The Misunderstanding of Drought
4 hours ago
Saturday, March 21, 2009
ABS job cuts expected
REUTERS: The Australian Bureau of Statistics is planning to sack 190 workers according to media reports.
The memo, from the bureau's acting statistician, Peter Harper, has sparked concern from leading economists and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), who fear staff cuts will result in junk statistics. 45 per cent of leading economists are understood to be unhappy about it and the other 70 per cent are not so sure.
(Boom, tish!)
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4 comments:
There have certainly been some dud statistics thrown around during the alcopops debate and its (dare I say?)aftermath.
Here's part of what the AMA had to say:
"The AMA believes that the Federal Government’s focus on RTDs alone may provide
perverse incentives for young people to shift their preferences to potentially more
harmful behaviours or alcohol substitutes (eg., cheaper cask wines, self-mixing of
spirits)."
If sending a price signal is so effective, how come people send themselves broke and then move on to petty larceny, or worse, to support drug habits?
I have heard of people with a two-bottle of scotch a day habit. They died of it eventually, but for many years the price signal did nothing to stop them.
"The University of Newcastle's professor of economics, Bill Mitchell, says the ABS is the last place the Government should be seeking to cut public sector jobs"
Correct. A 50% cut in university staff would be a better place to start.
Did they foresee that trend?
They were tracking it - right up to the point where it bit them on the bum!
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