tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196165922024-03-05T21:10:09.898+11:00Gavin R. Putland, BE PhDGRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-7079712149684932202020-05-08T00:06:00.004+10:002022-08-20T20:50:57.028+10:00Huygens' principle: Simple mechanistic reason for the phase advance of the secondary sources
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Consider the “primary” wave field
\begin{equation}\tag{1}\psi(r,t)=\frac{f(t-r/c)}{r}\,,\end{equation}
GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-19226750130747009262017-06-08T23:12:00.001+10:002017-06-08T23:20:01.417+10:00Who does what in the Australian economy
WORKERS (i) pay rent, (ii) help their employers to pay rent, and (iii) raise some of the next generation of rent-payers.
LAND SPECULATORS (i) receive economic rent for the gifts of nature, (ii) take the credit for providing them, and (iii) lobby governments for an ever-increasing supply of rent-payers.
BANKS (i) borrow money from overseas GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-39350445131811510262017-04-04T23:40:00.001+10:002019-06-01T22:41:43.374+10:00What century is this? — the ambiguity of ‘plane of polarization’Update (1 June 2019): An improved version of this post has been contributed to Wikipedia as the article “Plane of polarization”, and subsequently revised. The version below does not explain Fresnel's modification of Malus's definition.
Update (26 September 2017): The text of this page is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-86099225781825445312017-02-03T19:59:00.001+11:002017-02-03T20:11:09.119+11:00‘Passive’ value capture is best
A submission on the Value Capture Discussion Paper
1. What factors would cause beneficiaries, in particular property owners, to see a value capture charge as ‘just another tax?’ How can these factors be overcome?
Property owners will object to a value-capture charge as “just another tax” if it is imposed in addition to existing taxes. To avoid the objection, a GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-41988711551995517212017-01-31T18:46:00.000+11:002017-02-03T18:56:19.341+11:00How we encourage the black economy
An Initial Submission to the Black [sic] Economy Taskforce(submitted 31 January 2017; posted here 3 February 2017)
I respectfully submit:
(1) As the Government invites “initial views” on the black economy, Centrelink is engaged in the biggest “speculative invoicing” scam in the history of the world. The scam targets persons who found employment in the GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-64732442093742683002016-12-24T17:50:00.000+11:002017-03-05T17:15:59.623+11:00The Georgist case for a vacancy tax
If you insist that a pure Georgist system should be implemented
from 1st July next year, this essay is of no interest to you. If, on
the contrary, you think it necessary to tolerate a transitional period
during which Georgist revenue instruments will coexist with
non-Georgist ones, this essay is of the highest relevance, because it
concerns the kind of Georgist instrument that can best coexist.GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-48382160688734308192016-10-08T20:11:00.000+11:002020-04-03T15:22:06.703+11:00Εὕρηκα 4th–8th October 2016: The observation by Huygens that should have discredited Newton's ‘rule’ for the extraordinary refraction of calcite
Huygens, in the fifth and longest chapter of his Treatise on Light (1690), explained the double refraction of “Iceland crystal” (transparent calcite) on the correct hypothesis that the secondary waves generated when the incident waves strike the crystal are spherical for the “ordinary” refraction (which satisfies Snell's law) and spheroidal for the “extraordinary&GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-21756851177075695702016-08-23T05:18:00.002+10:002016-08-23T05:18:31.278+10:00The Devil's talent
God loves a small talent if it's the only one you have. But if you
have a small talent and a big one, the Devil loves the small one,
because there's a limit to how much good the small one can do, but
no limit — short of 100 percent — to how much time it
can divert from the use of the big one.
