The Seven Network reports a ReachTEL automated phone poll conducted yesterday has Labor’s lead at 52-48, up from 51-49 a month ago. More details to follow (although it may take a while).
UPDATE (26/10): Here at last are the full results from the poll, which turns out to have a sample of 3594. On the primary vote, Labor is on 37.5%, the Coalition 40.1%, the Greens 11.5%, and Palmer United 5.1% (a fair bit better than they’ve been doing from other pollsters lately).
Not an epidemic modeller, but it does seem that we need some way of putting a key variable into the maths.
Involuntary isolation driven by community forces may now well be reducing the rate of increase of the Ebola epidemic. We need a change in the formulae to cover this important negative feedback mechanism. Plus, with due genuflection to the psephological industry, we need a MOE based around some polling of affected villages, along with some uncertainty bounds.
People finally seem to be getting it that hanging around very sick or dead Ebola victims can kill you.
zoomster@1398
No no! – To a conservative, this is God’s way of telling you your wages are too high.
[zoomster
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 9:00 am | Permalink
Boer
in a world where the market rules, surely if an industry cannot afford to pay workers a rate which attracts them, the industry isn’t viable.]
True.
That’s why lots of farmers go broke. One of the related problems is that Australian land values are too high. This is driven by optimism, greed, poor risk management and dirty overseas money looking for a home. The result is higher interest bills on loans and it is usually the failure to service these that sends a farmer broke.
Looks like Labor is ready to get on the front foot. Fairly early in the cycle. To me it says Labor is really going for a one term LNP government. More power to them. 🙂
“@srpeatling: Bill Shorten taking an unusual step of inviting media to the start of caucus. He is going to launch a new higher ed campaign.”
Senior Labor Right MPs have rounded on the party’s Left faction, declaring the party must settle its asylum seeker policy before the next election and conceding turning back boats containing asylum seekers may be part of the policy mix.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labors-left-right-quarrel-over-turning-back-boats-20141028-11cjiy.html#ixzz3HO0Hxv00
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labors-left-right-quarrel-over-turning-back-boats-20141028-11cjiy.html#ixzz3HNyb6SX6
The good old days:
http://aso.gov.au/titles/historical/ssisland-cutting-cane/clip1/
Artist’s Impression Of President Obama’s Midterm Election Campaign
Boerwar@1406
Don’t worry Boerwar. Under Abbott, those days will soon be back again!
JG has been talking up her book in Washington.
https://www.facebook.com/juliagillard/photos/a.10150173759707328.302398.161674172327/10152836648362328/?type=1&theater
BB
Like you I found the concept of e rather annoying at first. I did a little more maths at university so had to do some population growth sums using e especially in bacteriology and also brewing, since it tells you how much yeast/hops to add etc.
Mind you I did have to look up the growth formula after initially just using simple logs to reach my answer.
The reason the girl did a runner was chocolate.
BW
Yes of course. My calculations to date indicate that there IS a slow turn around in the rate of infection but it is pretty slow..
Now just as BB did and if you use data starting at 9 December 2013 you have an apparent daily infection rate of 1.03 which does indicate 54,000 cases by 9 December and the absurd figure of 2.8 Billion by 9 Dec 2015. However based on the most recent figures there is a slight slowing of the rate of infection although so that we might have only 1.4 million cases one year from NOW.
Zoomster et al who do not follow the maths case one (2.8 billion) assumes a high infection rate and the end date is 9 December 2015. Case 2 is the infection rate in the last week of reported data and the figures are 12 months from NOW.
A quick look at the data indicated that the spread of infection was very high (higher even than BB and my annual rate) but seems to have fallen in October. My fear however which started yesterday’s absurd war with Briefly, is that Liberia may be under reporting since they had no data. If you assume Liberia’s infection rate is the same or just a little higher than Sierra Leone then you have an infection rate similar to September and a prediction that 12 months from NOW there might be 5 million cases.
Boerwar:
Are you talking about Michelle Levy? I found that a bizarre story.
