Economy
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The cost of living crisis is really a housing crisis
The evidence shows that the only households whose living costs have risen faster than their incomes are those homeowners with a mortgage. For the other two thirds of households, their incomes have risen faster than their living costs. Policy should therefore focus on why mortgage costs have risen so dramatically. Continue reading »
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Mood now upbeat in Australia, but downbeat in America – Monthly economic and market review
Two news items last week completely reversed the economic outlooks in Australia and America. Continue reading »
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Panic as Japan stocks take biggest dive since Black Monday, 1987
If it was panic last Friday, the Asahi Shimbun declared when the stock market fell more than 2,200 points, or 5.8 percent. It was double panic by this afternoon (Monday) when the market fell even more, by 3,800 points to the 31,000 mark. Continue reading »
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Australia’s economic security depends crucially on working with Asia
Australia has unveiled a new National Interest Framework which integrates security considerations into domestic economic policy, aiming to secure economic resilience and security amidst changing global power structures and increasing geopolitical tensions. But Australia has not yet placed strategic economic diplomacy at the forefront of the framework. Managing Australia’s security environment requires emphasising the importance Continue reading »
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Steady as she goes
The Third Plenum consolidated the significant changes in policy direction foreshadowed in previous quietly implemented policy designed to progress towards the goal of common prosperity. Continue reading »
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The ill-starred consequences of America’s Chinese chip war
An interesting new article in the prominent American journal, “Foreign Affairs”, by three academics from Georgetown University, argues that “Washington should place less emphasis on slowing down China and more on improving its own innovative prowess.” Continue reading »
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OpenAI closes its mind and opens yours
The last time I caught up with Edward Snowden online was at his Substack site, Continuing Ed. That was back on September 22, 2022, when he wrote his first piece there in almost a year. He came back briefly to remind us: America’s Open Wound: The CIA is not your friend. Essentially, the piece details the Continue reading »
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War in a hot climate: the luxury of AUKUS in a time of global overheating
The Roman emperor Nero was a horrible, horrible man, as Donald Trump might put it. His murderous reign of terror has certainly earned him a place in the history books, but the only thing most people believe about him is certainly false: that he played the fiddle while Rome burned. He may have strummed his Continue reading »
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How economic bureaucrats make policies and remake the Chinese state
Yingyao Wang opens the black box of the Chinese bureaucracy to reveal the agency of the men and women who designed and redesigned Chinese economic policy. Continue reading »
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China: the global trading giant
An extraordinary chart from The Pioneer below compares nations whose largest trading partner was either the USA or China in the year 2000 and the year 2020. Over one short decade, it is a powerful visualisation of how the world’s economic centre shifted. Continue reading »
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China to debut Australia’s first flying car
Chinese smart electric vehicle (EV) company XPeng says it will debut what it says will be Australia’s first flying car at the Melbourne Electric SUV Expo in August, alongside four premium EVs it plans to bring to the country. Continue reading »
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China forges its own path at Third Plenum as West, thwarted by special interests, proves fundamentally incapable of reform
“In the Chinese context, there are a lot of talks about remembering your original mission. The original mission is to eliminate inequality” – Wang Dan, chief economist of Hang Seng Bank China. Continue reading »
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Bad banks, culpable coal industry, compliant government all in bed together
A People’s Development Bank would be appropriate to the needs and security of production in rural and regional Australia. The case for action is overwhelming and has been so since the Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) was privatised. Crucially the rural sector must lead the charge for Australia to retain our life support systems. Continue reading »
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Beyond the stockade – is Australia ready for US isolationism?