The potential to divert time is the greater because your small
talent, by GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-80985292649767512672016-08-21T17:59:00.002+10:002016-08-21T18:44:56.938+10:00Private prisons lead to tyranny
When prisons are privatized, the operators stand to maximize their
profits through
(1) the highest possible incidence of crime,
(2) the widest
possible definition
of crime,
(3) the lowest
possible standard
of proof for obtaining convictions, assisted by the highest
possible incidence of, and the weakest possible safeguards against,
prosecutorial malpractice, and
(4) the longest possible GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-15371087558975934212016-08-17T08:36:00.000+10:002016-08-17T09:11:27.742+10:00Jury nullification: Your last defence against bad ‘laws’
In a democracy, an extraordinary decision often requires an
extraordinary mandate. For example, changing the constitution,
although a legislative act, usually takes more than an ordinary vote
of the legislature and may involve parties who are not normally part
of the legislature. In a democracy, a law creating criminal liability,
with its attendant loss of democratic rights, is certainly
GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-25799497559836401592016-08-16T21:34:00.000+10:002016-08-17T09:38:42.247+10:00Separation of powers implied by rule of law
If the coercive power of the state (that is, the executive power)
is to be kept under the rule of law, it must not be able to make up
the rules to suit itself, and must not be able to adjudicate disputes
in its own favour. Therefore the legislative and judicial powers must
be independent of the executive power. If the legislative power is to
be kept within the limits imposed by the rule of law GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-2310288641611589752016-08-14T15:15:00.002+10:002016-08-15T22:27:13.664+10:00Three unofficial state secrets about the housing problem
Secret 1: The purpose of encouraging home
ownership is to create a majority of voters who own real estate and
who therefore support policies that make real estate as expensive as
possible, for the benefit of the biggest owners.
Secret 2: The purpose of financing home
ownership through debt instead of equity is to make sure it's the
millions of mortgaged “owners”, and GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-17807285035400255402016-07-27T12:49:00.000+10:002016-11-29T12:53:22.231+11:00The reverse onus of proof for drug possession is contrary to the rule of law and therefore unconstitutional in all jurisdictions
The existence of a constitution, written or unwritten, presupposes the rule of law and therefore renders unconstitutional any attempt, by any means, to subvert the rule of law. The existence of a court presupposes the rule of law and therefore precludes the court from entertaining any proposition incompatible with the rule of law. No legislative body can suspend the rule of law, because the GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-4334211170609323402016-06-29T21:08:00.000+10:002016-06-30T16:31:05.824+10:00The compulsory ‘retirement’ of home ownership in Australia
The latest polls
say I was
wrong: Malcolm Turnbull's sellout to the property lobby will not
cost him the election. Instead, the defeat of Shorten, Bowen and Leigh
will consign any reform of negative gearing to the too-hard basket for
another 20 or 30 years, during which the present rules will become so
deeply embedded in the people's financial and living arrangements that
they can never beGRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-23242193048029976082016-06-23T19:22:00.003+10:002016-06-23T20:40:32.454+10:00Negative gearing and the children-overboard effect
Back in 2003, when I re-invented the policy of allowing
negative gearing for new homes only, in order to stimulate
construction and put downward pressure on rents, I didn't intend
it to be partisan. I intended it to be a no-brainer. Now that it
has become partisan, the scare campaign against it has two main
claims: that it will reduce property values, and that it
will raise rentsGRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-57604514198631620282016-06-07T21:52:00.001+10:002019-09-23T22:57:50.459+10:00Errata in various editions of Huygens' Treatise on Light
The list below is the result of my reading the 2005 Gutenberg HTML
edition [1] of Huygens' Treatise on Light
(Traité de la Lumière), noting any apparent
inconsistencies, and checking them against other
editions [2–4a]. The same “inconsistencies”
appear in the Gutenberg EPUB version [1e], but with different
page numbers. Needless to say, it is GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-23335397109739600112016-04-20T10:31:00.002+10:002016-08-07T15:39:27.934+10:00Cheap housing is good for business!
