Ben – Page 2 – St. Eutychus

The father of all links posts

Ah, another week, another post chock full of links from the narrow sector of the world wide that I like to call the blogosphere.

I thought I’d get a little bit geographically specific with this little link edition. Just to give you an idea of the spread of blogs that I read (that you should too). This is by no means comprehensive – but here are some of the homes of regular commenters, people I know, and people I reckon you should discover (along with some choice posts from their sites).

Right-o. Lets go.

Starting with those in my own neck of the woods – the Townsville scene… (in no particular order).

Tim – doesn’t post often and when he does it’s usually a YouTube video.
Leah – is the Andrew Bolt of the North Queensland Christian blogosphere, or perhaps the Tim Blair. She also covered North Queensland’s lost and found saga this week where a local lad from a local church went missing in the bush, and was found a couple of days later.
Stuss – has picked up the pace a little, though most of what she’s saying is about gardening and decluttering. Which is fine. Because both are good things.
Phoebe – hasn’t really said anything for 21 days. I just counted. But no list of bloggers from Townsville would be complete without her.
Joel – if Leah is the Tim Blair of the Townsville blogosphere then Joel is the Piers Ackerman.
Carly – is an education student and gives some interesting insight into the female psyche with pieces like the one she wrote last week about Oprah.
Chris barely posts enough to rank a mention. But he’s a blogger. In Townsville. So he sneaks in.

If you’re in Townsville, and I’ve missed you, let me know in the comments.

Moving south, here are some of the notables in Brisbane…

Kutz – I mentioned his new endeavour last week. It’s been trickling along. I’m sure more comments from nice friendly readers would keep his motivation levels up.
Tim and Amy – The same could be said for these two. They’ve kept a pretty steady pace and you should go over, read what they have to say, and say hello.
Simone – well, I’ve talked about her blog enough for you to know what goes down over there. She gets a prize for being the third blogger to mention my dad* this week. Her little piece of speculation about narrative in the new creation was interesting enough to get my hippocampus firing today.
Will Henderson – gets the prize for being the first to mention dad*, and also for being the first Acts 29 affiliated church planter in Australia – a story that apparently hadn’t received all that much coverage before I mentioned it the other day (based on some posts like this one from Jeff Attack)… check out the website for his upcoming plant. Unfortunately it’s a bit grungy. And we all know how I feel about grunge.

Now, on to Sydney. The city of my birth and home of many good blogs.

Izaac is back from a holiday and taking on the challenge of posting about Christian love and social justice.
Ben celebrated his birthday yesterday – and I promised him a link. Then he posted a story about how the Governator has the Conan sword in his office – that I was all set to feature in my next little string of “Curiosities” posts.
At the fountainside Soph asks the important questions about train etiquette – something we’ll have to (re)familiarise ourselves with next year.
Ben (of the Bathgate variety) lists five things that made him tough(er). I score one on his list.
Dave Miers managed to scoop Mikey Lynch by posting an interview with Andrew Heard, one of the Geneva Church planting crew (another post on the network from Dave), before Mikey could wrap up his series of similar interviews with church planting figures (including Will Henderson and Al Stewart).

Mikey (from Tasmania) was also the second person to, somewhat vicariously, mention dad this week because his name came up in one of the posts from the aforementioned series of interviews.

It has also become apparent – from what Andrew Heard said on Dave’s blog and what Al Stewart said on Mikey’s – that the Geneva portmanteau was only a vicious rumour, and that the name is actually a reference to Calvin’s work in that city. Which is a good thing.

And to conclude, here are my favourite ten posts from my blog this week (including bits from Robyn and Benny).

Benny on Ministry
Robyn on Grammar (PS – you should all encourage Robyn to blog more – she needs some comment love…)
Good bad haircuts
Bad relevance
How to pick a cafe
Cool stuff to do with your photos/iPhone
Tips from a guru (my dad – since he’s the flavour of the blogosphere these days…*)
The one about being wrong.
The one about yawning.
The one about being a PK, and the follow up about being a PK being a bit like being Harry Potter.

* I should point out that these constant mentions of dad being mentioned are a mixture of patri-pride and because I think it’s slightly funny that he feels a sense of discomfort about being in the spotlight. It’s not because I think he’s super special (though he is). And if you want to join the fan club here’s the video I made for his 50th.

September 1, 2009

Introducing…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through reading Vanishing Point it’s that a blog without a Ben is barely a blog at all.

