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John Quiggin 
So who is behind this new paper – Australian National Review with a heavy dose of Ron Paul?
It also reprinted Pilger’s exposure of the CIA’s coup against Whitlam and control of Australian trade unions.
Some environmental groups (Greenpeace, WWF, +350, etc…) wanted to buy billboard space at the arrivals hall of Brisbane airport for G20 with a picture of a farmer and the words: “Action on Climate Change is on my Agenda, Please Put it on Yours”.
But Brisbane airport corporation refused to allow it saying “Climate Change is too political.”
Double-whammy: take that ‘free market’, take that ‘free speech’.
In October “Human Rights Watch” ran an online campaign featuring black-clad security-type goons apparently blocking a distressed middle-aged lady with the text: “A New Tyr*nn7 is Growing. Sign Now to Stand Against Putin’s Repressive Policies.”
The problem was that the photo was actually from Odessa, the Goons were Ukrainian and the lady was grieving the massacre of civilians by US-backed Nazis. Oh dear.
Never mind. HRW have shoved it down the memory hole. The only mention of it is an obscurely worded “correction” buried on their website referring to a photo used in error for a campaign without further identification.
Well, good luck to Australian National Review, whoever is backing it, if it can survive and can furnish decently-written, decently-researched articles. I think its website needs some work under warranty; when I clicked onto the periodical’s “About us” link, I got the following on-screen message:
“404 Error – page not found
We’re sorry, but the page you are looking for doesn’t exist.”
Let’s hope that the new ANR actually pays its writers. The short-lived 1990s magazine of the same name, alas, did not.
The ANR seems to be financed by 21 st Century Group , which seems to be an investment and financial advice company, with a particular interest in property investment. Quite odd.
On the topic of economic growth, anyone want to hazard guesses or reasons for slow and/or stagnating growth in the developed world? My candidate causes are as follows and I hold they are all contributary causes to developed world stagnation.
1. Growth is being shifted from the developed world to the developing world. (Capitalism moving manufacture to low wage countries.)
2. Poor macroeconomic policy in the developed world (policies of economic austerity leading to poor demand).
3. Limits to Growth. Finite resources and the finite capacities of waste sinks becoming a drag on and then a hard barrier to more material (quantitative) economic growth.
4. Secular stagnation.
5.Technological slowdown.
The IPCC report simply strengthens what went before: the current Abbott government won an election campaigning on “Repeal the Carbon Tax”, which laughably is replaced by “Direct Action”, a policy which will cost billions, and puts our taxes into the hands of polluters, along with a polite letter asking them to pollute a little less. Pollute less, or what? Another bundle of cash to help them pollute less? A slap on the wrist with a limp lettuce leaf?
We know we must put in some effort to deal with the pernicious effects of our economic growth, that much should be obvious; what isn’t obvious is why so many people voted for a government to remove a system that taxes polluters and returns money to income tax payers, replacing it with a system that taxes income earners and returns money to the polluters. How topsy turvy is that? Why didn’t voters see that sleight of hand for what it was, mere wishful thinking that we can avoid the bill for polluting with gay abandon.
Hopefully banning “too political” ads sets a precedent, and come election time we’ll be spared Campbell’s bonce anywhere on BAC property telling us what a great job his government has done for us.
Spotted this on the internet today;
“Horse racing is cruelty to animals. Gambling is cruelty to the innumerate.”
I agree on both counts.
@bjb
Unlikely, billboards are just legalised graffiti for the privileged.
Often, more of an eyesore than illegal graffiti.
They almost always take some form of political message (mostly pro-capital consumerism pushed by multinationals supporting political oppression of under aged and under funded workers).
In another thread, Chrisl was complaining about his education being not very good back whenever and says that it has been dumbed down since then and I didn’t think that was true.
And from reading the First Results OECD Skills Outlook, 2013, which used The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) to measure key skills – literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments in adults, one can see that Australia is in the top 5 ‘literate’ countries which would suggest that our education system is not that bad.
Adults = 16 year old to 65
The study surveyed “Around 166 000 adults aged 16-65…..in 24 countries and sub-national regions: 22 OECD member countries – Australia, Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom (England and Northern Ireland), and the United States; and two partner countries – Cyprus… and the Russian Federation.”