[1401
Boerwar]
You’re quite right, Boer. The compound growth rate for the West African EVD epidemic from 26 December 2013 – 22 October 2014 has been 3.15% per day. But in the last few weeks the rate appears to have been brought down, as below.
West Africa Only (Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone)
Reported Cases WHO Situation Reports 26 September 6553
(Effective dates for collection = 23 September)
Reported Cases WHO Situation Reports 22 October 9991
(Effective dates for collection = 18-19 October)
Increase = 3458
Days = 26
Compound daily rate of increase = 1.63%
There will be more data published in the next couple of days, allowing us to see if the medical interventions and behavioural changes will continue to reduce the growth rate.
Of course, the Right’s market driven philosophy (missing in action when it comes to issues such as global warming) is always in conflict with their sentimentalism about family farms (probably connected with the idea of ‘rugged individualism’ ‘man against nature’ noble struggle stuff…)
The family farm isn’t the way of the future, however regrettable that may be.
Even Barnaby’s paper used the example of ‘family farming’ where a number of families have got together to form a conglomerate and farm their properties on a large scale basis.
It made sense for each farmer to have their own horse and plough, given the time it took to plough using those methods. It even made sense for them to have their own Fergie. The modern equivalent, however, is under utilised on one farm.
Local farmers vaguely recognise that their current methods are unsustainable. They talk of the days when 300 acres could support three generations of the one family and those of several workers as well (we are talking tobacco land!). Now the only way that works is if the grandparents are on the pension, and their children work part time off farm.
By default, over the next decade or so, most of the farms surrounding me will either revert back to 1000 acre ‘stations’, growing beef, or boutique operations (chestnuts, wineries) which are basically hobbies.
As for orchadists, if they’re not moving to areas which currently have high rainfall and a high water table, and are still reliant on irrigation simply to keep their trees alive (let alone productive), they’re doomed anyway, and low wages aren’t going to help them.
dtt
[Zoomster et al who do not follow the maths case one (2.8 billion) …]
Right. Yesterday it was 22 BILLION. Now you’re saying it was a tenth of that. Make up your mind.
The federal govt is being sued for 100s of miilions of dollars re the suspension of the live cattle trade back in 2011. The case will go before the federal court. No doubt the current govt will vigorously defend this
Well, the growth formula for Hillston NSW is negative.
I’ve only been to Hillston once. We had driven from one of the sorriest, most depressing towns I’ve ever visited: Ivanhoe.
Ivanhoe was your classic dusty, dilapidated wreck of a place in 1998. From the looks of Google Street View it still is. 2 out of 3 shopfronts were boarded up. The garage proprietor (where we bought fuel) said there were only two things to do in Ivanhoe: “shoot pigs, and drink piss.”
You couldn’t disagree with him.
We took the road he indicated (we were on the way to Lake Cargelligo). The road was bloody awful. Dusty, hot and boring. On the way we drove through a swarm of locusts that, for nearly a year afterwards, stank the car out with a rotting-burning-grass stench (they infiltrate to every nook and cranny, whether your car is meshed or not.. our was).
Then, as if in a dream, we saw mud on the side of the road. Then water. Then *lots* of water. Then green (which we hadn’t seen for a week or so). We nearly got bogged in the mud when we parked to figure out where we were. It was Hillston, irrigated, a mirage, an oasis.
It seemed like we’d entered paradise. This was a prosperous town, with new cars, well-dressed inhabitants and busy silos everywhere. The shop weren’t boarded up. They were all open and looked pretty well patronized.
Who’d have thought that such miserable people as Macca’s caller lived there? All Australians are dole bludgers. Back packers are sex-crazed. And the Asians all got arrested by Scott Morrison.
No-one wants to work for $15 an hour (that’s average, based on the amount of fruit picked, by the way).
“It’s a cryin’ shame,” I thought… not.
Macca’s audience, and the sentiments they express when they call in, is a symptom of why we’re going nowhere until we become a true World Citizen. Why anyone listens to the show is a mystery to me. In Macca World Climate Change doesn’t exist, everyone’s a bludger, and Asians get get effed, after they’ve picked the fruit.