I’ve been toying with the idea of having more people write stuff here – and I’ve offered that to a few select people. I’m not a control freak – though I may appear to be – so I find the idea of other people producing content quite liberating.

I will, as I introduce more people, make it more readily apparent that you can subscribe to posts from particular people (which means missing the stuff from others).

For now, I’d like to introduce you to Benny. He guest wrote a post a while back about protectionism. He’s an economist. And an expert on strange laws that are still in force in Queensland (he’s not a law lecturer, despite the billing he gets). He’s happy to take media engagements on this basis. Actually he’s not. Despite repeated calls to do so from Sunrise.

I went to school with Benny in Brisbane. Good times were had by all. We started a spam newsletter that on retrospect was funny and offensive. And we harvested emails from forwards we received. Turns out that is pretty illegal.

Anyway, Ben intends to blog a bit here. He’s sent me a couple of incredibly long emails. He works best with word limits. I’m going to give him 500.

Here’s what he has to say about this opportunity.

Well, Nathan has said I can be an occasional contributor to his blog. this is most awesome, cause I don’t want to set up my own blog, and Nathan is an interesting person, so I like to comment about him. Further, it seems that this blog and all its affiliates are very Christian focused. So I guess instead of just whinging to Nathan via email, our background discussions with the alternative viewpoints can be brought upfront.
So, first up, it has to be said that quite often I have a very alternative views about things to Nathan. this has included religion (so very, very often), the role of public representatives, taxation policy, the merits of tax subsidies for childcare/rent/home ownership, abortion, stem cell research, home ownership v renting, the Iraq war, religion in schools/school prayer, speed limits/alcohol allowances, police procedure and police powers, criminal punishments, privacy regulations, preferred presidential candidates (well I think we both wanted Obama but one of us had more confidence in his potential success), the definition of marriage and marriage rights, and many other things.
Probably Nathan’s current distinguishing feature is his immense Christianity. I have also noticed that since I have known Nathan (since we were 15) that his Christianity has become a more and more prevalent feature. And it has really ramped up the last few years. We also know he is a good writer (so much so I remember him getting a few writing awards at school), whereas I care little for perfect grammar. And less for word counts. I like long posts. But since Nathan has full edit access, this probably won’t be such a problem.

August 27, 2009

The other BMI

Health is measured using Body Mass Index (BMI), while economic health is measured by the Big Mac Index (BMI).

Ben (economist Ben not Vanishing Point Ben) scoffs at the Big Mac index. He thinks it’s economically trite. I think it’s a worthy comparison of the economies of different countries. Here’s a new chart that takes an interesting new direction with the traditional concept used to measure purchasing power…

August 23, 2009

Quiztastic

Just so you know – Ben writes awesome quizzes.

I’m not going to try to steal his thunder with a quiz of my own. But they seem to turn readers into commenters in an effective manner. You should check them out. Even if it’s just for the cool cartoon he draws for each one – and the chance to learn about other people from the blogosphere.

August 10, 2009

Euty goes to Downsville

Ben has really stepped things up in the creativity department since I featured Simone as an example of the “creator” type of blogger and he was relegated to the “less prestigious” (in paraphrase) tier of “commentator”… if you have no idea what I’m talking about – see this post.

This would, were I corruptible, be an opportunity to play the two off against each other in order to see what kind of creativity they might produce… But lets face it… Ben’s pretty creative in his own right.

And this is awesome.

July 24, 2009

Knowing the creators

Ben was a little bit upset that he didn’t make it into the creator category of my post about types of bloggers. He’s lifted his game since. His bed face post was exceptional – a blend of creativity and his inimitable style of biting social observation.

Check out the bed head indicators… and read the post. Gold.

July 21, 2009

Pyramid of Geezer

So, I have a proposition I’d like to make publicly to Ben (of Vanishing Point fame)…

The title of this post would make a good shirt wouldn’t it? A cool cartoon about grumpy old men… something like this media pyramid but about growing old and dividing your time between telling stories about the good old days, complaining about the youth of today, etc, etc…

I reckon Ben could draw something awesome… something in this vein…

But I digress, this pyramid was really the reason for this post. It’s from Wired.

July 18, 2009

Protectionism: A guest post

I often preface my posts on economics by saying “I’m not an economist” – I also often have discussions with my friend Ben – who is an economist – and based on his uni results and work history, a good one, before posting things. Today, rather than rehashing his comments on protectionism and the economics involved I’ll just reproduce them verbatim.

