This Month
- Opinion
- Australian economy
Tip private schools out of boardrooms for a more productive Australia
Favouring the wealthy over innate talent in the education system is no way to filter what a country’s human capital might have to offer.
November
- Opinion
- Global economy
How disinflation is driving more social inequality
Letting central banks prop up fiscal spending and households was an idea that should have stayed in the dustbin of history.
October
- Opinion
- Energy transition
How an Australian coal tax can help save the world
This country’s grip on world coking coal supplies means we are well-placed to force up prices and discourage coal use.
September
- Opinion
- China’s Great Slowdown
China learns nothing from the financial crises of others
Beijing’s reluctance to bite the bullet on bad assets looks like an error that the whole global economy may pay for.
July
- Opinion
- Australian economy
Labor is failing to learn the lessons of rigid France
The French same-work, same-pay system promises equality – at the cost of a huge cohort of people left outside the labour market.
- Opinion
- Australian economy
There has to be more to Australia’s fortunes than miners
Mining might be Australia’s most profitable industry. But it can’t be the answer to the economy’s biggest problems unless it is taxed properly.
May
- Opinion
- Globalisation
Now it’s China on the losing side in the art of the trade war
China’s ancient military sage would not be impressed with how Beijing has been playing the modern game of trade strategy.
- Opinion
- Australian economy
Why US inflation will defy gravity this time
Financial markets should get ready for rates higher for longer than hitherto anticipated due to the absence of factors to cause a sharp slowdown.
March
- Opinion
- Banking Summit
Why the writing was on the wall for the Swiss banking sector
Swiss bankers kept subsidising high-risk investment banking products with their consumer business. And the authorities let them do it.
- Opinion
- SVB collapse
The SVB collapse gives no cause for the Fed to pause
The real story here is about keeping monetary policy separate from the need for further regulatory reform to achieve the most sustainable outcome in the end.
February
- Opinion
- HECS
Why student loans don’t address elitism in universities
Australia needs a long-term plan that should include means-tested, free and better quality higher education.
January
- Opinion
- Monetary policy
There is chance to bring global interest rates back to reality
Global rates have been torn away from the fundamentals of economics and productive investment. Now is the time to put them back.
December 2022
- Opinion
- Inflation
Don’t go down wobbly path of Arthur Burns-like inflation errors
There are worrying parallels with the flawed New Deal thinking that led central bankers to let the inflation genie out the bottle in the 1970s.
November 2022
- Opinion
- Climate policy
Coal exports are the elephant in the climate policy room
Australia’s carbon reduction targets are dwarfed by the coal shipped to be burnt elsewhere. Taxes are the only answer.
September 2022
- Opinion
- Monetary policy
A bit rich for governments to blame their central banks
Governments may be forced to acknowledge their own complicity in the inflation that they are so keen to be rid of.
August 2022
- Opinion
- China relations
In a takeover fight, both Taiwan and China come out losers
High-income and high-tech Taiwan would gain nothing from being merged into China. And Beijing would not hold on to Taiwan’s dynamism if it did seize the island.
July 2022
- Opinion
- Inflation
Looks like Milton Friedman was right about global inflation
Guess what happens when China shuts down its economy, just as Western central banks are pumping up the money supply and consumer demand?
June 2022
- Opinion
- Australian economy
A bold plan to revive Australia’s dismal productivity growth
Does the new Labor government have the Hawke-Keating courage to disrupt and do what is needed for a successful transition towards higher-value-added enterprises and greater self-sufficiency?
May 2022
- Analysis
- Climate policy
Neither party is up for the job of dealing with climate change
Even with a plan that would work, it will take many decades to decarbonise Australia. But we don’t have such a plan.
April 2022
- Opinion
- Global economy
America’s debt truck is heading for a stagflationary crash
The US has escaped recurring crises by ratcheting up its debts. Inflating its way out of trouble is not really an option.