With the current gang in power, or World Citizenship has been put back for however long they stay in office, and then some.
I have trouble believing that their slavish devotion to ideology, as opposed to a recognition of reality, is accepted by even 48% of the population (and a much higher percentage in the Bush).
How long can these people go on if they don’t want to admit that unless we face up to the real world (and not the Reality TV world) we’re going nowhere fast?
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/
Iron ore prices fell 1.2% to USD79.50/tonne
[Paper markets are shot. The 12 month swap is in free fall. Dalian six month futures are pricing several dollars lower still. Dalian May is still pricing $67. Rebar futures bucked the trend and managed a little bounce supporting physical rebar. Iron ore spot appears destined to go to new lows…]
briefly
I doubt the medical interventions will as yet changed the infection rate because they are not really in place yet.
The USA is building 1700 beds etc but not finished and the medicos have only just arrived.
However the sheer scale of the US and UK intervention is encouraging and I do expect a turn around.
It seems from the little I have read that Liberia is the problem. The government apparently ordered people cremate all bodies which meant people stopped taking people to clinics. In SL where burial is the preferred method this has not been such a problem.
Now I was not aware of this until now but apparently in west Africa ancestor worship is all the go and they have a public holiday where people go to cemeteries and decorate graves etc. Cremation is a cultural step too far it seems.
As I postulated yesterday it would be a fascinating study (PHd thesis for someone) to see if cultural practices of cremation are somehow linked to folk memories of mass epidemics, way back in prehistory.
[Right. Yesterday it was 22 BILLION. Now you’re saying it was a tenth of that. Make up your mind.]
Jesus Zoomster, DOES IT MATTER?
It looks like he made a calculation mistake. Big deal. FFS shut up about it. Unless you’ve never been wrong yourself, of course.
dtt
Where’s my pony?
Palmer to vote against university changes.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/senators-to-consider-uni-reforms/story-fn3dxiwe-1227104316557
confessions
I really hope Palmer keeps his word. Education is as vital to the future as a carbon price is.
zoomster
[The latter is a common problem. There’s well over 2 k of copper wire JUST for my house (as in, it doesn’t service anyone else’s on the way). Really heavy rain and we lose the connection, sometimes for days.]
[Not worth calling Telstra out, by the time they get around to it it’s dried out anyway and we get charged for wasting their time.]
Ughh I can relate. Every time we have a storm at work, some of the Telstra pits fill up with water and lines will drop or get a lot of static. Usually by the time a Telstra technician comes out to have a look, it’s all dried up and lines are back to normal.
We still have to make an effort though. Some of our sites require telephone access to emergency lines and at the very least, emergency call out buttons from lifts (which require a working phone line).
If we’re lucky, the problem is severe enough for the line to still be problematic by the time a Telstra technician shows up, who will replace faulty exposed and worn wires.
[A report released in Canberra yesterday has estimated the Brisbane to Melbourne line would cost $63 billion to build.]
For a big rail fan, news like this can be so frustratingly annoying. Every once in a while, a government report will release something like this to sate my appetite and the media will pick up on it, only for it to fizzle out as few politicians will actually commit to building anything.
BB
[How long can these people go on if they don’t want to admit that unless we face up to the real world (and not the Reality TV world) we’re going nowhere fast?]
yep
Macca does a dull sort of smug climate stupid. His callers wallow in it.
Hillston was dead-end back in the nineteen seventies when it mainly depended on broad acre dry farming with some irrigated orange orchards.
The old timers, busted on their broad acres sheep-wheat, said that you could never grow potatoes or cherries at Hillston.
Irrigation water by way of the Lachlan and the Hillston Mound re-invigorated the town economically.
Some of the irrigation farming techniques, including clever use of cultivars, are world cutting edge.
It took nous, hard work and tremendous risk taking but thousands of tons of spuds and cherries are grown there now.
