World Youth Day - New Powers

New powers, effective today, have been introduced to allow police to perform partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites - and to allow police to arrest and fine people for "causing annoyance" to World Youth Day participants.

The SHM report.

Critics say that the new laws have the potential to make a crime of wearing a T-shirt with a message on it, undertaking a Chaser-style stunt, handing out condoms at protests, riding a skateboard or even playing music.

I say - these laws haven't gone far enough!

Yes, they are prejudiced against people who aren't participants of World Youth Day.

But the answer isn't to restrict the laws - or repeal them. The solution is to broaden them.

Let's remove the prejudice from these laws by extending their powers to everyone.

World Youth Day causes me great annoyance. Why not fine everyone of the participants for every WYD t-shirt they wear.

All participants of WYD should be strip searched upon leaving any of the "declared areas". People leaving them should be subject to vehicle and baggage searches that require them to remove jackets, gloves, shoes and headwear if requested. And reasonable force should be allowed to make sure they stay inside their "declared areas" if, for any reason, they do not permit the search.

Kristina Keneally is reported as saying "bag checks are a sensible safety precaution which any young person who is going to a major event in Australia … would expect". So, the participants should be expecting them.

The president of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, said the broad meaning of "causes annoyance" had the potential to encompass any activity.

Great! So, basically, if extended to pro-WYD behavior as well as anti-WYD... it would cover any religious singing, all speeches and sermons performed as a part of WYD... and most especially, anything carrying the motto "For the time of your eternal life"!

Bring it on. Let's fine every last one of them for all the really annoying things they're going to subject us to.

Don't shun the idea - use it.

Bring on the new laws... just get rid of the prejudice in them, and we can all join in the game.

The Wealth Spread Index - The Fairness Bourse

A friend of mine and I went out for drinks recently. While we were speaking about politics, economics and how to solve the future... he gave me a great idea for a use for something I've been messing around with.


The History

Wealth Distribution - how we compare

Some short time ago I was doing some research on wealth distribution. I wanted to come up with a way of comparing countries directly.

Recently, I heard a talk from Paul Krugman, a Professor of Economics from Princeton University. In fact, I've written on that talk before.

What had stuck in my head from Krugman's talk was the issue of "wealth spread" and "fairness" within an economy - we should have a way of comparing different economies directly.

More specifically - while I "know" from common understanding that the US economy has become much less evenly spread over the last couple of decades, and many of the Scandinavian countries have maintained their even equality of wealth - I wanted to be able to calculate the situation more accurately; to clearly measure and compare the different economies; possibly work out where Australia is on that scale, right now.

I looked around and couldn't find any consensus on the issue - no standard way of measuring what I wanted to measure.

After some hunting around and a little experimenting I came up with with a basic model/system of my own.

Now at that point I had no idea what to do with it. It was interesting to me and I liked to see the results - but I couldn't see what the practical upshot of it could ever be to anyone.

And this is where my drinks with Simon come into it. He gave me the idea of what to do with it while we were talking that night.

Why do we so easily measure a country's health and value by:

• GDP Growth
• Interest Rates
• Inflation
• Unemployment Rates
• Stock market values
  

Why can't we talk about "Spread of Wealth", "Long term vs Short Term Unemployment", "Ease of Basic Living"... the simple reason, I would hypothesise, is because GDP, Interest Rates, Inflation and Unemployment all have single numbers attached to them - and the Stock market has the "bourse" value (e.g. ASX200, FTSE, Nasdaq etc.)

All the other issues (Spread of Wealth etc.) have no single number that can be associated with them - and therefore can't be summarised as easily.

One example in support of this theory is the topic of "housing afford-ability". Until recently, in Australia, the issue had never been discussed widely. In order to have the conversation about it - in order to make it news worthy - we needed a specific housing afford-ability index, so that we could compare States with each other, record whether it's gone up or down and by how much... and generally discuss the issues using simple concepts. That's what we did. We made a "housing afford-ability index".

And so... the idea that came out of my discussion with Simon is this:

If we want to have a discussion about "fairness" and the "spread of wealth" in our economy, then we need a fairness bourse... a wealth spread index; a single number that can be compared between economies and over time within an economy.

So - let's make one.


The overview

The original ideas

Using data easily available, I wanted to find a value that would vary within a known range (say 0 to 100) and that would represent the level of inequality within an economy.

So allowing for the idea that the "worst" possible economy is one in which the bottom 60% of the population own nothing at all and the "best" economy is one in which everyone owns a completely equal share of the wealth - it was fairly simple to come up with a reasonably basic way of scoring economies within the given range.

