If you’re like me, you compulsively consume news media. Today, the promotions for the Budget 2011 ran constantly – promising of all things, analysis from leading journalists. I defy the notion that any kind of serious analysis can happen in such a short time – less than a day, in fact, only a few hours….
Michael Rowland on ABC News Breakfast asked a special advisor to President Obama on their stimulus spending “what advice would you have for Australia?” The answer: something along the lines of: “I wouldn’t want to tell a country that has such low unemployment how to do things.” Journalist pro-tip: realise that in the international community,…
I was reading an interesting ebook about the future of UK Labour (pdf) and came across an interesting policy of having worker representation on boards: So policies like a cap on interest rates, worker representation on company boards or policies for a living wage are good ideas. But we need to explain why they are things we,…
The Grattan Institute has released a report that confirms that costs to reduce pollution, especially carbon pollution, are cheaper than governments anticipate. The report examined six market-based pollution reduction schemes, including the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, the EU carbon trading scheme and the US sulphur trading scheme. In each case the outcomes diverged significantly…
The rising Australian dollar has had a bigger impact on our economy than an $85 per tonne carbon price. A new Access Economics report says: Exchange rate movements and the introduction of a carbon price are similar to the extent that both have comparable economic impacts and firms are able to adapt to the new…
Following from the recent election, and all of the Tory hyperventilating about public debt, I thought I’d revisit an old post from another place that debunks some economic fallacies. The University of Newcastle has the excellent Centre of Full Employment and Equity, where William Vickery has an article called “Fifteen Fatal Fallacies Of Financial Fundamentalism”…