Hillston may have reached the limits of growth.
The New South Wales Government, monitoring the Hillston mount, capped the amount of water that could be taken from it.
Hillston, incidentally, is the geographical centre of New South Wales.
[confessions
Posted Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 10:06 am | PERMALINK
Palmer to vote against university changes.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/senators-to-consider-uni-reforms/story-fn3dxiwe-1227104316557 ]
Who can argue against Clive’s logic?
[“I’ve been very impressed by the arguments of Joe Hockey on YouTube where he said we should have free university fees – he’s won me over so we’ll have to vote against it,” the crossbench MP told ABC radio on Tuesday – referring to historic footage of Mr Hockey when he was a university student.]
BB,
Apart from the fact there are not 22 billion people in the world and we’d all have to die 3 or 4 times to meet the original dtt schedule, she has altered her data base, her interpretation of the data, has demonstrated a flexible approach to mathematical modelling and had the temerity to abuse others for not each and every one of her inconsistencies seriously enough.
Basically, she ‘s a hysterical shill that has NFI what she is on about.
You sound like the defence attorney defending the murderer of their parents on the ground that she’s now an orphan
Nicholas
How much shipment do you have to have to make container shipping worthwhile?
I’ve always considered shipping some stuff but I don’t find the freight charges justifiable.
guytaur:
I no longer expect Palmer to keep to a consistent position on anything!
citizen:
Indeed!
confessions
[Are you talking about Michelle Levy? I found that a bizarre story.]
Me too! The father is apparently due to be in Court in a few weeks on an unnamed charge.
Very odd!
Confessions
Yes with Palmer you have to wait for the actual vote. All we get in the meantime is spin.
[Bushfire Bill
Macca’s audience, and the sentiments they express when they call in, is a symptom of why we’re going nowhere until we become a true World Citizen. Why anyone listens to the show is a mystery to me. In Macca World Climate Change doesn’t exist, everyone’s a bludger, and Asians get get effed, after they’ve picked the fruit.]
The ramblings of Macca and his callers are the reason I switched the bedroom radio from ABC local radio to a commercial station. Who wants to be woken on a Sunday morning with this drivel?
His supposed large audience would doubtless include many people who get him because he is broadcast over most/all (?) of the ABC local radio network.
He seems to lead a charmed life at the ABC.
Just on the subject of wages in the aggie sector. The other side of the equation of course is the oligopolistic purchasing power of the two major supermarkets who drive down the costs they pay for products from primary producers.
Another trend Ive noticed lately is the price gauging of supermarkets on some of the less popular veggies. I have a real beef about the ridiculous price of parsnips in Coles and Woolies – 8.99 a kilo yet the local veggie store has identical products, probably fresher, at 3.99 a kilo.
Similar story with the likes of leeks and asparagus with supermarkets charging by the stalk or bunch rather than weight. Another reason to patronise your local grocer…
citizen@1434
I’ve never understood it myself, but he certainly seems to have a loyal audience, who phone up every week to be treated with disinterested disdain.
My best guess is that he remains because his show costs nothing to produce, since the audience does all the work.
But I hear from sources I trust within the ABC that both he and his show are absolutely despised by most other ABC broadcasters.
[Rossmore
Another trend Ive noticed lately is the price gauging of supermarkets on some of the less popular veggies. I have a real beef about the ridiculous price of parsnips in Coles and Woolies – 8.99 a kilo yet the local veggie store has identical products, probably fresher, at 3.99 a kilo.
]
Yesterday WW had bananas for $3.98 a kilo. Aldi had the same quality bananas for $1.99, exactly half. Something is not right here.
Aside from their “specials” WW and Coles charge very high prices for fresh produce. Also, I get tired of their adverts claiming to have a special relationship with farmers on fruit, vegetables and meat.
As with petrol, the problem is the market power exerted by WW and Coles in the fresh produce and meat sector.
Oh Wow
The Government has worked out a way to be more unpopular.