With a tip of the hat to Ghandi's/Churchill's/Truman's quote (see many confused references to this quote across the internet - Florida Today, Ask MetaFilter, Memorable Quotations, Askville to list a few):

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members"

the formula I used gives more weight to the fairness imparted on the bottom feeders than the big end of town. So while an economy could improve its rating by decreasing the amount of wealth that is "soaked up" by the richest people, it will improve its index value far more quickly by improving the lot of its worst off inhabitants.

Here are the initial results:

All of the initial results were between the values 57.5 (Turkey) and 77 (Slovakia) (represented by the red bars).

These values can, alternatively, be viewed by stretching them out between 0 and 100 so that the lowest scoring economy always receives a score of 0 and the highest 100 (represented by the blue bars).

Some notable scores amongst the list are:

• America - 23.08
• 2nd worst score
• New Zealand - 38.46
• I was surprised by how low NZ scored
• United Kingdom - 38.46
  
• Australia - 53.85
• France - 64.10
  
• Sweden - 87.18
  
• Japan & The Czech Republic - 94.44
• 2nd highest score
  

On a comparative basis - I think this system of scoring shows some merit and represents a step forward in finding a single value to represent the spread of wealth within an economy.

However both systems show some limitations.

The first version, with values between 57.5 and 77, show little absolute variance and gives the mistaken impression that there isn't much difference between these economies in the terms being measured.

The second version with values between 0 and 100, tries to deal with that limitation, but suffers from, or emphasises, a few more:

• it stretches out values at the bottom of the range and compresses values at the top
• it could make countries in the lower values appear as if they were improving or slipping faster than they are
• it could mask improvements/drops in countries with higher values by making the changes seem smaller than they are
  
• one country slipping at the bottom or the top could make the others appear as if they were improving when they weren't
• one country improving at the bottom or the top could make all the others appear as if they were slipping when they weren't

The final solution

It soon became clear why these systems each had these particular problems.

They treated "100" as an attainable goal, as if the "perfectly fair" society was something reachable.

In order to make the scale work like a normal bourse, the "perfect" solution needed to remain something unattainable. Something that everyone aims for, but no one can ever reach - stretching into infinity.

Taking this into account allowed me to calculate these values:

The final results varied from 5.0 up to 22.23 and will increase in rate of growth (approaching infinity) as the economies being measured approach "perfect".

Some notable scores amongst the list are:

• America - 6.2
• again, 2nd worst score
• New Zealand - 8.26
• again, surprised
  
• United Kingdom - 8.26
  
• Australia - 8.9
• France - 11.5
  
• Sweden - 17.4
  
• Japan & The Czech Republic - 22.23
  
• Now the highest score

The Details

All calculations were based on details of the relevant economies from this UNICEF web site:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/industrialized.html


The calculations are based on 2 main values:

1. Low = the % of the nations wealth held by the bottom 40% of the population
2. High = the % of the nations wealth held by the top 20% of the population

The accuracy of the figures, and how up-to-date they are are somewhat irrelevant at this point. The point was, and is, to come up with a reliable, convenient and illuminating way of measuring an economies fairness.


The values actually used were as follows:

Country	Low	High
Australia	18	41
Austria	22	38
Belgium	22	41
Canada	20	40
Czech Republic	25	36
Denmark	23	36
Estonia	19	43
Finland	24	37
France	20	40
Germany	22	37
Greece	19	42
Hungary	23	37
Ireland	20	42
Israel	16	45
Italy	19	42
Japan	25	36
Korea, Republic of	22	38
Latvia	18	45
Lithuania	18	43
Netherlands	21	39
New Zealand	18	44
Norway	24	37
Poland	19	42
Portugal	17	46
Slovakia	24	35
Slovenia	23	36
Spain	19	42
Sweden	23	37
Switzerland	20	41
Turkey	15	50
United Kingdom	18	44
United States of America	16	46

The Final Results

The fairness values calculated, in order form "worst" to "best", were as follows:

Turkey	5
United States of America	6.2
Israel	6.3469387755102
Portugal	7
Latvia	8.06382978723404
New Zealand	8.26086956521739
United Kingdom	8.26086956521739
Lithuania	8.46666666666667
Australia	8.90697674418605
Estonia	9.5
Greece	9.74418604651163
Italy	9.74418604651163
Poland	9.74418604651163
Spain	9.74418604651163
Ireland	10.9047619047619
Switzerland	11.1951219512195
Canada	11.5
France	11.5
Netherlands	13.2105263157895
Belgium	13.9230769230769
Austria	15.1666666666667
Korea, Republic of	15.1666666666667
Germany	15.6285714285714
Hungary	17.4117647058824
Sweden	17.4117647058824
Denmark	17.969696969697
Slovenia	17.969696969697
Finland	19.3636363636364
Norway	19.3636363636364
Slovakia	20.6774193548387
Czech Republic	22.2258064516129
Japan	22.2258064516129

The Final Calculation

The calculation used was as follows:

