides in Brisbane in just 18 months. Andrew Leigh told the ABC that one in 200 homes in Australia are listed on Airbnb to be available for accommodation. Continue reading Saturday salon 24/10
Away for 35 days, it was really five holidays in a row – Berlin, Erlangen, Prague, Poland and the boat trip from Passau to Budapest. The overall impression is of 500 million people on the move. A surprising number of people we met had connections with Australia, but if we dropped off the map, I think the world would just blink and carry on.
One way of judging Europe is by their cars. They drive better cars than we do, and that includes Poland and the central European countries. No bombs or rust buckets on the road. Did you know that Slovakia with a population of 5.4 million makes over a million cars per annum? Continue reading Back in Oz
Abbott’s fall and Turnbull’s ascension was the first news we got from home, via a text from our son.
I must admit I didn’t see it coming. I’d written Turnbull off as unacceptable to the Liberal Party. Now suddenly he’s there and Shorten looks like a dead man walking.
Mark has a piece in the Guardian. Continue reading Saturday salon 17/10: late edition
In the the New Turnbull Cabinet post comments Jumpy asked the following question about proposals to change the Senate voting system:
“What do you make of the proposed voting changes, fairer and more representative or the established parties trying to cull competition ?”
