Regular Features

Monday Message Board

John Quiggin11 Comments

It’s time again for the Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language. Lengthy side discussions to the sandpits, please.

11 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

  2. John, are you – or any of your readers – aware of any sources relationg to the Duncan Commission of Inquiry into Australian Labour Market Programs around 1988 ?

  3. I would like to take the Bilbo approach to wealth. Travel off somewhere, kill a dragon and take all his treasure. Provided of course that my life was like a story with an assured happy ending.

  4. Ikonoclast, you have an additional problem. Bilbo was wealthy before he met Thorin and co.

  5. This is truly bizarre.

    George Megalogenis here writes about budgeting in good times which he defines as periods of at least 2% GDP growth.

    Sinclair Davidson then attempts to say it for for all budgets.
    Either he and his lackeys have no reading skills at all or they are happy to lie their heads off.

    Both Davidson and some Joker called Samuel are saying the budget is expansionary because spending is increasing.
    It is increasing 3% in NOMINAL terms. Revenue is increasing at 13% in NOMINAL terms.

    Moreover some of the change in spending is in fact reducing the structural deficit.

    Just how a budget could be called expansionary when it is reducing economic activity and the structural deficit is clearly much smaller than the previous year is something that can only be thought up in Catallaxy land.

  6. dylwah :Ikonoclast, you have an additional problem. Bilbo was wealthy before he met Thorin and co.

    Yes, I recall now. You are quite right.

  7. I followed the Bilbo method. When I found the dragon I threw dirt it its mouth and all it’s teeth turned into warriors. When the dust settled we were left with 60 dependants who were all technically less than one year old and a massive dentures bill.

  8. John, any chance of you looking into the recent public utterances of our freshly unearthed Nick Greiner? He will be guiding Barry O’Farrell through the task of allocating big infrastructure projects out among the big players.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/10/3212323.htm

    His conclusion from the NSW Labor experience is, apparently, that project risks need to be assumed by the Govt, so that the private sector will put in the needed dollars. Doesn’t sound much like a PPP to me, but I’m no expert.

    As a NSW resident, I have an entirely selfish motive for asking you to take up cudgels. But it probably wouldn’t hurt sales of the book, and it might be fun – you know how much we love taking Queenslanders’ advice down here.

  9. bizarre continues.

    This paper by Conley and Dupor is doing the rounds for asserting ARRA destroyed private sector jobs.
    Greg Mankiw and Steve Kates at Catallaxy both champion the paper.

    However Noah Smith demolishes it.

    More importantly it contradicts this San Francisco Fed paper using a similar methodology.

    Why is this? Well Conley And Dupor did not get statistically significant results.

    I understand Catallaxy not understanding this simple concept but Greg Mankiw hang your head in shame. You are much better than that.

  10. By the way, shouldn’t the first reference in “testimonials” now read “ex-Senator Richard Alston”?

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