Sumarising the results, the authors write that even highly literate nations have significant liabilities in “their talent pool” but that more than nine-tenths of the overall variation in skill levels lies within, rather than between, countries and that “in all but one participating country,(that would be Japan) at least one in ten adults is proficient only at or below Level 1 in literacy or numeracy.
“In other words, significant numbers of adults do not possess the most basic information-processing skills considered necessary to succeed in today’s world.”
If you go to the report, the graph to look at is on page 27 “Literacy Proficiency among 16-65 year-olds: Percentage of adults scoring at each proficiency level in literacy “ there is Australia among the top 5 countries and this even with our high level of immigration.
The report goes on; “In England/Northern Ireland (UK), Germany, Italy, Poland and the United States, social background has a major impact on literacy skills. In these countries more so than in others, the children of parents with low levels of education have significantly lower proficiency than those whose parents have higher levels of education, even after taking other factors into account.
…but Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden combine above-average performance with a high level of equity.
Interestingly, the data show no relationship between a country’s average literacy skills and the impact of social background on those skills, suggesting that high average proficiency does not need to come at the expense of social inequities.
Japan, and to a lesser extent Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, combine above-average performance with a high level of equity. France, Germany, Poland and the United States all show both below-average performance and large social disparities.”
Click to access OECD_Skills_Outlook_2013.pdf
There is a lot more interesting information particularly the comparison between the 16 to 65 group and the 16 – 24 group.
Julie Thomas : Interesting that you read about my lack of education
I admit I have no research to back me up, no peer review, only anecdotes and I know that the plural of anecdotes is not data but ….
The standard of maths in Australia is 2 years behind what it was 40- 50 years ago
We have the second generation of school teachers that Can Not Spell
We have an astounding drop out rate in our universities
Most uni courses that are not vocational are totally useless
Many kids would be better off leaving school and doing an apprenticeship
Overseas back packers often speak better English than the locals
Australia does Not do languages
Look at the nationalities that do well at VCE
As for overseas….
I have friends from Gaza (Palestine) that are way better educated than me
Students in The Netherlands do their masters degrees in English because there are no Dutch books. Can you imagine one student in Australia doing a masters degree in a foreign language?
I would write etc, but I was taught not to. (Something about running out of ideas)
@chrisl
I didn’t really talk about your lack of education. I wrote about your negative opinion you have of your education and our Australian education system.
And why do you find it interesting that I read what you wrote? Why would I not read what you wrote?
I do agree with you that the things you point our are not good and could be better, but you are too pessimistic about how bad things are. If you look at the OECD results, you will see that we are ‘more literate’ overall than Canada, UK and the US. So…things are not that bad?
Do you have any ideas about why those countries are not as literate as we are?
I totally agree that things could be much better in Australia though, and the people who wrote the OECD report say this. This report is the sort of evidence that governments need to take notice of when they go about trying to make the system better.
Do you think our current government does this? Do you think they read the report?
Julie Thomas : I don’t think the government past present or future has any effect on the education system. It is cultural. Let me give you an example of my friend from Gaza.Every day after school his mother would sit down with him to give him extra lessons because she believed that in the future Gaza would no longer exist . The only thing that would help him If he was forced to flee would be knowledge.Via a russian scholarship he became an orthopaedic surgeon,
I asked him whether he gave his children special education after school and he said No. Whatever they do in their life and whatever job they had they would still live in a great country.
We live in a lucky country.
With lots of silly people in it!
An expedition today, four new tyres, which necessitated a visit to the nearest ‘mall’, on the outskirts of dogville, during which I sat on a lounge in a public area of the mall and did as I often do for entertainment, watched people. After 30 minutes I donned sunglasses in order to conceal my closed eyes which were closed against the sheer ugliness of the human debris that waddled, staggered and wheezed past where I sat. The situation required concentration on the breath. I saw factory farmed humans whose every fibre was a product of the market. The system is sick and depends on sickness to keep it running; it needs consumers of garbage to keep it running and those consumers sure look like they’ve been fed a diet of rubbish.
