Month: May 2003

Today's Fin

John Quiggin9 Comments

Lots of interesting stuff in today’s Fin
(subscription required). Tony Harris criticises the view that success justifies the lies that were used to get us into the war on Iraq (I’ll have more to say on this later).

The editorial, on the Free Trade Agreement with the US and its implications for copyright, for once agrees with me (and Kim Weatherall)

It would be a dismal irony if we were to sacrifice free trade in legal CDs, DVDs and software in the name of free trade.

. I said almost the same thing three months ago.

Also in the same area is a piece by the main supporter of the FTA, Alan Oxley, attacking Kyoto. Oxley doesn’t argue the merits. He just says that since the US is staying out, economies like those of Canada and Australia, closely tied to the US, will lose competitiveness by signing. Interestingly, nothing has been said about Kyoto in relation to the FTA, but I bet we are foreclosing a lot of options, such as taxes on carbon-intensive imports from nonsignatory countries (that is, the US).

Finally, there’s a letter from Michael Stutchbury, editor of the Oz, complaining that it appears that Fairfax columnists get a bonus every time they attack the Australian. If only!

Move completed

John Quiggin2 Comments

At the weekend, we unpacked the last box, and moved the last load of stuff between home and office. It’s almost six months to the day since we moved to Brisbane, and I can now declare the move complete. In my experience, six months is a bit better than average. I don’t plan to test my moving skills again any time soon, though. Brisbane is definitely the place for me.

PS: Talking of moves, I see that Tim Blair has made the move to MT. Well done!

Monday Message Board

John Quiggin17 Comments

It’s time for the Monday Message Board, where everyone gets to have their say on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language please).

I’ve managed to avoid comment on the downfall of the GG, so perhaps commentators will fill this glaring gap in my blog. But, as always, comments on any topic are welcome.

Tuesday update Lots of suggestions for a new GG. I’m backing Reithy myself.

And the other subthread relates to Collingwood-hatred. Joining in from his new site, , Tim Blair asks “Why do they hate us”, and promptly demonstrates why, by linking to this shameless piece of Victorian imperialism.

What I'm reading

John Quiggin5 Comments

When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager by David Moss and The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st century by Robert Shiller. These are both important books and I plan to review them in the near future.

I also watched Enigma on DVD, expecting it to be based on some combination of the breaking of the eponymous German code and the life of Alan Turing. Instead, it was dominated by an absurd spy thriller/action hero subplot – I should perhaps have been warned off by Tom Stoppard’s credit for the screenplay.

But watching this movie prompted a question. In movies of this kind, it’s necessary that the audience have some idea what’s actually involved in codebreaking (or similar esoteric devices). Surely there must be some other way of conveying the relevant info to us than to have one character ask a lot of dumb questions, giving another (usually the hero) a chance to deliver a lecture.

The innocent and the guilty

John Quiggin8 Comments

Tim Dunlop links to this report in the Christian Science Monitor providing survey estimates that the number of civilian deaths in the war on Iraq was between 5000 and 10 000. (Thanks also to Jack Strocchi who alerted me to the same piece).

Tim quotes the following claim from Bush

With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.

and implies that these figures may prove him wrong.

My view is that, if serving in the Iraqi army and obeying orders makes you ‘guilty’ then Bush’s claim has been validated. I think it’s clear that the number of Iraqi soldiers killed was many times greater than the number of civilians, and must have been in the tens of thousands. Many of these ‘guilty’ soldiers were conscripts, and all faced the threat of being shot for desertion if they did not fight. And civilians are still dying in large numbers as a result of the chaos produced by the war, including crime and breakdown of basic services.

The decision to overthrow Saddam by force and to impose a government of occupation has imposed a huge moral responsibility on the countries that took that decision. As I’ve argued previously, producing a sustainable Iraqi democracy will take years of effort and cost tens of billions of dollars. The US was prepared to spend the billions on war, but it has budgeted almost nothing for the peace.

The US slowdown

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I missed this piece by Brad de Long when it came out in December last year, but Jack Strocchi sent it to me recently, and I thought it would be worth responding to now. The headline The Slow Countries and lead-in

US productivity keeps growing – right through the bust. So what’s wrong with Europe?

give the general flavor. Here and elsewhere, Brad focuses on technology-driven change in ICT-producing and ICT-using manufacturing manufacturing has grown even faster, and argues that the US has proved clearly superior to Europe in this respect. To the extent that he’s a pessimist, Brad worries about the fact that, with slow output growth, all this productivity growth is driving employment down in the US. Brad suggests that Europe may catch up to the US in the next growth cycle, but worries that ‘something in the water’ (that is, a combination of restrictive labor market policies and deflationary macro policies) will prevent this. I disagree with a lot of this and, to sharpen things up, I’ll argue for the polar opposite case, that we’re going to see the US converging towards Europe in important respects over the next few years.
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Bully for Billionaires

John Quiggin5 Comments

Warren Buffett gets stuck into the Republicans over the greed of the rich in pushing for tax relief while paying less (proportionally) than almost anyone else. He also makes the obvious point that its the current account deficit and not the abandonment “strong dollar policy” that will ultimately drive down the US dollar, getting backup from fellow-billionaire George Soros

And while I’m saying nice things about billionaires, this Salon story says Bill Gates is giving away the bulk of his fortune mostly to people in poor countries. (Both Buffett and Soros are also notable for philanthropy).

