The Australian edition of Zombie Economics, updated and with an additional chapter on Economic Rationalism, is about to go on sale. I’ll be appearing at a launch event at Gleebooks in Sydney on Wednesday (9 May) talking with Jessica Irvine of the SMH.
The launch coincides with the US publication of a paperback edition, with a new chapter on Austerity. The Italian translation also came out recently, and there are versions coming in French, Greek, Portuguese, Korean and Simplified Chinese. Collect them all!
John Quiggin 
Is a Melbourne launch for the book planned?
Unfortunately I can’t make it as a couple of collegues and I are ourselves presenting that night in my China in the World Economy class (led by Dr Joseph Halevi).
Our topic is the US/China debt relationship.
When will the book be available in Canberra? (I presume at the Coop Book shop?)
Congratulations on all the translations John. A great achievement.
Simplified Chinese. You mean Mandarin as it is written in China rather than Taiwan?
Hi all. I’ve linked the Black Inc site which has details on availability. Hopefully, it should be available in Canberra now, or maybe Real Soon Now.
hc, no idea, I’m afraid
will there be an e-book available? At a discount?
JQ – link broken
http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/zombie-economics
@hc
Simplified, pretty much always means as it is written in China, traditional being what is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan
I just tried unsuccessfully to post a comment concerning, amongst other issues, the abandoned plans by Premier Baillieu to flog of the Port of Melbourne. Possibly this was because of the number of links. If that was the reason, I consider that, whatever practical reasons there are for that policy, such a policy would diminish some of the value of the Internet. Anyway, the comment I attempted to post is here.
Well done on the new edition! Just enjoyed rushing through the ebook from Google.
It’s just a few weeks too late for my little class of Brissie MBAs in a ‘national’ business school course (I had nothing to do with the content of the course, just had to get them through it successfully). They had to endure the ordure of New Keynesian nonsense and an inexplicably muddled AD/AS, for what that’s ever worth, served up to them in a well-known textbook, you know the one…
Your very brief conclusion does beg some questions: why no mention of the macroeconomics that does attempt to deliver your three requirements for 21st century economics? The Post-Keynesian institutionalists have been banging on about this for decades, to no avail as far as the establishment is concerned. I wouldn’t call them zombies, though, as their ideas appear to be rather on the money. Perhaps you should tell me why I’m wrong about this.
Just finished Zombie Economics. A fabulous book. One dead idea not discussed but threaded through the entire book is the issue of government-created money/debt versus bank-created money/debt. The argument against government-created money/debt is that it is inflationary and the detractors trot out the German experience after the first world war. The point never considered by detractors is why is a dollar/credit created by the government potentially inflationary but not a dollar/credit created by the private sector. Why should governments be forced to borrow at market interest rates? How does that then contribute to debts and the subsequent calls to reduce deficits and debts by decreasing spending on programmes and risk aversion by governments?
The are many economic Zombies wandering unchecked in this country. One of the most prominent is the notion that the Carbon Price is going to make Australian business uneconomic internationally. I am yet again incensed by the blatant jounalistic free space given to the Coalition’s Tony Abbott in his assualt on our intelligence. So following this morning’s Abbott “factory drop in”, and for the record, this is my response to the ABC complaints department
“With this morning’s Coalition media conference from a Gold Coast business, PWR Radiators, the ABC has yet again been dupped into being an advertising conduit for preferentially selected businesses compliant to Coalition policies. This is entirely inappropriate for the ABC. Again Tony Abbott covered his one key over repeated statement to “repeal the carbon tax”. This is now the most over covered topic in ABC reporting history.
However, having taken the public’s time to adverise this particular business with a high profile interview, the ABC is duty bound to answer the question posed by the manager of this business, Marshal Keyes, that he has no idea as to what the Carbon Price will cost his business. For my business Kezza Products Pty Ltd, I know this cost to be around 0.2% of my gross turnover. My estimate for PWR would be that it is roughly the same even considering that it manufactures aluminium radiators. I believe that the Carbon Price means a $70 per tonne increase in the price of aluminium. So for a material that retails at around $8 per kilogramme when extruded this should mean a cost increase of no more tha $250 in $8000, or .03% for the main material cost.
If my calculation is accurate then the preferentially promoted business PWR Radiators is facing a price increase for its products of 0.2%, and the interview has taken place in a week just after the Australian dollar has dropped some 5% making this business a net 4.8% more competitive in the global market.
My question to ABC editorial management is will there now be a balancing expert opinion interview on the matter of the Carbon Pricing impacts on small business? or is the ABC going to allow its reputation and journalistic integrity be further dragged through the politic mud by the Coalition leader, Tony Abbott.
I add that a quick google look at PWR Radiators brings up a large number of question marks about this business’s product quality and pricing.
I think that ABC has been duped yet again. Or is the ABC so politically biased that it is prepared to ignore godd jnournalistic practise and leave real policy question permanently unanswered? ”
Having said all of the above the arrival of an exposee on Zombies has to be a welcome move for Australian Economic studies.
michael#9,
The official language of China is Mandarin, and if you want your book to be read by government or academia then this would be the language. Taiwan is also dominantly Mandarin. Hong Kong is a mix of Cantonese, Mandarin and English. I remember sitting next to an Australian Software Engineer, who was working on the TAB racing and betting software, on a flight to Hong Kong and he was saying that the mix of the two languages causes much confusion in meetings. I would be betting on Mandarin for my translation, as indeed we have done for our business brochures. Though, I hasten to add that I am no authority on the subject.
@BilB
Mandarin and Cantonese do not differ in writing and grammar. Simplified and Traditional Chinese refers to difference in writing Chinese Characters. Mainland China only uses Simplified Chinese (even in Cantonese speaking state like GuangDong), while Hong Kong and Taiwan use Traditional Chinese even though one speaks Cantonese and one speaks Mandarin.
That could well be the case, Tom. I believe that Japanese is also based on Chinese, up till 300 years ago. No doubt a simplified character set facilitates convenient printing and computer characters.
@BilB
Unfortunately, I’m not too sure about the history of Japan. However, when it comes to writing, Korean and Japanese both uses Chinese Characters. The interesting thing however, is that the Ancient Chinese chess game called Go has been recorded to be existed in Confucius era (551 – 479 BC); while it only first appeared in Korea and Japan from 5th and 7th Century onwards. So maybe they had started to interact with the China back then, or they were originally from Chinese like some suggested.