At risk of going all Obama, all the time at this blog, this piece at Technology Review on Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s chief economic advisor was an interesting read:
(Goolsbee) is part of a generation of economists who have focused on the Internet, network effects, behavioral economics, and neuroeconomics. Whether Obama wins or loses, this is the […]
Keating’s Boswell, David Love bangs the drum for 15% super on the Great Man’s behalf:
The core of the story is this: the federal Treasury had advised Keating that, to ensure a comfortable old age for Australia’s average wage earners, industrial superannuation payments should be encouraged to rise to 15 per cent of earnings. Keating took […]
A good preview from Peter Martin of the new Keating quasi-biography, “The Unfinished Revolution” here
An interesting piece in today’s NYT from Conservative US Columnist David Brooks on the role of human capital in US economic success most broadly, and more specifically in the policy response to the pressures of globalisation:
It’s not globalization or immigration or computers per se that widen inequality. It’s the skills gap. Boosting educational attainment at […]
Clinton Porteous makes up for some bizarre reporting from News Ltd in recent days with a timely reminder of just how much of a shambles the Coalition has become on economic policy:
The inflation figures, released on Wednesday, were truly horrible. Middle Australia is copping it in the neck. But the Opposition’s response to the figures […]
A further comment via email on the possible economic context for a DD election held in the second half of 2009:
We really are at the peak of the cycle right now. Wait till commodities prices come off, terms of trade go back in the red, the dollar starts its descent, inflation remains stubbornly high due […]
The physical and political suffering inflicted by the monster, Robert Mugabe on the people of Zimbabwe is so familiar by now that the flood to stories of beatings and kills have become all too monotonous.
However, the stories of the economic travails of the citizens of Zimbabwe still have the capacity to jolt a jaded mind.
The […]
Regular readers will know that I am not particularly impressed by John McCain. To my mind “McSame as Bush” isn’t just a good line politically; it’s got a lot of truth to it.
So imagine my lack of surprise when John McCain promised to balance the US Budget in the first term of his presidency.
Yes, that’s […]
Brendan Nelson demonstrated the depth of the Coalition’s economic policy shambles during his doorstop on the Garnaut Report today by stating:
Anyone that doesn’t think that $1.70 a litre is a price signal is living on a different planet from the one that the rest of us are trying to drive around on at the moment.
Fair […]
“The weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change. The outsider to climate science has no rational choice but to accept that, on a balance of probabilities, the mainstream science is right.
There are prominent dissenters on this matter, gathered under the rubric of ’sceptic’. For the most part […]