Engineer. Urban & rail transportation - cities - applied arts & sciences - major projects - regulation - competition Tweets represent personal views only
Sydney
Joined March 2010
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Road transport electrification presents a once in a century opportunity to address the user-pays element (currently petrol/ diesel tax) that contributes about half of the direct costs of road spending (including maintenance, administration, expansion, enforcement)
I learned today of the quiet, unannounced passing of an old friend of my late father's, who I contributed to various community projects with. She and her husband lived in a Watsons Bay depression-era alms house, quite like the house I spend my first 8 years in. End of an era
I knew her as a supporter of my late father's protest organisation at USyd against removal of Sydney's trams, she was the first woman economist on the Wheat Board, I think first female mayor of Woollahra LGA, and the first woman Commonwealth Grants Commissioner
I’m not sure how many people have this frame of reference (I guess not many). from a combination of family friends and mentors in the building trades, working with them on volunteer projects in my teens, (late 90s), and self-managed flat renos 2007-2017, and having a trade…
We need to rediscover the post-guild Victorian era formalisation of culture, training and practices in institutions to respond to what is an obvious market failure.
Related thread:
nitter.gq/roodave/status/1911374…
The current trajectory of the Australian Reserve Bank, punishing a small subset (primarily Gen Ys with families and big, recent, family home loans), also being punished by fiscal policy/ redistribution, seems like a bit of a turning point for the "regulatory state" megatrend
I think we remain on track for this to come to fruition. The whole concept of independent monetary policy has just enabled the state to outsource blame and be reckless with fiscal policy (taxing, spending, politicisation, winners and losers) nitter.gq/roodave/status/2059394…
I think the whole independent monetary policy thing, like other parts of the 1980s-> regulatory state, having (once) a kernel of usefulness, is to a large degree a sham to abrogate responsibility, as in "independent regulation" generally nitter.gq/roodave/status/1310116…
Brewed in Thailand? What is going on… I’m guessing some tax dodge, how can it be more economic that exporting the ligit Pinoy article?
As it happens tastes pretty much right, great lager with a bit more of a hit than I want or can handle these days, but great memories
David Caldwell retweeted
One reason politics used to be much more sensible is most politicians (regardless of party) had shared experiences of working very hard in tough jobs or fighting for Australia or both. Deteriorated from 1990s with rise of a frivolous “political” class-who today drive us all mad.
This graph embodies a profound group of policy failures on (excessive) migration, high income tax, high education costs, and collapsed/ defective trade capability and training institutions, feeding collapsing productivity and rocketing costs