“@srpeatling: Govt announcing at 11am it will “give practical effect to the fuel indexation Budget measure” (ie petrol prices are going up).”
Great resignation letter from ex CEO of Essential Services pointing out Turbo Tom has no interest in reducing water charges as the government makes too much out of high profits.
It’s the same reason SA got rid of water rationing: they weren’t making enough profit from the cash cow.
Thanks again BB
I did not make a mistake (using an excel sheet) but the numbers are very, very,very dependent upon the start and finish dates chosen and also how you choose to “compound.”
Yesterday I tended to use weekly compounding ie calculate the weekly infection change rate then extrapolate to 52 weeks from NOW.
Thanks to BB counting the 309 days since the infection began I can now use more accurate daily data.
As I said what is NOT included is a calculation of the actual spread of infections once the number of people infected is so high that the exponential growth phase starts to fall. It is an S shaped curve. The reason for NOT doing this is that the equations sort of depend upon knowing an initial population size. Works fine for a quarantined town of 10,000 but not so much in a mega city and world wide not really useful. It MIGHT be a useful way of calculating infections in an island continent like Australia but that would be inserting a note of hysteria.
Time for some more of Abbott’s mature debate: A GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON PETROL… A GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON DIESEL… A GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON PETROL… A GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON DIESEL…
[1435
Rossmore
Just on the subject of wages in the agriculture…]
It’s inherently difficult to increase labour productivity in low-skilled occupations, meaning it’s not always possible to add skill and therefore add income to such work. Wages in the agricultural sector have always been relatively low, which has tended to drive workers out of the sector ever since the start of the industrial revolution.
The result has been that investments in agriculture have focused on increasing capital, materials and energy intensity while reducing labour intensity. Were this not the case, food production could not have expanded so fast and prices would be much higher than they now are.
So falling labour intensity in agriculture has allowed real wages to rise in the non-agricultural economy as well as attracting labour away from agriculture and allowing non-agricultural output to expand.
The farmer who called the interminably-tedious Macca for a self-reinforcing drone should accept the fact that his industry faces perennial declines in its terms of trade and that he will have to find ways to boost his productivity – the unit value of his output vis-a-vis the unit costs of his inputs. Then he would be able to afford the temporary labour he needs.
BW
A GREAT BIG CARBON TAX
[Yesterday WW had bananas for $3.98 a kilo. Aldi had the same quality bananas for $1.99, exactly half. Something is not right here. ]
Aldi prices on most stuff is about 30% – 40% cheaper across the board. On fresh fruit and vegs that can go as high as 50% cheaper at times.
ColesWorths gouge even on plentiful F&G in season.
Aldi keep opening new stores all over with over 200 planned for SA & WA.
In wrecking the joint to get the top job, Abbott stonkered himself on tax reform aka A GREAT BIG NEW TAX ON ANYTHING…
Fuel tax will go up in November after the federal government found a way around a Senate blockage to its bid to reintroduce indexation.
The tax will initially increase from 38.143 cents a litre to 38.6 cents a litre from November 10.
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/government-finds-way-to-hike-fuel-tax-20141028-3j0zd.html
So the Senate will come to the rescue and invalidate the cost of living tax. The politics is inevitable. Labor Greens, PUP will look so good in the lead up to the election
The Aldi business model is fundamentally different from that of the Duo.
For starters, it likes to own its land/store if it can. One of the implications is that Aldi’s price structure does not include utterly rapacious rentals from mall owners.
Aldi works off a one of each kind offering instead of dozens of faux ‘choices’. It tries to arrange easy access from carpark to the stores. Oh. And it likes to develop longer-term mutually-beneficial relationships with its suppliers.
Finally, customers do their own packing at Aldi. The space is such that customers feel enormous pressure to get on with it.
Re compounding: something that increases by X% per time period will approximately double every 70/X time periods. Applies to debts, inflation, populations – anything that increases at a constant, compound rate. Nothing actually does but it’s a useful approximation.
Apparently it was girly man Cormann who made the announcement of the great big new tax on petrol