What I've been doing and saying (April 2024)
Hi all.
I had another busy month in April,. I appeared before a Senate inquiry into aircraft noise and another into supermarket pricing and divestment powers . And I did lots of media (see below).
And I’ve kept going with sporting and fundraising. Currently, I’m preparing for Swim Noosa (2km) and Run Noosa (half marathon) in late May. My main fundraising event for the year is the MS Brissie to the Bay cycle ride on 9 June. I’ve had incredibly good support so far and have set a target of $5000. I have less than $1000 to go Please help me by donating here.
I’m currently working on a big project on public ownership in electricity, which should be producing some results in the next month or so.
Opinion pieces
Four-day work weeks are inevitable Canberra Times 7 April
Dutton’s decaying nuclear energy plans have the briefest half-life, Crikey 10 April
Australia now has a $70 ‘shadow price’ on carbon emissions. Here’s why we won’t see a real price any time soon The Conversation, 15 April
Olympics 2032: Can Brisbane come out a winner? CEDA, 16 April
PM must pick his winners with more care, Australian Financial Review 1 May
Bonza is the latest victim of Australian neoliberalism. It’s hard to see a new airline arriving any time soon, Guardian 1 May
Media
My media report for April, password quiggin (Thanks as usual to Alysha Hilevuo for preparing this)
Visit my Substack blog
We senior citizens of the economics profession need to pass on our wisdom. It took over fifty years to acquire. Remember in the 1970s how impatient we became as students to be heard. Back then the Neo-Keynesians were fighting with the Monetarists. Friedman acolytes were infiltrating Australian universities. My second year lecturer in microeconomics tried to convince my tear that “only money matters”. The senior citizen of economics back then was Professor Neville who had championed the Super Multiplier hypothesis.
Then the 1980s, and the seemingly comprehensive victory of the monetarists, had many graduates disputing economic realities. Ronald Reagan, way more destructive as a first term president than
Trump, had changed the US economy. Then along came Margaret Thatcher, with her henchman Rupert Murdoch. Privatisation had arrived and not even Australia was spared. Another economic hypotheses took centre stage. Suddenly regulation was a dirty word and free markets a mantra.
There were big changes for Australia. Slowly our tariff walls came down, our banks toyed with self regulation, our dollar went for a swim and our unions lost members. This time it was Hawke and Keating that rang in a new economic era for Australia.
Luckily the fight back began in the 1990s. But the academic struggle was bitter. I was teaching HSC economics in those days and choking on what I had to teach as economic facts. The twin deficit theory and the crowding out effect made economics sound like a hospital ward and not anything like a real life study. My first top economics HSC class in 1990 had twenty five students. By the year 2000 that had shrunk to only seven students. Economics had lost its hard edge and the respect of HSC math students.
A new century arrived but the same old battles stayed front and centre. We saw a Federal Reserve chairman open up the money gates and brag about unlimited opportunities for derivatives.
Then the sub prime mortgage disaster was quickly followed by the Global Financial Crisis. Now a US President handed out money to banks, car companies and mortgage insurance institutions. Fannie and Freddie were saved, but at the cost of fiscal consolidation in the US.
The end of globalisation as we knew it, seemed imminent. The Great Recession in Europe saw the Euro totter as a PIIGS breakfast.
But China saved the day. Why is anybody’s guess.
The cruncher came during Trump’s first Presidency. And it had little to do with any economic thesis. We were reminded that sometimes it is economics that does not matter.
In a COVID new normal we all now look for some messiah. That includes a new economic thesis that can handle budget deficits, CADs, excessive public debt and falling productivity.
Senior citizens in economics have never been more important.
no worries - I'll block you - don't know how you start appearing in my substack in the first place.