The decline in manufacturing jobs is common to most developed economies and is not unique to the US. Further, Donald Trump is nothing if not delusional, and his tariffs will only damage both the US economy and others as well. (more…)
Category: Economy
-
We may be short of leaders, but we’re not short on false prophets
With this year’s federal budget supposedly brought forward to 25 March, the seasonal peak in business bulldust has come early. Last week, Canberra kicked off an annual ritual little noticed in real-world Australia, the call for “pre-budget” submissions on what the government should do in its budget. (more…)
-
Europeans (and others) vs Trump
I am not suffering from what some of President Donald Trump’s more fervent supporters — both in the US and in Australia — like to call “Trump derangement syndrome”. That is, I’m not disputing that he won the presidential election held last November “fair and square”, as did the Republican Party in both the House and the Senate, and that together they have a mandate to implement the policies which they presented to the American people during the campaign which preceded those elections. (Whether they have a mandate to implement policies which they didn’t present to the people during the campaign, or indeed policies which President Trump explicitly distanced himself from during the campaign is another matter, but not one that I’m going to pursue here). (more…)
-
As expected, the RBA cut its cash rate – but played down the prospects for a series of follow-up moves
Well, they did it! The Reserve Bank of Australia Board decided, at its meeting conducted over the past two days, to cut its official cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.10%, after having held it at 4.35% since November 2023, and having raised it by 425 basis points over the preceding 18 months. (more…)
-
The costs of impatience: A psychic disorder of modern capitalism?
In Australia at the federal level of government, we have some of the shortest election cycles in the world: often barely three years. This mitigates against even medium-term planning. A new government takes a year to learn the ropes of office, another year to govern before preparing for re-election in the third. And even if a government survives that long, the odds are its leader won’t. (more…)
-
Snouts in the trough
Ah! Peter Dutton loves the past when sheilas knew their place, blokes were blokes and boozy lunches were a key characteristic of the business environment. (more…)
-
Caligula’s horse and Washington
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.” Marcus Aurelius (more…)
-
The nation is finally coming to grips with home affordability
Right now, the prospect of much improvement in being able to afford a home of your own isn’t bright. We don’t look like solving the problem any time soon. But I’ve been watching and writing about the steady worsening in housing affordability for the best part of 50 years, and I’m more optimistic today than I’ve ever been. (more…)
-
Prevention – putting health into healthcare
Health outcomes are about more than access to healthcare services: they are highly dependent on the social and economic determinants of health. Despite lip service to the importance of these factors and preventive health actions, the Australian healthcare system is relentlessly focused on treating sick people, with subsequent economic and social costs incurred by governments, society and individuals. (more…)
-
Dutton’s war on waste
Contrary to what Peter Dutton would like the electorate to believe, reducing administrative waste will save very little money. If Dutton is serious, he would review major capital projects which lack proper evaluation, starting with his uneconomic nuclear energy proposal. (more…)
-
Public schools bear the greatest burden of disadvantage
A new research paper published by Save Our Schools shows conclusively that public schools bear the greatest burden of disadvantage, but are not resourced to overcome its effect on learning outcomes. Public schools have to do a lot more with far fewer resources than Catholic and Independent schools. (more…)
-
From Bretton Woods to BRICS
In 1944 Bretton Woods established an international financial system that awarded generous economic advantages to the US. When the system failed, a group of nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, (BRICS), formed to foster a more equitable system, perhaps an alternative international currency to the US dollar.
-
Letter from Hong Kong
As I experience my 51st Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong, with the arrival of the year of the Snake, it seems appropriate to write a few words about this remarkable city. (more…)
-
Hoaxes that gush for winners and trickle down for losers
What do Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Howard have in common with the Piltdown Man? They all managed to sell a hoax that lasted for decades, before it was exposed as completely false. But wait, their hoax is still central to transglobal neoliberal capitalism’s stranglehold on us all, whereas Charles Dawson’s 1912 forged ‘missing link’ skull from East Sussex became a lesson in how dangerous it is to let preconceptions override evidence. (more…)
-
Interest rates should start falling now
Australian inflation is almost back in the target range of 2-3%. The Reserve Bank should begin to cut interest rates now. This will help avoid a recession as well as substantially reducing cost-of-living pressures on the one third of households with a mortgage. (more…)
-
Labor has unfinished business on tax – Its 2024 tax cuts have failed low-paid workers
In his address to the National Press Club on 24 January 2025, Prime Minister Albanese reflected on his Government’s decision announced a year earlier to change “the tax plan we inherited from the Morrison Government to make it better and fairer”. It is likely to be a major selling point in the coming Federal election.