((100 - High) + Low^2)/((High - 20) + (40 - Low))

The Reasoning

The reasoning is as follows:

• The value of "High" varies between 20 -> 100
• The value of "Low" varies between 0 -> 40
• In the "perfect" situation - High = 20, Low = 40
• (High - 20) + (40 - Low) = 0
  
• In the "worst" situation - High = 100, Low = 0
• (High - 20) + (40 - Low) = 120
  
• The inverse of (High - 20) + (40 - Low)
• maximum (infinity) in the "perfect" situation
• minimum (1/120) in the "worst" situation
• To further increase the exponential effect of both "High" and "Low" (but particularly of "Low") multiply the above calculation by ((100 - High) + Low^2)

And you are left with final calculation:

((100 - High) + Low^2)/((High - 20) + (40 - Low))

The Conclusion

After some experimentation and testing with varying values around the current "correct" values, I am convinced that this is a valuable way of calculating the over-all fairness of an economy.

I would be very interested to hear any feedback, comments or findings related to the calculation - how its adoption could be encouraged, and what might improve its usefulness.

I love Nelson as a leader... for the Coalition

Actually, I'm starting to suspect Dr Nelson never really changed his politics after all. Maybe he's still actually working for the Labor Party.


The Challenge

I wish to offer you, dear reader, a challenge.

1. Make sure you have nothing around you to entertain distract you
2. Watch the video below. Pay close attention and focus only on the video.
3. Try to make it past the 2:00 mark without feeling the desperate desire to watch something else or turn it off entirely.

Please respond with your own personal reactions below.



What Brendan Nelson has learned

So apparently, Brendan Nelson has discovered that there are people in this country who can only afford $30 a week for petrol, and people who can only put $5 worth of petrol in their car at a time.

Wow. It's obviously been a big week for the man. I wonder if his coalition buddies will believe him.

"No" they will say, "that just can't be! How can people live like that. You must be mistaken. Obviously this is all the fault of the Labor Party and their mismanagement of the economy. This kind of thing never happened under Howard. No one will put up with those kind of living standards for long."

Well I guess if he learns only this one small thing then he has at least listened to someone and learned something.

It's a start, anyway.

But honestly, if that's a revelation to Brendan Nelson - no wonder he doesn't get what 2020 is all about. If he honestly needed to talk first hand to poorer Australians in order to work out they exist - or in order to work out that not everyone can afford to fill their tank with petrol whenever they want to... why should we ever expect him to understand an issue like Global Warming, or the importance of education to social equality.


What Brendan Nelson just doesn't get

And in further news - Brendan Nelson wants us to feel sorry for the banks.

Brendan Nelson: life hard for banks
Nelson wants you to encourage banks to make a profit
Banks are people too: Nelson

Yes that's right. Dr Nelson wants us to realise that "Banks are people too"...

Um... no, actually...

They're not...

They're banks... you know - Companies...

They may be, by strict legal definition, for tax purposes, "entities" much like a person. But the day we start taking our definition of "people" from the tax department, I think we've really lost the battle against pseudoscience in our education system.

But wait, hold on, isn't he saying we should feel sorry for the individuals who have to foreclose on people's mortgages - I hear you say.

Well, in this day an age, I'm sure that an individual employee's experience of foreclosing on customers, compared to times in the past, is about as close as fighting a field battle is to launching an international missile strike. Someone sits in a room somewhere and hits a button that causes the printing of a thousand letters. They get folded and packed by machine and posted to a thousand customers. Some of them contain offers of more credit, new loans and investment opportunities. Some of them contain foreclosure notices.

Along with his lack of understanding about how many Australians live their lives with respect to money, Brendan Nelson also seems to have very little idea about how large offices work in the modern society.

Banks, these days, run by rules and regulations. Certain levels of risk imply certain behavior and certain levels of underpayment require foreclosure. No individual favours or punishments. No human interactions. No guilt. Just transactions, payments and foreclosures. The way it should be.

Dr Nelson said people should stop criticising banks and they should be encouraged to make profits. Isn't he just encouraging us to support banks making a profit?, you respond.

Well, yes he is. And in general, we can all support banks making a profit. It's good for the economy. Any company making a profit, in general, is good for the economy. No argument here.

But to encourage the pursuit of profit, blindly, with no other considerations would lead to many horrible outcomes. Imagine a world in which car manufacturers chased profits with no fear of the repercussions of bad safety standards and no adherence to pollution level guidelines. Imagine if we were encouraged to support housing developers profits in the face of buildings that fell down within a few years of being built.


The Solution?

