I’ve tried reading a lot of books about management in my time, but the only one that made sense was called The Witch Doctors, by two whip-smart journos on The Economist magazine.
They argued that, for almost a century, management experts hadn’t been able to make up their minds between two polar opposite theories. That’s why there were so many fads in management practice. Managers kept flip-flopping from one extreme to the other.
The...
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Monday, July 9, 2018
Business is busier dividing the cake than making it grow
The developed world’s economists have been racking their brains for explanations of the rich countries’ protracted period of weak improvement in the productivity of labour. I’ve thought of one that hasn’t had much attention.
Productivity isn’t improving as fast it could be partly because of the increasing number of our brightest and best devoting their efforts to nothing more productive than helping their bosses or customers...
Saturday, July 7, 2018
How governments shift income from rich to poor
Everyone knows the gap between high and low incomes has grown. But much of what we think we know about why it’s happened, and what the government has been doing about it, is probably wrong.
For instance, many people imagine that the main thing governments do to reduce the gap between rich and poor is to raise much of their revenue via the most “progressive” tax in their arsenal, income tax. (A progressive tax takes a progressively...
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
The taxes we pay come back to us - now or later
As we roll on to the federal election, there’s a surprising number of economic problems we should be discussing, but probably won’t.
For the longer term, the most important problem is the likelihood we’re not doing enough to meet our Paris commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - which is, in any case, inadequate.
Linked with this is the appalling mess we’ve made of privatising electricity. Despite (and partly because...
Monday, July 2, 2018
Memo Canberra: it's not taxes, it's wages, stupid
With the season of peak political bulldust already upon us, and the media holding a microphone to all the self-serving and often stupid arguments the politicians are having with each other, here’s a tip: if you want sense about our economic problems and their solutions, turn down the pollies’ blathering and turn up the considered contributions from the econocrats.
Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe, in particular, has more...
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Economic growth doesn't have to wreck environment
Do you care about the natural environment and the damage our economic activity is doing to it? What if an official agency published some good news on the subject? Would you be interested? Would you be pleased?
Apparently not. Two weeks ago the Australian Bureau of Statistics published its “Australian environmental-economic accounts” for 2015-16, which contained what certainly looks like good news, but they attracted minimal...
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Things I've learnt in 40 years as an economics editor
Fortunately, I made the greatest misjudgment of my working life while I was still at university in Newcastle. I concluded that economics was hopelessly unrealistic and boring, whereas accounting was practical and fascinating.
The most disillusioning moment of my working life came soon after I heard that I’d passed the last exam to become a chartered accountant. For years I’d told myself that, once I was qualified, I’d be confident,...
Monday, June 11, 2018
Economists: male, upper class, out of touch
Could there ever be a shortage of economists? And if there were, would that be a bad thing?
At the risk of being drummed out of the economists’ union, it wouldn’t be a big worry of mine.
What I do find of concern is the decline in the number of students studying economics at school and university, as outlined by the Reserve Bank’s Dr Jacqui Dwyer in a recent speech.
Why should people study economics? Well, as the world’s...
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Sorry Scott, it's not clear the economy now has lift-off
It’s been the week of an economic miracle. Three months’ ago we were told the economy’s annual growth was a pathetic 2.4 per cent, but this week’s news is it’s now a very healthy 3.1 per cent. And wasn’t Treasurer Scott Morrison cock-a-hoop.
This is the vindication of everything he’s ever told us. It’s the proof the government’s plan for Jobs and Growth is working a treat.
Last calendar year saw the strongest jobs growth...
Thursday, June 7, 2018
FISCAL POLICY AND THE BUDGET
UBS HSC Economics Day, Sydney, Thursday, June 7, 2018I want to talk to you about the budget last month and fiscal policy, but do so in the broader context of the use of economic policies to manage the economy and deal in particular with the economic issues of growth, unemployment and inflation.Right now we’re experiencing below trend growth, inflation is below the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2 – 3 pc, and though unemployment,...
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
How we could revive faith in democracy
How much is our disillusionment with politicians, governments and even democracy the result of our pollies’ 30-year love affair with that newly recognised mega-evil “neoliberalism”?
To a considerable extent, according to Dr Richard Denniss, of the Australia Institute, in the latest Quarterly Essay, Dead Right.
I’m not sure I’m fully convinced by his argument, but it’s a thought-provoking thesis that’s worth exploring.
Like...
Monday, June 4, 2018
Turnbull changes tune for a lower-taxes election
Q: When is a move to increase tax collections not a move to increase taxes? A: When it’s an “integrity” measure.
The overwhelming purpose of this year’s budget has been to portray the Turnbull government as committed to lower taxes – not like those appalling Labor Party people, who want to whack up taxes everywhere.
Hence Scott Morrison’s seven-year plan to cut personal income tax at a cumulative cost of $144 billion over 10...
Saturday, June 2, 2018
We have debts to pay before we give ourselves tax cuts
How much should we worry about leaving government debt to our children and grandchildren? A fair bit, though not as much as some people imagine.
The central claim of this year’s budget is that we can have our cake and eat it.
We can award ourselves personal income tax cuts worth $144 billion over 10 years, but still halt the growth in the federal government’s net debt at $350 billion by the end of June next year, and then have...
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Why we're going slow on climate change
Every time I go to the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival I’m asked the same question: since there’s no policy issue more important than responding to global warming, and we’re doing so little about it, why do I ever write about anything else?
I give the obvious answer. Though I readily agree that climate change is the most pressing economic problem we face, if I banged on about nothing but global warming three times a week, our readers...
Monday, May 28, 2018
Fortunately, Turnbull's tax cap is just window-dressing
The Turnbull government’s solemn pledge to cap the growth in tax receipts at 23.9 per cent of gross domestic product is a political gimmick to which no government committed to economic responsibility would bind itself.
So it’s good we can be confident that, should the Coalition remain in power in the years to come, it will ditch its solemn pledge the moment it becomes politically inconvenient.
Why can we be confident? Because...
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Bracket creep lives to fight another day
An Australian newspaper’s headline on the morning after the budget was SCOMO STOPS THE CREEP. The nation’s most ponderous political pundit intoned that the Treasurer would “eliminate bracket creep for the middle class”.
The man himself claimed his tax-cut plan “ran a sword through bracket creep”.
Sorry, yet another of Scott Morrison’s attempts to mislead us in a most misleading budget. He’s exploiting the public’s hazy understanding...
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