Interesting stuff!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc683a00-6362-11e4-9a79-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3I29W7Mce
Banning billboards urging G20 to put climate action on agenda? If political action against fossil fuels gets reframed as an attack against Team Australia we could see this kind of self interested corporate censorship (airline industry facing climate related rising costs that can be avoided if climate problem re-assessed, on ‘commercially valid’ costs and profitability criteria as preferably false and proponents of action that ‘harm’ the fossil fuel reliant re-categorised as vandals or … even terrorists) become government policy.
Not sure myself if I’m being unduly alarmist here or not! When we have a government that does (apparently, although in the form of suggestion rather than statement, third party commentary they pointedly do not disagree with, whilst remaining vague and contradictory themselves) see climate science and climate action as anti-business green-eco-authoritarian conspiracy, and are engaged in a crusade to eliminate climate as far as possible as a consideration in government policy, it doesn’t look that big a step. How fortunate there is a eco-authoritarian ideological bent to public discourse that would kick up an enormous fuss?
I am hoping that enough of the other G20 governments have moved beyond the least action and most delay they can get away with as their approach to climate/emissions/energy and Abbott’s team get a wake up call on anthropogenic climate change as an implacable and urgent global reality that must be faced head on.
@jungney
“The system is sick and depends on sickness to keep it running; it needs consumers of garbage to keep it running and those consumers sure look like they’ve been fed a diet of rubbish.”
This is certainly true. We have a system of over-production and over-consumption. It is making people sick and the environment sicker. The truest advertisement I ever saw was for a compilation album of punk music and garage bands. The album was called “Garbage!” The advertising line screamed “This is Garbage! You will buy garbage!”. I quote this not to pick on punk music but to note the accuracy of the advertising line for at least 50% of all consumer sales in our modern economic system. It’s garbage and we could easily survive with the better quality and more necessary 50% of all consumer sales and completely do without the other 50% which is garbage.
This raises the issue of unemployment. How is that we can over-produce and over-consume and even at this fist-grabbing, gob-stuffing, pace we cannot employ everybody? That’s a rhetorical question. Clearly, industrialisation and automation account for much of it. The other issue is that we don’t do enough of the labour-intensive stuff that would counter this unemployment namely health, education, welfare and environmental work.
The real bottom line is that limits to growth will soon force a new kind of austere virtue on us. I do not mean so-called “economic austerity” (pro-cyclical macroeconomics) but a moderate material austerity compared to the current profligate waste. It will do us good but only if the austerity is shared equitably. It will do us no good if 20% continue to be vastly over-wealthy and 80% end up poor (which is where we are headed now).
@Fran Barlow
I have no idea which article you are pointing to. In any case, it’s all pay-walled and it’s one of those sites that endless-loops a person when a person tries to back-arrow out.
I know it wasn’t your intention to link to a dead-end / endless-loop. 🙂
@Fran Barlow
Ok, now I can see the greyed-out headline. It’s just me. I rarely register with walled sites even if I would then get a few free articles. One, I can’t be bothered and two I object in principle to having to register for even the free service.
@Ikonoclast
Falling productivity. Especially on the capital side. point 1 is the effect of points 2, 4 and 5 as possible causes. Just my personal observations.
@crocodile
I would have thought the main cause of point 1 was lower wages in the developing world as I said.
I don’t think labour productivity has been falling in the developed world. It has still been rising albeit the rate at which it is rising has been decelerating.
Referring to “falling productivity on the capital side” confused me. Do you mean capital plant and equipment is less productive? Surely not. Capital plant and equipment continue to become more productive. Do you mean financial capital is getting less returns (outside of speculative returns on asset inflation etc.)?
Well I spent three days at Pax, and it was great.
@Ikonoclast
Totally agree … I managed to read the article on the iPad and wasn’t interrupted, and like you I object to having to register, and so don’t.
Broadly, the article was about the enduring popularity of ‘Podemos’ — a popular leftwing party in opposition to the official ‘socialists’ and conservatives that is now (according to polling) the most popular party in Spain, and hasn’t been merely a flash in the pan as many predicted.
See, limits-to-growth doesn’t affect services [or not directly], only goods; services don’t involve consumption of anything other than human labour, which exists in essentially fixed quantities per-capita. What I think we’re seeing is a decline in consumption of even services [without matching decline in supply as people redeploy to production of real resources], which is difficult to match with anything other than “people can’t buy things ’cause they ain’t got no cash”.
