I went to a fascinating talk on insurance risk from a former Florida insurance actuary recently. He was talking about the public policy issues involved in insuring people against natural catastrophes. Basically, insurance fulfils three main functions in the economy: transferring risk from the risk averse providing capital in theContinue Reading
There have been a couple of articles (probably because it is the silly season) recently about the unaffordability of pre-schools in NSW, compared with other Australian states. The vast majority of pre-schools in NSW cost about $30 a day, with most children going for the year before school, for twoContinue Reading
Today I’m reviewing one of the Quarterly Essays – The History Question; Who owns the past? by Inga Clendinnen. Quarterly Essays are 20,000 words published quarterly, with responses generally in the next issue. I’ve previously reviewed Clendinnen’s Dancing with Strangers, which is a detailed deconstruction and pieceing together of the historyContinue Reading
One of our favourite weekend excursions is to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and take the ferry home. It’s been a while, so we did it again today, even though rain was threatening. So picture us – three adults, with three small boys. They’d been cooped up a bit inContinue Reading
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review entitled Extreme Jobs – the Dangerous Allure of the 70 hour workweek (reported here) sums up again why I don’t think creating work-life balance is just about telling (asking?) employers to be nicer to their employees. Many people enjoy their work, andContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The World According to Y: inside the new adult generation, by Rebecca Huntley. I probably wouldn’t have bought this book if I didn’t have some flying to do (four hours each way to NZ meant I needed more than just some magazines), but I’m glad IContinue Reading
I have yet to see the movie Happy Feet (which of course, given the name of this blog, I must). But I’m interested to see that it’s already come under attack for being “environmentalist propaganda”. As I understand it, in spite of the poles being more likely to warm upContinue Reading
Last Friday, we were having our work Christmas party that afternoon – casual, outdoors, in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, but sunny. Unfortunately, I had an important meeting, so I couldn’t go casual, as most of my colleagues did, but I thought aContinue Reading
AFR Boss magazine had a very interesting conversation about flexible jobs recently. The full transcript is here. It was a moderated conversation between Dr Marian Baird, of the University of Sydney and Mr Stephen Bevan, research director, The Work Foundation. It’s a great conversation, but a few things really struckContinue Reading
Today’s Book Review is Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt. I read, and loved Angela’s Ashes, when it first came out. I had avoided Tis, as the reviews were mostly unfavourable. But I expected quite a lot of this book, given how good Angela’s Ashes was, and also given that IContinue Reading