Think you know a bit about economics? Try this quick quiz: what's your impression of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement reached between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries, including Australia, this week?
Would you say it is: a) a gigantic foundation stone for our future prosperity that will boost growth, create jobs, raise living standards and increase productivity; b) a terrible deal that advantages big...
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Friday, October 9, 2015
MUST WE DESTROY JOURNALISM IN ORDER TO SAVE IT?
Talk to the New News conference, Wheeler Centre, Melbourne Friday, October 9, 2015In the last phase of my career as a journalist - I’ve just published my memoirs, A Life among Budgets, Bulldust and Bastardry - I, like many journos, have become greatly exercised by the challenge that the digital revolution presents to the continued existence of “quality” or “serious” journalism - journalism that has a serious intent, even though...
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
How digital disruption allows higher prices
Do you think much about the process involved when you decide to buy something some seller is offering you? If you're like most consumers, probably not. But the businesses doing the selling do, which ought to be a warning.
And the study of exchange – the buying and selling of goods and services – is the central element of economics. Economists long ago concluded they had it all figured.
Trouble is, the digital revolution is...
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
OBSERVATIONS ON MACRO MANAGEMENT
Talk to Economic Society, Victorian branch, Wednesday, September 9, 2015I want to draw on a few themes from my new book, Gittins: A life among budgets, bulldust and bastardry, particularly some observations about macro management, recessions and, what I consider to be my special subject, the politics of economics.Don Stammer, the veteran business economist, says you need to have seen four recessions before you’re fully qualified....
Monday, September 7, 2015
Depressed economists lose faith in capitalism
The nation's practicing economists are working themselves into a state over the future of the economy, convincing themselves the prospects for growth are dismal and the only answer is more "reform".
They're being rallied by former Treasury secretary Dr Martin Parkinson.
He told the National Reform Summit that Australia risked sacrificing as much as 5 percentage points of economic growth over the next 10 years, the equivalent...
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Contrary to reports, economy battles on
Joe Hockey is right. The economic news is hardly wonderful, but the media's attempt this week to convince us the economy was perilously close to recession was sensationalist nonsense.
What set them off was news from the Australian Bureau of Statistics' national accounts that real gross domestic product grew by just 0.2 per cent in the June quarter. What they forgot to mention was that in the previous quarter it had grown by...
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
The game pollies play rather than governing
It came to me while I was lying awake the other night: the business, union and community worthies at last week's National Reform Summit thought the way to make progress was to hammer out a compromise proposal most people could agree to. You hand it to the government, the opposition agrees, they whack it through parliament and problem solved.
But that's not the game Tony Abbott is playing.
He doesn't want agreement, he wants...
Monday, August 31, 2015
How high-paid men have hijacked tax reform
It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his after-tax salary depends on him not understanding it, to misquote Upton Sinclair.
This may explain why there's a glaring weakness in the thinking of business people, economists and politicians who see countering bracket creep and cutting the top tax rate as the key "reforms" needed to "reward hard work" and increase participation in the labour force.
Joe Hockey's...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)