-
The unravelling of Australian society
Australian society has never really been a cohesive entity. In the past its various socio-economic, religious, ethnic, cultural, and political factions have simply hung together largely through a sense of xenophobia about the outside world (read Asia) rather than a commitment to national unity based on shared values and mutually beneficial interests. But today xenophobia is compounding into fear and loathing on the campaign trail and in the interstices of a society that is in danger of unravelling.
-
What went wrong on the way to net zero
The atmosphere at a recent meeting to discuss the results of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change was glum, to say the least. It was the result of four delusions that doomed the effort from the start. (more…)
-
Reforms are needed to ensure an adequate retirement income
Australians now have access to significant superannuation balances, but if superannuation is going to meet its purpose of ensuring an adequate income in retirement, reforms are needed to provide better access to a superannuation pension. (more…)
-
AI – Boom! Bubble? … Bust ???
Anniversaries are not harbingers of doom. Twenty-five years back, Walter Marks of Oakland Capital, which now manages $US200 billion, had warned his clients that the dot.com boom was a bubble about to burst. On March 23 that year, the market peaked. From there, the Millennium Bug was not in the race to the bottom. (more…)
-
A garden of civilisations
Humanity stands at a crossroads, its future bound not to conquest but to synthesis. The world before us is not one of irreconcilable opposites locked in perpetual conflict but an intricate ecosystem of human Adaptive Systems, each defined by its strengths and vulnerabilities.
-
Is it a cost-of-living election or a nuclear power election? Peter Dutton can’t have it both ways
The 2025 federal election is still some months away, but the unofficial campaign is off and racing, with the prime minister and the leader of the federal opposition both traversing the country this week to court votes on the issue of the day – cost of living. (more…)
-
Social and affordable housing: Whacking a wicked problem
Australia’s housing crisis is caused by three factors: Supply, Supply and Supply. Supply of Land. Supply of Materials. Supply of Labour. (more…)
-
Open access. Break the paywall. Reclaim knowledge now
In my academic career, I’ve always advocated for not-for-profit academic journals. These platforms support academic freedom and align with the principle that research should benefit society, not merely serve the interests of profit-driven corporations. Unfortunately, the academic publishing landscape, dominated by five major commercial players—Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, and SAGE—has become a bastion of profit, with universities and researchers paying steep costs for access to their own work. (more…)
-
“Nothing like before” — China is out-competing the West on EVs
The West is accusing China of “overcapacity” to blame it for its own industrial demise. (more…)
-
Best of 2024: Why do Chinese EVs meet so much resistance?
There was a time when the world looked to China to reduce its emissions. China was, they quite rightly pointed out, one of the globe’s worst polluters. (more…)
-
Australian monopolies and iceless fokkers
He looked like a young, freshly sprouting Henry Kissinger, before complicity in war crimes began, and plagiarism became commonplace in allegedly relevant academic texts. The heavy-set flight attendant, his flabby covered jaw ever threatening to passengers, was apologetic, but firm in opinion. There would be no ice for anybody on this flight between the Queensland cities of Brisbane and Townsville. (more…)
-
Best of 2024: Electric vehicles will crush fossil cars on price as lithium and battery prices fall
If it wasn’t already clear, the writing is now well and truly on the wall for the fossil car makers: Just a week after BYD launched its $US15,000 “Corolla killer” and with the world’s largest EV battery maker recently announcing it’s on track to cut battery costs in half this year, new research suggests the decline in EV prices may by happening faster than thought. (more…)
-
Best of 2024: The Labor Party has lost its way
The Labor Party is a long way from done but at the moment it is mired in mediocrity. We need a Labor Party agenda in which the big issues are confronted, writes Bill Kelty. (more…)
-
Reframing wealth: A stark disconnect between wealth and poverty
Australia is often celebrated as a wealthy nation, with a prosperity that is purportedly shared across its population. However, such assertions crumble under scrutiny. According to the 2021 census, 122,494 Australians were denied the basic right of shelter due to their inability to afford housing. This stark reality reveals the vast and growing chasm between the affluent and the impoverished. (more…)