I’m so sick of Trump. He’s a buffoon ruining the USA. I honestly don’t understand how he has achieved a grip on so many. It’s like an Idiocracy version of the Steve Jobs reality distortion field.
A ride with no destination in mind.
Currently reading: Practice of Project Management by Enzo Frigenti 📚Because who doesn’t read about project management for fun?
Crucial Track for July 15, 2025
"Change In Mood" by Kids In the Kitchen
I remember being a kid and this song would be played as a filler on ABC TV in the mornings, but the vision would be of lots of different trains. I’ve searched but can’t find that clip. Even this song took my mind a while to dredge up, and I don’t actually know how I pulled the artist name out of nowhere. My brain is weird.
Thanks friendly and efficient Perth Apple Store Genius who fixed my MacBook Pro which had suffered a screen misalignment from the base. No charge service was welcomed, like Apple of old. 🍎
I’m streaming music from my ancient Plex music library. Talk about throwback music! Most of it was populated more than 20 years ago. 🎶
Crucial Track for July 14, 2025
"Sun in an Empty Room" by The Weakerthans
What I first heard as a theme song for a podcast (Heavyweight) has morphed into a song I love to hear regularly. The tune is great and the lyrics capture my own early memories of moving house.
Croque Monsieur and an almond flat white.
Thanks PCYC!
Today my employment with Police & Community Youth Centres comes to a close. I’ve got an opportunity to build on my career with a new employer, applying much of what I’ve learned over the past two years.
I am thankful and appreciative of the team at PCYC. I’m proud to have been a part of the organisation’s story. Working in the “for purpose” sector is rewarding and enjoyable and I’m happy to be able to continue working in this industry.
Today I learnt that Australia imposes a tariff on imported handkerchiefs. This is one of many “nuisance tariffs” our Productivity Commission recommends be abolished. Seems reasonable to me.
I’ve re-embraced Day One in a significant way. I’ve never actually stopped using it, but at the moment I’m using the heck out of it. It has to be in my pantheon of great apps, alongside OmniFocus at this point. I’ve got 2,864 entries dating back to November 2011. That’s 14 years of app usage!
Finished reading: Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal 📚 A fascinating look at how to best structure modern workforces with engaging battlefield—and other—examples. I would have liked a bit more detail on how to actually implement these ideas, though.
Trump has determined the US to enter a war without Congressional approval. Irrespective of the decision itself, it’s another rule not followed, another step closer to dictatorship.
Gittins on Productivity
In my semi-regular series of posts in appreciation of Ross Gittins' role in reporting Australian economics, here is my latest.
This article by Gittins, If bulldusting about productivity was productive, we’d all be rich provides insight into the recent Fair Work Commission ruling to raise award rates by 3.5%. Award workers are typically some of the lowest paid workers in our economy, and industry groups are ‘concerned’ that this is a whole 1.1% above inflation. Oh no! Clutch your pearls!
Whereas keeping the lid on wages may seem profit-increasing for the individual firm, when all of them do it at the same time, it’s profit-reducing. Why? Because the economy is circular. Because wages are by far the greatest source of household income. So the more successful employers are in holding down their wage costs, the less their customers have to spend on whatever businesses are selling. If economic growth is weak – as it is – the first place to look for a reason is the strength of wages growth.
Money we earn is money we spend. More so for lower income earners, because a greater proportion of their income is spent, rather than saved, by virtue of the scale of fixed costs relative to their income levels. So let the people have some more money so that they can spend it.
the commission points out a little-recognised inaccuracy in the conventional way of measuring real wages. It says that, if you take into account that prices rise continuously but wages rise only once a year, award wage workers’ overall loss of earnings since July 2021 has been 14.4 per cent.
14.4%! So all those people who feel like the economy is more difficult now, that everything costs more, and there is little if nothing left over by the time the next payday rolls around… you are absolutely right.
What the lobbyist witch doctors have been doing is concealing the truth that the best explanation for our weak productivity performance is that employers have been seeking to increase their profits by holding down wage costs, rather than by investing in labour-saving technology.
This was a designed strategy by the previous Federal Liberal government and it’s in industry’s individualised (but not collective) self-interest to maintain this approach as long as they can. And they are trying to do exactly that.
After using Vivaldi for some months, I’m back to Firefox as my main browser.
