lev.lafayette's blog

Day 12 of the Federal election campaign and there was supposed to be a "true" yesterday for Easter Sunday. But guess who broke it? Well, the Prime Minister that's who, by bringing in the media entourage to see him in full glory at his fundamentalist church.

Then, when people mocked him, and his *cough* Bellamy Salute *cough* (but mostly the hypocrisy of calling oneself a Christian with his actions), he had a hissy fit. There is also the little matter of something in the Gospels.

Day 10 of the election campaign. Yes I did skip yesterday being a slow news day and all. Today the main stories relate to coal and water, and sometimes at the same time with the case of Adani, now it has been revealed that they who rejected scientific advice its groundwater modelling was "not fit for purpose". Adani have also refused to commit to corrective action if a new model showed the mine would have more extensive groundwater impacts.

Day 8 of the election and the LNP lose another candidate with Murray Angus, candidate for Corio, being disendorsed for breaking party rules. He had the boldness to suggesting that his Labor opponent, shadow defence spokesman Richard Marles, was a "good bloke" that unions aren't such a bad idea.

https://www.theage.com.au/federal-election-2019/liberal-party-disendorse...

On day 7 the hysterics of privilege hit. Much as been made about about Labor's plans to end a loophole in our tax system which allows for people who have paid no tax to receive a subsidy when they already have a high income. How is such a thing possible? Because under Howard and Costello the sensible system of dividend imputation (introduced by Labor in 1987 to end a "double-tax") was modified to allow for a fully franked system even when no income tax had been paid - and this includes superannuation payments for those over 60 which doesn't count as taxable income.

Day 6 of the election campaign and the LNP is already preparing for defeat with Tony Abbott raising the possibility that he would return to the Liberal Party leadership if the party asked him after the election. Given the popularity of Tony Abbott, I raise the possibility that this is a weird psy-op to get people to vote for ScuMo so we don't have to put up with Abbott.

Liberal candidate for Chisholm, Gladys Liu, has made the top story for day 5 of the campaign. First, she claims LGBTI issues as "ridiculous rubbish", then tried to claim it was "fake news" (we have recordings, you know), and then tried to say that it was the views of the Chinese community. Congratulations, Gladys! Not only are you a vile homophobe, you also managed to lie about what you said, and then you also tried to smear the Chinese community as being as homophobic as you are. You know what its called when you use a generalised smear against a community? That's racism.

Day 4 of the election and we turn to those who think should treat all of this as a big joke.

LNP Senator for putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Matthew Canavan, shows that he as as smart as Tony Abbott by chowing down on a whole raw onion.
https://twitter.com/mattjcan/status/1117170594318041089

On Day 3 of the election campaign, the Prime Minister was introducing himself to anyone of vaguely SE Asian appearance with a "nǐ hǎo" only to do so to a woman who informs him that she's Korean. Once again, his exceptional skills in marketing are evident.

More importantly, it's the dumping season. The Tories have ditched three candidates already because two of them have dual citizenship issues and a third because they won't give up their job at Australia Post.

Day one of the election campaign: LNP engages in a shocking level of corruption and nepotism.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-11/morrison-government-appoints-coll...

Federal election campaign day 2.

When Peter Dutton accuses the Labor candidate for Dickson, Ali France, of using her disability as an "excuse" for not living in the electorate.

In Intermediate Public Economics by Hindriks and Myles (2004) there is a comparison chart of the market concentration in US manufacturing (1987) using the 4-firm concentration ratio and the Herfindahl index (p227). I am thinking of a deviation from perfect competition that the 4-firm concentration ratio can illustration. In perfect competition, the proportion of a market that a firm would control would be equal to the 1/n, where n = the number of firms in the market. Thus in Laundry Manufacturing, there are 11 firms and the 4-firm concentration is 0.93, which looks pretty bad.