Paul Howes, in a demagogic and incoherent article in the January 1 Sydney Sunday Telegraph begins with a description of what some economists call Dutch disease: the collapse of manufacturing export industries under the weight of a currency inflated by a runaway resources boom.
It’s called the Dutch disease because something similar to the current Australian resources boom occurred in The Netherlands between the late 1950s and the late 1970s. The discovery of North Sea oil and gas inflated the Dutch currency, making large parts of the country’s manufacturing industries uncompetitive internationally, contributing to their collapse.