_______________________________________

Okay, you have a bunch of people working in for an Australian company in Australia. They get $20 and all profits remain in Australia. Assume a competitive industry so they receive the fair market price for their goods.

Compare with an overseas producer, who has labour costs of $5 a unit. There are arguments that offshore employees are less productive than domestic workers, but I don’t know about that. Anyway, they also have export costs of $2 to transport the items to Australia.

Thus, per unit the offshore company is always going to make $13 more per unit. In a competitive market, the price should come down to the opportunity cost of producing the item. Given as many offshore competitors should be able to enter the market as they want, the price of the item at market value will be somewhere around $15. There is no way that this item can be sold at a rate covering the value of the labour in Australia.

What does this mean? Well, most likely the level of protectionism we have isn’t just keeping shirt prices high, but also wages. If there were true globalisation, that should extend to a worldwide labour market, and a close level of parity of wages.

If the company went overseas, it would increase demand for labour upwards, and labour costs would go up to $6 per unit. Some Australians would now not be able to find employment at the same level, and would take jobs at $19 an hour.

So those are the first degree effects. If the market was always competitive, this shouldn’t have much effect on the market price of the good. if the level of protectionism inflated the market price, then there should be some drop in the price of item. In the current situation in Australia, the latter is the case, and there should be a drop in prices.

The idea of free trade is that people displaced from employment would move elsewhere, generally to industries that the nation has a comparative advantage in.

Let’s explain comparative advantage.

Country A:
wheat costs 2 units to produce
computers costs 5 units

country B:
wheat costs 10 units to produce
computers costs 50 units

In this situation, country A can produce both wheat and computers for less resources than country B. However, thought of differently,

country A:
wheat costs 2/5 unit of computers
computers cost 2.5 units wheat

country B:
wheat costs 1/5 unit of sugar
computers costs 5 units of wheat

Country A has a comparative advantage in producing computers, B in producing wheat.

now, for 100 resources:

A could make 50 wheat or 20 computers. B could make 10 wheat or 2 computers.

A focuses on making its comparative advantage, computers. It makes 20 computers. It trades 3 computers and gets 10 wheat. It now has 17 computers and 10 wheat, which it could not have produced before. And country B has 3 computers, which it couldn’t have obtained before. Any linear combination between A trading 0 and 4 computers for wheat can result in both countries obtaining a different level than otherwise obtainable.

So I guess that is the basis for why trade benefits all countries.

You mentioned farmers in your post. And in particular rice. Here is my comparative advantage of rice production for Australia vs. the world:

Australia
Rice costs 1000 units to produce
all other goods (a basket of other good) costs 10 units

Rest of world
Rice costs 1 unit to produce
all other goods costs 8 units.

Work through that example. Australia should never produce rice.

One good thing about free trade is our rice industry should take a dive, which is fair enough. I still think our farming industry retains inefficiencies due to our ridiculous farm protection policies. I think when you think farm protection, you are thinking maintaining farms. I think it would just result in a shift in farming to more efficient products/farming techniques.

But back to my point, and I touched on this in my thesis, when people nearing retirement lose their manufacturing jobs, they don’t really shift into other industries. There is less incentive for employers to retrain them given they only have a few years of working left, and the workers have low incentive for a range of reasons (including the fact they are angry hold men). And this grudge remains well into retirement, leaving a group of people who will always be anti-free trade.

I also don’t buy the whole ethical argument suggesting they are exploiting offshore labour. I think this is generally used as an emphatic argument that carries little weight but often thrown against companies who source labour overseas. The first point alone doesn’t make much sense, that the workers don’t get a lot of money for their work. On so many levels. If they weren’t getting much money they wouldn’t be working. True, their conditions may be worse than ours, but better than their current standard. Allowing full free trade should resolve this issue, as noted above. It’s only when trade trickles to these countries that their progress in workplace development is stunted. those people might not be getting a “fair” wage, but then you have to extend that argument to domestic matters, where it would appear the workers much by mirroring the argument also not be getting a “fair” wage (but a greatly inflated one). The “loss of traditional skills” argument I don’t think is relevant, again refer to the comparative advantage deal, and if it’s a free labour market there should still be a required allocation to the relevant markets. I don’t like to use analogy, but in the western world, the proportion of people today compared to prior to the industrial revolution, not many now know how to tend the fields, hustle cattle, build cottages, etc. why the developing world needs to be further stunted for the argument of losing traditional skills just seems like a kick in the face.

