Political Economy, Academic Progress, Rabbit Health

[tcpip]

Dove-tailing with the Henry Review Prosper Australia have a petition calling for a review of costs of home ownership and the role of land prices (which the Henry Review was quite smart about. I have written an article on such matters entitled The Spectre of Henry, and have started a group called Land and Labor in support of the Henry Review. I am of the opinion that this is the most significant social justice reform that has been raised for decades, but alas, discussions public finance is typically a cure for insomnia.

On a related issue I received assignment results back from my two MBA courses for this semester; an 80% grade for Economic Decision Making, where I wrote on the implementation of an emissions trading scheme and subsidies for the electricity generating industry (where I suggested that they be treated like the tabacco industry) and 92% for Business Law, which was analysis of a recent Service Level Agreement. The former grade was docked a few percent because I forgot to include proper citations for two graphs - although in the process of tidying this up I did get in contact with one of the authors who seems to be a delightful chap.

One of our rabbits, Astaroth, has stopped eating which is a particular problem for a grazing animal. A visit to the local vet has diagnosed a sore tooth and has provided the usual medicines (anti-inflammatory and anti-biotic) for such a problem. At the moment we're feeding him baby food via a syringe, which he is hardly thrilled about. If he is not eating of his own accord by Monday it'll be off to the vet to get a tooth extracted. Presumably in the wild a toothache is a death sentence for a rabbit.

Comments

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

With hedgehogs, tooth problems often occur at or after age 3. In the wild, they're expected to live for two years, so I guess geriatric hedgie problems are a luxury and I should be honoured to have made them possible for my pet.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

From The Spectre of Henry (which already has a spammer response on it):
"Undeniably, the resource tax is a good thing"?

That first word really doesn't belong there. It is totally deniable.

Mining exploration companies go through periods of risky searching, during which they lose massive amounts of money. If they are successful, they then may become successful producers ... at which stage those who risked capital will now face exceptionally high taxes. What a brilliant way to discourage mining, which has largely pulled us out of the GFC, and cause potentially massive long-term damage to our economy. After all, why would anyone bother to perform high-risk exploration in Australia when they can do similarly overseas for a better long-term return?

Then, there's the issue that our really huge mining companies are present in almost everyone's superannuation, as well as in every well balanced investment portfolio. The population at large is already receiving a share of what naturally belongs to them. This new tax (were it to become law, which is very doubtful anyhow) simply sidelines some more of that share to the government instead, which may or may not distribute it any better.