Ross Gittins
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ROSS GITTINS. Stagnation spanner in the works? The tradesman you need to call is Keynes. (SMH 16.2.2019)
Every so often the economies of the developed world malfunction, behaving in ways the economists’ theory says they shouldn’t. Economists fall to arguing among themselves about the causes of the breakdown and what should be done. We’re in such a period now.It’s called “secular stagnation” and it’s characterised by weak growth – in the economy, in consumer spending, in business investment and in productivity improvement. This is accompanied by low price inflation and wage growth, and low real interest rates. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Never fear, Hayne is a new start – and not just for the banks. (SMH 5.2.2019)
But if you think that, once the dust has settled, we’ll find little has changed, you haven’t been paying attention.
I think we’ll look back on this week and see it as the start of the era of re-regulation of the economy. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Don’t assume more expressways and trains will fix traffic jams. (SMH 1.12.2018)
When Marion Terrill, of the Grattan Institute, set out to find out how much commuting times had worsened in Sydney and Melbourne, she discovered something you’ll find very hard to believe. But it would come as no surprise to transport economists around the world. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Our oldies have never had it so good (SMH 5.11.2018)
Except it ain’t true. It was true once, but not for many years.
You might expect the Prime Minister to be better informed than the average punter, but Morrison is from the new breed of politician who see a leader’s job as to reflect the voters’ misperceptions back to them. Read the focus group reports, not the briefing notes.
Something Morrison clearly hasn’t read is the research briefs published last week summarising the findings of the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research – an outfit funded by the federal government to ensure it (and the rest of us) are well-informed about matters such as the adequacy of the age pension.
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ROSS GITTINS. World growth a toxic danger for the environment. (SMH 27.10.2018)
If the world’s population keeps growing, and the poor world’s living standards keep catching up with the rich world’s, how on earth will the environment cope with the huge increase in extraction, processing and disposal of material resources? (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Tax reform is pushed by rich males, for rich males (SMH 24.10.2018)
I know it’s a shocking thing for an economics writer to confess, but I’ve lost my faith in the Search for the Golden Tax System. I no longer believe that reforming our tax system is the magic key to improving the nation’s economic and social wellbeing. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Why businesses are behaving badly. (SMH 6.10.2018)
While we digest the royal commission’s evidence of shocking misconduct by the banks and insurance companies, there’s another unpalatable truth to swallow: they have no monopoly on bad behaviour. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Nowhere to hide now for banks. (SMH 3.10.2018)
Last week must have been a terrifying wake-up call for Australia’s ruling class – not just our politicians, but also the chief executives and directors of our big corporations, both publicly and privately owned.If they’re half as smart as they’re supposed to be – after all, we’re told they got their jobs on merit – their performance of their duties will be much improved “going forward”. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. How market forces have failed the nation (SMH 19.9.2018)
With the memory of the government’s embarrassing delay in yielding to public pressure for a royal commission into banking still fresh, Scott Morrison got in before the Four Corners expose to announce a royal commission into aged care.
Who’s to say this will be the last? A royal commission into electricity and gas prices is mooted. Maybe sometime in the future we’ll see a royal commission into problems with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Long way to go to get banks back in their box (SMH 17.9.2018)
Have we learnt from the mistakes of the global financial crisis, now 10 years ago? Yes, but not nearly as much as we should have. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. How we could revive faith in democracy (SMH 6 June 2018)
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.
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ROSS GITTINS. Inequality: Nothing to see here is not the true picture (SMH 3.9.2018)
This week the Productivity Commission issued a “stocktake of the evidence” on inequality in Australia. Its findings will surprise you. But it wasn’t as even-handed as it should have been.
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ROSS GITTINS. Clever tax strategies may be legal, but they aren’t productive (SMH 9/7/2018)
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. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Cash and kind: How governments shift income from rich to poor. (SMH 7/7/2018)
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.
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ROSS GITTINS. Memo Canberra: it’s not taxes, it’s wages, stupid. (SMH 2/7/2018)
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.
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ROSS GITTINS. Parties offer clear choice at next election
The federal election campaign could be as soon as August and no later than May. So which side is shaping as better at managing the economy? (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Budget 2018: This budget is too good to be true
This budget is too good to be true. If you believe Malcolm Turnbull’s luck can turn on a sixpence, this is the budget for you. From now on, everything’s coming good. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. The boot is on the other foot and big business is on the nose
The misbehaviour by banks and other big financial players revealed by the royal commission is so extensive and so shocking it’s likely to do lasting damage to the public credibility and political influence of the whole of big business and its lobby groups. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. We have a bad case of misdirected compassion
Why do so many of us – and the media, which so often merely reflect back the opinions of their audience – feel sorrier for those who profess to be poor than for those who really are? (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Who is to blame for the housing crisis and how to fix it
There aren’t many material aspirations Australians hold dearer than owning their own home – but dear is the word. There are few greater areas of policy failure. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. If governments don’t get this message they will be tossed out.
A highlight of our trip to New York after Christmas was a visit to the Tenement Museum down on the lower east side, where the movie Gangs of New York was set. It was the area where successive waves of Irish, German and Russian immigrants first settled, crowded into tenements. We were taken around the corner to see inside a tenement building restored to its original condition. As we climbed the back stairs, we were shown a row of dunnies and a water tap in the backyard. This, we were told, was one of the first tenements required to have outside toilets and running water under a new city ordinance. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Self-interest standing in the way of a fix for the Murray-Darling
Genelle Haldane, my desk calendar tells me, has said that “only until all of mankind lives in harmony with nature can we truly decree ourselves to be an intelligent species”. I’ve no idea who Haldane is or was, but she’s right. (more…)
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Private health insurance is a con job
You won’t believe it, but my birthday was on Tuesday and I got a present from the federal government. I also got a card from my state member, sending his “very best wishes” for reaching such an “important milestone” in my life. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. A bigger, better public sector will secure our future
There are important lessons to be learnt from the latest news about where our strong growth in employment is coming from. But if we listen to the nostrums of the Smaller Government brigade, we’ll get them exactly wrong. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Economists are giving up on smaller government.
You may not have noticed, but the Productivity Commission’s search for “a new policy model” for reform, in reaction to the breakdown of the politicians’ “neoliberal consensus”, offers better prospects for finally getting the budget under control. That’s because, although the commission doesn’t say so, its reformed approach to reform represents a retreat from a central tenet of neoliberal doctrine for the past 30 years: the goal of Smaller Government. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Treasury must prevail against ‘pushy young punks’
The challenge for Treasury, the Productivity Commission and the rest is to be less doctrinal – less true to the one true economic rationalist faith – and more practical in giving advice that satisfies the pollies’ ever-present need to “do something” without the something they do causing a lot of harm, maybe even some good. (more…)