Latest Posts
Minority
In my professional life, I get quite involved in industry forums (fora?). Today, for me, was quite a big day. I had set up a workshop for my peers around the industry – roughly one per company, plus a few guest speakers – to discuss a professional issue. All up, thereContinue Reading
Price signals vs coercion
Sydney’s water crisis is over, for the moment. Our dams are now 65.5% full – up from 33.9% on the 8th February 2007. That will last us around two to three years without any more rain, at the current rate, which feels like a reasonable cushion. Not coincidentally, Sydney’s water consumption went from anContinue Reading
Work and life – some statistics
This week Beaton Consulting released a study on work life balance. Beaton’s main game is as advisors to professional services firms (law firms, accounting firms, etc). Every year they do a mammoth survey of those firms’ clients, to find out who is the best in each category. As a sideline, they tackContinue Reading
Password mania
The other day I counted the number of passwords I use for various things on my computer at work. There are 26. They are all on different cycles. Some I am required to change monthly. Some quarterly, some never change. Some have a requirement to have a mix of capitalContinue Reading
Populist economics
The Sydney Tele yesterday had a front page screamer about Glenn Stevens, Governor of the Reserve Bank – Is this man Australia’s most useless? There were two main parts to the critique. First, that the Reserve Bank should be stopping the banks from raising interest rates beyond the official cash rate;Continue Reading
Moral majority?
I’ve written before about how annoying I find the rules about religious education in NSW public schools. In 1880, the NSW government established the Public Instruction Act, which introduced compulsory free education in NSW. In a compromise with the (non catholic) religious schools, the government also took over most ofContinue Reading
Darling Harbour grown up
Today the Penguin family went (as we often do) to Darling Harbour. Over easter, there is a circus festival. Which meant that we saw three different live shows out of the ten on offer – The Pitts, Leo Bonne, and Ace P. Freckle. They were all good. The Pitts (myContinue Reading
Happy Easter
To pass the time on my regular jogging route, I count the weddings and critique the bridesmaid’s dresses. I’m lucky that I can run through a very scenic part of Sydney, and on the weekend, I’m guaranteed at least one wedding to gawk at. This afternoon was a bit different. OnlyContinue Reading
Moral Hazard – was the Fed right to intervene?
Many column inches have been spent in the past couple of days analysing the Fed’s decision to prop up Bear Stearns while it found a buyer – in the end JP Morgan agreed to buy it for around 10% of the trading price a week before. What the Fed didContinue Reading
Single sex schools
Around here, one of the common topics of conversation among the parent community is, “where are you going to send your kids to high school?” We genuinely have no idea. Our options are made much more complex by the fact that all of the six high schools within walking distance of ourContinue Reading