Last night I was interviewed by TRT – Turkey’s answer to Al Jazeera – on a panel moderated by Adnan Azwaz on the Australian fires. My fellow panellists were Professor Mark Howden and Tony Kevin. Azwaz did a good job, and his courteous approach to moderation could teach Tony Jones a thing or two, although he […]
Phil Coorey asked a good question at Morrison’s Press Conference Jan 5th 2020, taking the PM by surprise with his unexpected tack, when he asked the PM if, seeing that the PM belives that reducing Australia’s 1.3% world contribution of Greenhouse Gas emissions to zero would have no effect on Climate Change, then would Morrison pressure Trump to reduce the emissions of the USA. The answer from Morrison was of course no he wouldn’t.
If I was at the Press Conference I would have asked Morrison
On January 4th 2020 Scott Morrison announced that ADF Personnel would be deployed to assist emergency services with bushfire fighting activities. Shortly thereafter a video was posted on the prime minister’s Twitter and Facebook pages summarizing the announcement. The video was backed by a jaunty* musical soundtrack and rythmic finger clicking.
#LibNatClimateApology
What I really think is that all Federal Liberal and National Ministers since 1995 should publicly apologise to the people of Australia for seeking to delay, undermine and prevent effective action on Climate Change.
As one of the longest and hottest days of the year dawned, Australians woke up to the news that two volunteer fire fighters, Geoffrey Keaton and Andrew O’Dwyer, are dead. The photos, published by the NSW Rural Fire Service, of each man smiling proudly and holding his baby for the camera are gut wrenching. They are western Sydney dads in their 30s, Aussie everymen.
Michelle Grattan from The Conversation puts it best.
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review today, the complete article can be read on the Treasurer’s website.
What I have written below is a re-write of the Treasurer’s article from a Modern Money and Australian Real Progressive frame. Let’s see what the Treasurer really has to say.
Originally posted at Australian Real Progressives
By now you have probably noticed Australian Real Progressives has a rather heavy focus on jobs. This is because 2 million Australians are looking for work or more hours.
“So far as it can humanly contrive, never again will the dole queues be seen in this country. Never again will competent workmen stand idle for months and years while limitless work remains to be done. Never again will young men drift hopelessly from town to town and from State to State, searching for the jobs which, in all this wide land, did not exist for them.”
Ben Chifley, 1949.
Andrew Leigh is an incredibly nice guy and I used to follow his blog before he entered parliament. He had many very useful statistics on that blog which I believe you can find at PreviousLeigh (see a sense of humour too).
Unfortunately as a practising economist he has zero understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
See and read more at Australian Real Progressives
In my previous post I outlined why jobs don’t come from rich people: capitalism runs on spending (sales), not savings. Job opportunities appear naturally when businesses forecast sales growth and expand output accordingly (and similarly disappear under reverse conditions). When viewing the economy as a whole, we can observe that private sector investment responds to rising incomes and spending as entrepreneurs expand output to match market demand and banks have confidence lending. In the absence of spending growth, accumulated savings do nothing.
The thing is, Democracy will end.
At some point the current dominant expression of Democracy – Universal Franchise with mass political parties and redistributive taxation – will fail to deliver solutions to urgent problems: Climate; Migration;War; National Sovereignty – and it will be discarded for something else.
Talking Politics
I have just discovered the excellent Podcast Talking Politics which discusses UK, US and European and International Politics.
You must subscribe to Talking Politics. It is put together by David Runciman of Cambridge University and provides commentary and analysis in the best British academic tradition – informed, fair, objective, funny. It is absolutely brilliant.