Maybe the people who can no longer afford to pay their mortgages should never have been loaned money in the first place (they might be better off now if they hadn't). And maybe, just maybe, the banks should have to take some responsibility for the (bad) decision to lend them money when they did. Perhaps we could find a way of minimally fining, or otherwise disadvantaging banks for foreclosing on loans. Maybe then we wouldn't have as many foreclosures as less risky loans were avoided.

Maybe then we wouldn't have so many sad banks to be sympathetic for.

Maybe then less people would only be able to put petrol in their car in $5 increments.

Hey - maybe Brendan Nelson's got a point after all.

Then again... maybe not.

Civil partnerships for gay and lesbian Australians

After a quick holiday - almost a month I guess - let's get going again. I'm feeling refreshed and highly opinionated - and raring to blog!

I've got lots to say... "Wow - yay!" to the anti-whaling movement. "Oh my god!" to the paid-maternity discussion. (You know that we're the only OECD country other than America not to have paid maternity, don't you?)

But first - a small disappointment.

I started my special list of "Things that make me happy" in this blog, some time ago - but it wouldn't be right to only list the positives. Let it not be said that I won't see the negatives in Rudd's rules. I have always supported Kevin's attempts to keep the people happy, in the name of politics - if it means taking power and using it to slowly guide our country back towards the liberalism, openness and fairness that we all deserve. But this time, I feel, his actions are not directed by politics or by the dictates of liberalism and fairness - they're formed in religious bigotry.

Yes, that's right - it's not all sunshine and roses in the new Labor-governed Australia. Even Kevin with his left-wing religious leanings can disappoint sometimes.

Of course, we'd all rather liberal religious attitudes to Liberal religious attitudes... but even lefty-pinko Christian politicians, it turns out, draw the line a pink civil partnerships.

For those of you who want to know the details - the ACT Government wants to introduce legislation allowing gay couples to enter into civil partnerships and have an official ceremony. The Territory's first attempt to pass similar legislation was quashed by the former Federal Government and the new Government has raised concerns about some aspects of the proposal.

For details of the previous bill - see the a.c.t. legislation register.

Of course I would like to see what the government's "concerns" are - but it doesn't sound like the language of a government who wants to find a solution, and change a few details - it sounds like the language of a government who wants to squash the legislation.

That's a guess - and hopefully I'm wrong - but Kevin has made his position on civil partnerships clear before. Let's be clear on this - this isn't a broken promise - this isn't something surprising or contradictory with Kevin's stated position... it's just a shame. It's the first time I can honestly say I the new government hasn't gone far enough in reversing the Howard governments position of social conservativism and divisiveness.

More than 100 people rallied outside the Legislative Assembly this afternoon in support of the planned new laws. The ACT's Attorney General Simon Corbell told the crowd the issue is as much about recognising gay relationships as it is about self-government. "As a community, we should be able to decide these things for ourselves," he said.

That may be so (as the federalism debate continues under the new government) - but the question remains as to whether the rest of Australia would also like to see the introduction of civil partnerships for gay and lesbian relationships. Does the federal government actually have a "mandate" to try and direct the ACT government in its law making? Of course, I realise that some of Australia's population won't be in support of these ideas - but is it at all clear that a representative government actually has enough support from the negative side to use its power to sway this debate?

I propose having a poll. On this page (and on all my blog pages) you should be able to find a poll, on the right-hand side that I have designed. It is designed, I hope, to allow everyone to have their say and make their position on the topic clear.

If I get enough respondents, I will forward the results to Kevin's office and to the minister in charge of the issue (as well as the appropriate ACT government members - for use in their assessment of the situation)*. If you believe strongly in this topic please forward a link to this page to as many people as you can.

If you think I've left an option off the list of possible answers, please feel free to say so in the comments on this page. I will try to incorporate your ideas and combine the results of all versions of the poll, if I end up changing the options later.

Let's show them what modern Australia really thinks on this issue.


* and with Kevin's recent creation of an office to read petitions - we actually have a chance of having it listened to :-) More about that later.

Bring the troops home from the war...

... the lawyers home from the culture wars - that is.

For a history of this log of Labor Party successes see:

Thing that make me happy
The national conversation

Signs of support for the poor and disadvantaged

Once again - here is evidence of the way that modern governments control the news cycle and the way we understand and discuss issues.

The Labor party won slightly more than 2 weeks ago - and have been in power for little more than 1 week - and yet last week they had a "public service reshuffle" and changed the role of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

Apparently they (the Department) have been wasting millions in Legal fees chasing thousands in incorrect payments, under the Howard Government, and penalising the already disadvantaged for being, well, disadvantaged... but can you imagine this being discussed in this way if Labor hadn't won?

SHM Article - Millions lost in legal war on the poor

Let's celebrate the culture of support that this change represents. I realise we've got heaps of money lying around Australia, and sometimes it's hard to know what to do with it all, but using it to chase down people with very little and take even that from them does seems a little bit of a waste to me.