If you want to expand your business, you probably need to hire
people. But you can't hire them unless they can afford to pay for
housing within commuting distance of your business premises, out of
wages that you can afford to pay them. If that condition is not met,
either you can't afford to hire them, or they can't afford to work for
you. The cheaper housing is, the less you need to pay peopleGRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-61351855128221828962016-04-02T09:30:00.000+11:002016-04-02T09:56:08.154+11:00Would a State retail sales tax require a referendum?
Now that the Prime Minister's proposal to allow the States to set their own income-tax rates has bitten the dust, an alternative offered by Gregory Melleuish (and republished at MB) has, by default, become more interesting:
Give states power over sales tax.
As the High Court defines sales tax as excise, the wording of Section 90 [of the Constitution] could be changed so that salesGRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-79125587995685768122016-02-29T10:49:00.000+11:002016-02-29T13:34:26.706+11:00The banality of drivel: Henry Ergas on negative gearing
“Labor must stop denying negative gearing truth” screams the
headline over Henry Ergas's latest column in the Australian,
which begins by quoting Hannah Arendt's dictum that “no one has
ever counted truthfulness among the political virtues”. That
would seem to mean not even Henry, and indeed it's not hard to
identify the element of truth that has gone missing from his GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-39308291075324098542016-02-26T14:25:00.000+11:002016-02-26T14:33:45.957+11:00If you're not a property investor, your retirement plans don't matter, says IPA
Professor Sinclair Davidson for the Institute of Public Affairs has
written an “occasional paper” under the title
“What politicians need to know about negative gearing”,
opposing the known Labor policy of allowing negative gearing only for
new homes (with grandfathering), and the possible Coalition policy of
imposing some sort of cap on negative gearing for each taxpayerGRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-90765581796011679092016-02-22T08:50:00.000+11:002016-02-22T13:33:30.605+11:00Adam Smith on the irrational belief in one's own good fortune
Or why poor people can be persuaded to vote like temporarily
embarrassed
millionaires *
⋯
The overweening conceit which the greater part of men have of their
own abilities is an ancient evil remarked by the philosophers and
moralists of all ages. Their absurd presumption in their own good
fortune has been less taken notice of. It is, however, if possible,
still more GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-78493934573057641372016-02-08T21:03:00.000+11:002016-02-08T21:07:42.234+11:00The pons asinorum of value-capture
To: Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities
Parliament House, CANBERRA 2600
December 21, 2015*
A
one-page submission to the inquiry into the role of transport connectivity
in stimulating development and economic activity
Question: If you want to fund an infrastructure
project out of the ensuing increases in land values
(&GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-2287496175365014572015-11-11T12:20:00.000+11:002015-11-11T13:11:51.280+11:00Negative gearing in context
My address to the meeting of the ALP Northcote
branch, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 — invited by Ian Rogers,
publisher & editor of Banking Day (I am not a member of the
ALP).
NEGATIVE GEARING has two meanings: an investment strategy, and a
tax lurk.
As an investment strategy, of course it means borrowing to
buy an asset, and paying such an exorbitant price that the GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-13046123993162298702015-09-17T16:11:00.000+10:002015-09-17T16:13:19.940+10:00The day the deal was done
On this day in 1900, the Commonwealth of Australia became a done deal:
Victoria R.
WHEREAS by an Act of Parliament passed in the Sixty-third and
Sixty-fourth Years of Our Reign intituled, “An Act to constitute
the Commonwealth of Australia,” it is enacted that it
shall be lawful for the Queen, with the advice of the Privy Council,
to declare by Proclamation that, on and after GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616592.post-54174437239568435332015-08-10T18:28:00.002+10:002015-08-10T18:29:46.210+10:00Equitable methods of abolishing PAYG personal income tax
It is argued that the replacement of pay-as-you-go personal income tax (“PAYG tax”) by something more efficient (e.g. a land tax or consumption tax) would offend intergenerational equity because retirees no longer pay PAYG tax, and would offend vertical equity because higher-income earners would get proportionally larger cuts in PAYG tax.
These objections can be avoided by GRPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135577155466413315noreply@blogger.com