MCJ Posted on Monday, August 29, 2011 at 0:47 “Is this really too heavy for you to carry?”
- “Yes.”
“Really?”
- “Yes.”
“… did you even try lifting it?”
- “No. But it looked heavy.”
life MCJ Posted on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 13:15 |
SCENE: |
In front of the office printer. |
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CAST: |
Your Intrepid Hero; |
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A Colleague; |
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The Printer |
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[COLLEAGUE:] |
“Martin, the printer does not work.” |
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[MARTIN:] |
(Striding purposefully past, flicks power switch without missing a beat.) |
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[PRINTER:] |
“Whrrrrr!” |
THE END
life MCJ Posted on Saturday, July 9, 2011 at 14:00 It was getting close to the end of the Australian financial year (June 30th), and as I reviewed my financial situation I thought, “Oh! I have teh monies!! What to do with them?” So, I gave a few hundred dollars to charity.
The reasons for giving to charity are many and varied, but for me the prime drivers were: 1) the reasoning that I have more than I really ‘need’, so that giving to those with greater needs increases net wellbeing (which makes me feel good); and 2) I feel like it’s the right thing to do.
I’ve donated to causes here and there for years, but since starting full-time work I’ve put off donations because I wanted to put a bit more thought into what I was doing, namely:
MCJ Posted on Friday, June 17, 2011 at 0:30 In which I create a placard for a rally, appear on Andrew Bolt’s blog, am denigrated by the right, congratulated by the left, and try and explain microeconomics to a lot of people.
MCJ Posted on Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 23:02
Updated on Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 21:17 by
MCJ
As everyone does at some point, I have some chemical waste of which to dispose (batteries and fluoro lightbulbs). Being a good little greenie, I asked the New South Wales Environment Department what the recommended procedure is:
MCJ Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 18:50 Under current employment law (presumably for most of the western world), it’s possible to have a high nominal salary and little leave but to essentially “buy” more time off by taking unpaid leave. This, however, depends on your employer approving said leave; depending on your employer, this could be difficult.
What if, in your employment contract, you stipulated the right to unpaid leave? One or two weeks per year, say – the idea would be to make it as close to paid leave in treatment as possible, except without actually receiving any money. (Perhaps make it non-accruing between years would make it easier for employers to accept, too.)
The thrust of my idea is to make the concept of unpaid leave more palatable; at the moment I still get the sense that many people (both employers and employees) treat it as something to be avoided, or at least a far worse alternative than paid leave.
MCJ Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 18:45 For reasons of which I’m not entirely sure, I came up with this little verse yesterday:
Resource rent taxes, emissions reduction;
Sovereign wealth funds, NBN construction;
Henry’s review, letting refugees in;
These are few of my favourite things.
More public transport and Oz: The Republic;
Welfare for jobless not middle-class yuppies;
Euthanasia and plain cigs packaging;
These are few of my favourite things.
MCJ Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 at 14:11
Updated on Friday, March 4, 2011 at 20:44 by
MCJ
So, I work as an environmental economist, right? I vote for The Greens, cycle everywhere, buy organic food, turn all my appliances off when I’m not using them, reuse my shower water, and generally try to follow the reduce/reuse/recycle motto. But, since 2006, I’ve flown from Australia to Germany (and back), between Germany and London several times, and between Melbourne and Sydney even more often. Oh, and driven Melbourne-Sydney and back. Against all those emissions (particularly the Australia-Germany flights), the marginal changes I’ve made to my life are paltry.
MCJ Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011 at 20:40 Several times when I’ve bought tickets to concerts recently, I’ve noticed that the bands offer “Meet and Greet” packages; these usually cost ~$50 more than just admission to the concert (which is itself ~$50), and get you:
From an economist’s perspective, this is a fairly sensible idea: the people who will want these things – colloquially “hardcore” fans – have an increased willingness to pay relative to the rest of the public, and insituting a tiered pricing system is an excellent way for the band to capture more of this willingness to pay in the form of money.
MCJ Posted on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 11:17 In my least proud internet banking moment, I once entered the “wrong” password so often that the account was suspended, only to realise that I’d mistyped my client number and had thus accidentally caused someone else’s account to be suspended.
Happy new year.
life 