April 9, 2009

YouTube Tuesday: Super Smashing Pumpkins Brothers

The Smashing Pumpkins have been one of my favourite bands since Ben introduced me to them in grade 11. He incessantly talked about them. They were impossible to avoid.

Super Mario Brothers is one of my favourite games of all time. How can you not enjoy taking the guise of a plumber and running around a world full of walking fungus and drain pipes filled with treasure?

So combining the two is pure awesomeness.

March 17, 2009

Foetal position

Ben just sent me a link to this ABC story where Tony Abbott attacked Kevin Rudd for allowing changes to Australia’s aid policy and aid money being used to fund abortions.

The comments thread is telling. These discussions always bring out the rabid atheists who want to accuse Christianity of “holding back society”… I do like it when they put together a coherent argument.

Like this:

“Lets not forget that the bible tells the story of how god drowned every living person except Jonah and his family because he was annoyed with them. So to say the bible condemns murder is a very selective interpretation.”

Sadly comments are closed. So I couldn’t point out that Jonah was the guy eaten by a whale and people were saved at the end of the Jonah story because they repented. Anyway. There’s a lot of stupid Christians in the debate too. But Coloru seems to be a pretty rabid atheist, he says:

“Wakeup! If you cant find god in your own heart and mind then it doesnt exist. The bible isnt going to help.*”

*lack of apostrophes his own.

This again highlights the atheist’s fundamental misunderstanding of the place of the bible in Christian faith. It’s central – not an afterthought. It’s the way we find God. And hands up Christians who can find God in their own heart and mind…

March 11, 2009

Green is the new bleak

A recent comment on a recent post asked me the following questions:

1. I am of the mind to think that when God gave us this planet to look after, it was sort of a house-sitting arrangement. He isn’t going to be too happy to come back and find we’ve trashed the joint, is He.

2. Global pollution and/or global warming are going to have the strongest effect not on the ‘Western’ world but the poorest nations and peoples. I think we have not only an ethical but a moral duty to ensure that this planet can support everyone on it.

I will take great delight in answering those questions in a forthright and thoughtful manner – and as a post for all to see, rather than as a comment.

I must start by nailing my colours to the mast – I’m a climate change agnostic. I think the climate is changing, I think people probably play some part in the change, I think the climate has always changed, and I don’t care. I really don’t. There are other much more important issues that I’m concerned about. Like locating peurile things on the internet to post here.

I’m sick of climate evangelists banging on my door (metaphorically) and cornering me at every turn (also metaphorically) demanding I repent of my environmental evil and embrace their new creeds. The worst kind of green evangelist is the prosperity preacher – the ones spruiking environmentalism as an opportunity to grow your business through “triple bottom line sustainability” – seriously that’s such a corporate sell out. Lets pretend to be worried about the environment and our workers while at the same time exploiting our customers for the benefit of our shareholders.

Honestly though – I think there are much more pressing, serious issues for us to be tackling. Like keeping people employed, and tackling poverty. How are people in the third world going to afford air conditioning if they don’t have jobs?

Let me deal first with the first question. I like answering problems chronologically. I have two theological propositions to offer when it comes to climate change – and answering statement/question 1 above. I’ll give you the hypothesis, the hopefully contextual “proof text”* and the application:

a) We should reasonably and theologically expect nature to have it in for us.

Biblical justification 1 – Romans 8:20-22

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

We should expect creation and vis a vis nature to be frustrated, to be broken, to be falling apart. This is pretty much why I’m not overly concerned that the ice caps are melting.

Biblical Justification 2 Genesis 3 – starting from halfway through verse 17:

“Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The “curse on mankind” establish our typically dour relationship with the environment.

Not only are our lives insignificant in terms of the lifespan of creation – we can, and should, expect life to be hard work. We should be expecting the climate to change in a frustrating way. That’s what I reckon anyway. So I’m ambivalent about carbon trading, carbon offsets, carbon sequestration, and taxing businesses on the basis of their carbon emissions.

