John Quiggin

June 2006 figures for the Farm Management Deposits Scheme are now available from hthis site. Total deposits are $2.796b. (yes, that’s billion), which is a lot of money. The total is almost unchanged from June 2005, which is a break in the pattern of continuing June-on-June increases since the scheme was set up in 1999. However the value of deposits has not fallen, as one would expect if desperate farmers were drawing down deposits to cushion the drought. I question the point of extra Govt. assistance to farmers if farmers are sitting on a tax-advantaged nest egg of this size.

For those of us who enjoy the discussions both with and meta Graeme Bird, this site is worth checking out. John Humphreys has set it up as “A charity dedicated to the education of Graeme Bird”.

Iemma’s dam announcement is interesting. Newcastle doesn’t currently have much of a water problem, overall storage is at 83% in the middle of a lengthy drought.

Hunter Water’s Integrated Water Resource Plan (at p.66, warning large .PDF) says of the Tillegra Dam:

In fact, with proposed staged upgrade works at Grahamstown Dam, a new water source would not be required within the next 30 years, based on the base case demand forecasts.

Today’s Oz says:

It would take a very trusting soul not to see some connection between these two announcements and Labor’s big fat Greek sex scandal.

Of course, they’re not planning to start construction until 2008, and by then the election will be long past. They’ll announce that some new water saving initiative has allowed them to defer construction indefinitely.

JQ,

Why does your website seem to be such a mess lately? Since the upgrade the layout seems to be all over the shop and nothing displays as it properly should.

Regards,
Terje.

I just used the “archive” function and got two red mastheads with Prof. Quiggin’s picture
on them atop the post I was seeking. Scary stuff – I felt outnumbered. Will Prof. Quiggin’s
image multiply uncontrollably, like Hugo Weaving in “The Matrix”?

Friedman is dead at 94.

Just as Keynes predicted.