A Republican administration under Donald Trump would bring a fundamental change to America’s engagement with the world, necessitating a radical reassessment and reformulation of Australia’s foreign, trade, and defence policies. Falling back on the faithful ally tactic would not suffice to buffer the prosperity and security of Australians. Continue reading »
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Five things we learned this week from Ted’s Talk and people who actually know stuff
The Ted Talk: Not reading the room? Chutzpah? Or maybe the Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien was simply unaware that he wasn’t speaking to the local town hall meeting, Sky after Dark or the Institute of Public Affairs. Continue reading »
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Overproduction is OK as long as it’s done by anyone except China
It makes sense for Beijing to expand the services sector, but none for the US to transfer higher productivity in services to lower one in manufacturing. Continue reading »
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Loss of empire, loss of lucidity
As the United States’ imperial system and Western hegemony circles the drain, lucid thought is becoming a rare commodity. But there is hope. Continue reading »
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Silos are for grain, not for National policies
One of the characteristic features of modern western democracies is, as John Ralston Saul has pointed out, that it has focused on the development of narrow forms of expertise and then used reason to apply that narrow expertise to addressing specific social, cultural, economic and political issues. This is particularly true of the proliferating management Continue reading »
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Developing nations suffer for rich world’s climate complacency
If leading central banks can grow their balance sheets by billions of dollars during the pandemic, they can do the same to fight global warming. Continue reading »
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Crisis in the West, opportunity for the rest?
Whether we call it “polycrisis,” like Columbia University Professor Adam Tooze, or “the age of catastrophe,” like the distinguished Marxist Alex Callinicos, there is no doubt that we are living in a period where the very foundations of the contemporary world order are cracking. There is that enigmatic line Gramsci used to describe his era Continue reading »
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Productivity, innovation and industrial structure
The traditional market model of comparative advantage denies Australia the more promising strategic opportunity to identify and capitalise on areas of potential competitive advantage in the high productivity, high-skill jobs and industries of the future, including advanced manufacturing. Instead, with this model we will be locked into low-productivity, low-wage industries, with limited scope for uplift Continue reading »
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The Tao of Terra: the fate of East and West are intertwined as never before
In our highly interconnected world, the fates of both the East and West are intertwined as never before. In the face of existential challenges, it becomes imperative for humanity to work together for the common good. Our survival now hinges on our ability to foster mutual understanding, promote global cooperation, and embrace our shared humanity. Continue reading »
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The Bezosmoth
Behold, now behemoth … Behold, he drinketh up a river … The Book of Job, 40: 15 and 23. Continue reading »
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China and the Communist Party of China
Prompted by Wanning Sun (P&I June 9, 2024), I have just read Yu Yang’s excellent work Private Revolutions. Wanning observes that according to western media the Chinese population is mostly imagined as a monolith and faceless crowd: divided into those who are victims of a repressive Chinese regime, or heroic individuals who dare to defy Continue reading »
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If you care about future generations, you should support ‘nature positive’
The most pressing problem we face is climate change. It’s even more important than – dare I say it – getting inflation down to 2 per cent by last Friday. But we mustn’t forget that climate change is just the most glaring symptom of the ultimate threat to human existence: our continuing destruction of the Continue reading »
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Europe’s tariffs on Chinese EVs could be a boon for Australia
Moves by other countries to impose higher tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles could benefit Australians shopping for a new car. Continue reading »
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Half hearted housing policies ignore key role of public housing: Michael Pascoe
The housing crisis will not be solved for those who are suffering the most by the mish mash of half hearted, small steps, and policy responses currently favoured by governments. They lack the courage to commit to direct government intervention on a sufficient scale in the failed housing market in the form of publicly funded, Continue reading »
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Australia could be the first nation in the world to eliminate poverty
The Australia Institute has recently argued for the introduction of a system for measuring the extent of poverty in Australia, pointing out that the government’s recently established wellbeing measurement framework, Measuring What Matters, does not measure the number of Australians living in poverty. Greg Jericho and the other researchers at the Institute have argued that Continue reading »
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SOS – Save our scribes
As legacy media dies we seek its phoenix. Continue reading »
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Refuting myths about nuclear and renewable energy
Nuclear energy proponents are disseminating several myths that are receiving little or no challenge in the mainstream media. They are incorrect or misleading. Continue reading »