Trying to tackle climate change is like urinating into a pedestal fan – pretty pointless. That is a crude analogy. But sums up my thoughts on anyone who’d rather pursue “pie in the sky” carbon taxes that will cost people jobs. It seems the Federal Government is going to backpedal away from that policy faster than an off balance unicyclist, which in my mind can only be a good thing. It was a travesty that the last election was thought on climate change policy. My good friend Ben argued at the time that the parties may as well have been making our response to alien invasion the big policy issue.

Really, from Australia’s perspective, we’re a microbe in a sea of whales when it comes to pollution. Any stance we take will only be on principle – and it will be a phyrric victory that comes at the cost of Australian jobs and we’ll all end up drowning when sea levels rise anyway. Thanks to our propensity for coastal living. Now, onto proposition number two.

b) Part of our role in having dominion over creation is to bring order to disorder.

Biblical reference: Genesis 3:23

“Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.”

Biblical reference 2: Genesis 2:15

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Biblical reference 3: Genesis 1:28

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Some people believe that work is a result of sin – that we’re suffering this curse due to the punishment dished out in Genesis 3 – but work has been around from the beginning.

We are called on to “subdue” the earth and to excercise dominion over the animal kingdom. I would argue theologically that the idea of subdugation here is referring to bringing order to disorder – to ploughing fields in order to grow crops, to production, to using natural resources in order to cater for the prescribed “multiplication” in numbers. I would argue that the proverbial “paving paradise to put up a parking lot” fits into the category of “bringing order”. Particularly if the development is designed with obsessive compulsive people in mind.

Really though, I think our role as “caretaker” is to make sure humanity survives and prospers – to me this means beating the environment not embracing it. It means digging stuff out of the ground and using it to build houses. It means erasing middle class guilt for carbon emissions and keeping people in jobs – especially jobs pulling stuff out of the ground and making things out of it. Especially making airconditioners. That is the most appropriate response to global warming – make airconditioners for third world countries.

Which leads me to question 2 – which was not a theological issue – but a moral one. I’ve decided to answer it tomorrow. This post is already over 1000 words long – I doubt you’ve read this far. Unless you’re Ben, a climate change evangelist or a climate change denier. I’ll talk about those last people too – and I’ll say something nice about the idea of “sustainability”. Oh, and I’ll do another post on why I don’t think fighting climate change is the primary concern of the Christian… this could end up being a fun series to write.

Stay classy readers.

*Because we know that: “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.”

March 2, 2009

Crabb on Costello

The political coverage in the SMH today is all about one thing. The schism in the Liberal Party. It’s nice to have the Herald’s attention drawn so far away from any other schism.

Here’s a nice little analogy that even Ben – analogy hater of some renown – is sure to appreciate. Crabb argues that Costello is waiting in the political wings. Costello keeps saying “I’m doing nothing.”

“But Costello is like a hippo in a ballerina skirt – he’s kind of noticeable even when he’s not doing anything.”

February 21, 2009

The chips are down

I have made passing reference to the fact that I engage in a series of emailed conversations with my friends Ben, Paul and James. These conversations keep me sane. James was the guy who looked like the guy who eats scorpions – although if like me your workplace blocks Facebook there’s only one photo in that post so you’ll just have to picture him as that guy with the scorpions. Ben has been written about so many times that his name appears as one of the most used tags on this site. Paul, well, you don’t want to see a photo of Paul or have me talk much about him. Lets just call him a man of mystery.

Anyway, today’s discussions rest on potato chips – well that and the infinitely more painful subject of how cool iPhones are. That’s painful for me. I don’t have one. More specifically we’re discussing the superior brand and variety of potato chip.

Based solely on brand and not taking flavour into account my list is as follows*:

1. Pringles
2. Tasty Jacks
3. Red Rock Deli
4. Kettles
5. Smiths crinkle cut

*Potato chips only – doritos and CCs are a different category entirely.

Any advances on this list? Favourite flavours that I should consider in expanding the list to include finer details?

February 2, 2009

Represent

When you vote what are you voting for? The best decision maker/legislator or the best person – hoping that they’ll make the rightest decisions?

Ben says:

“Members of parliament are there to legislate (although their roles are creeping further and further in to the executive, which is just further reason to reform our governmental structure). The representatives role is to set legislation for the nation, and their logic and rational and justification should reflect this, each acting in an individual capacity.”

I lean towards appointing the best person for the job – and don’t necessarily include “decision making” in that judgement. But party politics, and the rarity of conscience voting may make it a moot point. Your thoughts?

November 14, 2008

I told you so

For Ben.

November 6, 2008