At the very least, the latter report makes me feel less resentful about paying my Microsoft taxes (the effectively compulsory copy of Office I need primarily for file compatibility).

Going further, it makes me think about billionaires and egalitarianism. Certainly these guys are doing a lot of good with their money. And while there are other billionaires who don’t do anything positive, taken as a group the ultra-rich seem a lot more attractive than the merely rich, as represented, say, by the Bush administration. So perhaps a bit of inequality at the very top of the income distribution (a few billion-dollar fortunes and a corresponding reduction in the number of millionaires/multimillionaires) is not such a bad idea. With this much money it is possible for someone to a lot of good unilaterally.

Thought for Thursday

John Quiggin8 Comments

Readers of yesterday?s post Spin Cycle got a preview of my piece in today?s Fin (subscription required) and the debate in the comments thread has already anticipated some of the issues I raise. I commend a policy of higher taxes and more services to both parties. Here?s an extract

For Labor, a policy based on an explicit tax levy would provide a resolution of the inconsistency inherent in promising both the return of bracket creep and improvements in public services. Although such inconsistencies are par for the course in opposition, they will have to be resolved before Labor can present a credible program to the Australian electorate.

To take this course, Labor would have to drop the refrain that Howard’s is ?the highest taxing government in history?. The argument is bogged down in definitional disputes about whether the GST is a state or federal tax, and has gained no electoral traction.

By contrast, Crean’s proposals on health, education and the rehabilitation of the Murray-Darling have produced a strong positive response. In particular, the AC Nielsen Poll, showing Labor with 49 per cent of the two-party preferred vote is scarcely consistent with the view that the next election is unlosable for the government. With the right strategy, Labor would be a serious contender.

Looking back at the last ?unlosable? election, in 1993, it is evident that the threat to Medicare was a more potent issue than the much-overrated GST.
The government should also reconsider the wisdom of cutting taxes and services It might seem paradoxical to commend a policy of tax increases to the current government, but Howard and Costello have shown a surprising amount of flexibility on this score. Despite the disdain of economic purists, they have introduced a string of special-purpose hypothecated levies, and do not seem to have suffered electorally as a result.

Given the adverse reaction to the erosion of Medicare under this government, an increase in the Medicare levy to finance a return to bulk-billing would be a sensible political response. And, for a government that prides itself above all on not being like the Fraser government, it’s worth considering that Fraser scrapped Medicare and abandoned tax indexation. This government would do well to take the opposite course of action on both issues.

Observa's story

John Quiggin9 Comments

Observa has sent me a further instalment of his story of his family’s brush with paedophilia. As he observes “it has been a difficult task for me to write about an emotive issue, when I am largely a facts and figures technocrat.” I agree with Observa’s comment in the Monday Message Board that:

“My view is that society needs to discard its sense of taboo on the subject of paedophilia and separate fact from fiction. The outcomes for individuals are too important to be swept under the carpet.”

This is obviously a difficult issue, and the comments about it have lacked the dogmatic certitude that characterizes a lot of blogging (including a fair bit of mine, I admit). I’ve collected the entire thread into a single post, which you can read below.
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Spin Cycle

John Quiggin12 Comments

Responding to the post-budget opinion polls, most bloggers (myself included) have seen what they want to see Tim Dunlop focuses on the good news for Crean in the Age/SMH AC Nielsen Poll. Gareth Parker looks at the bad news in the Oz Newspoll, and Tim Blair (permalinks still bloggered) accuses the SMH of spin. As Rob Corr observes Tim B seems to have missed the fact that the SMH and Oz each have their own polls, both out on the same day.

But for the real spin story you have to visit the Newspoll site and read the raw poll numbers (downloadable as PDF). Newspoll found that 15 per cent of voters thought the budget would make them better off 38 per cent thought it would make no difference, and 32 per cent though it would make them worse off. This mildly negative result (fairly typical of responses over the 15 years Newspoll has asked this question) was spun by The Oz into a ringing endorsement ?53 per cent of voters thought the Budget would make them better off or no worse off ‘(emphasis added).

The AC Nielsen Poll asked a clearer question and got a clearer answer. Asked whether they would prefer the tax cuts announced in the budget or improvements in health and education, 20 per cent opted for the tax cuts and 77 per cent for improvements in services.