Limits-to-growth is a real problem, yes, but our current economic problems seem pretty solidly bad macro policy.
@Ikonoclast
With point 1, traditionally high productivity has enabled industries to be kept here. Only when it falls that lower wages with less productivity become attractive. Read into this that we are being overtaken in the productivity growth stakes. It hurts.
I’m only relying on ABS info. It seems that labour productivity here has been pretty good. When you look at capital productivity it appears to have been in serious decline for about a decade. Add the two together for multi-factor and seems like capital is dragging total productivity down.
There is insufficient data without delving deeper to find exactly where and what on the capital side is a problem. Perhaps financial capital is getting less returns, not because equipment might not be productive but rather the returns are greater with investments in assets that don’t produce much.
Probably why real wages are under pressure right now.
Our new security laws allow the modification of a person’s private computing and communication devices and their data, in order to track their movements and their communications, sans warrant. I find it very creepy to think someone else could plant data on a computer of mine, then have me charged with evidence of a security related crime, and for me not even to have the clearance level necessary to see what the evidence actually consists of. It is even creepier to consider that a search engine’s search text can be the trigger for watching you. Only yesterday, I did a search on some mathematics related to what is called detonation, the wave fronts in the mathematical models being an interesting object of study (geeky, I know). Could that search I did be sufficient grounds for our security agencies to tap my comms? To use my facebook and twitter networks to seek out other potential troublemakers? At this point in time, sadly, the answer seems to be “Yes.” Given I did another search a couple of weeks ago on fertilisers, and another on acids, and one on Islam, it all so clearly adds up to terrorist in the making. Or not. Can an automated system really spot the difference though? Paranoia is the driving force behind our new laws, and so we should expect paranoia to be rife in the security agencies.
It is only a matter of time before another Haneef case pops up, only this time it is unlikely that any journalists would be game enough to report on it, given the (now) criminal nature of doing so. Ah, paranoia and the conservative government, what’s not to like?
@Donald Oats
Quite a few years ago there was a wonderfully interesting little book in a QBD bookshop. It was titled “How to make a Nuclear ****” I won’t type the “b” word for fear of the very thing you are talking about. I browsed the book quite heavily and it was a good scientific explanation for the layperson. Of course, there was nowhere near enough detail for actual making. Let alone the fact that you need to be a state actor or nearly so to get all the materials, technology and finance.
However, at times I regreted not buying that book. It would have been funny to read it on the train. One would never dare to read such a thing on a plane then or now. The paranoia level is way too high.
Speaking of paranoia, the movie “The Last King of Scotland” is well worth watching (if you have a strong stomach). It’s about Idi Amin and Uganda. It illustrates the spiralling nature of overall societal levels of paranoia and terror as oppression begets rebellion begets official crack-downs begets violent rebellion begets ever more violent and lunatic authoritarian crack-downs. In the end everyone goes crazy with terror (both feeling it and inflicting it). Cambodia (The Killing Fields) was another example.
@Ikonoclast
Forrest Whittaker is brilliant. Unfortunately, as a child I remember reading about the seemingly unending and ever-escalating atrocities committed by Idi Amin and his henchmen. Quite an eye-opener into the way normal people, as you say, get swept up in this horrific scenario. Noone quite knows how to escape it or to stop it, every act of inhumanity feeds the beast…
Another welt-win for Germany, this time in the Melbourne Cup. A German-owned, German-trained and German-bred horse named Protectionist. Is there anything that this country does not excel in?
During the mid-year I noticed how well the Germans played like a team, as compared to Brazil who carried on like a gaggle of schoolgirls:
My second cousins arrived back in Germany after a prolonged stint in German orchestras. They enthused about the quality of life in German cities, medium density housing, good public transport and superb cultural amenities.
Perhaps it is time to reconsider the nonsensical cultural philsophies of the past generation and learn from a country that is the worlds greatest quiet achiever.
Apparently one horse, Admire Rakti, has died and a second will probably die as a result of the MC.
We should stop horse racing.
On a happier note, more on Podemos … I daresay Ikono would find plenty aggreable about this party, which appears not only to be genuinely anti-capitalist and environmental, but democratic in its approach to political governance as well.
I don’t know if it can work because it sounds anarchistic, but it is an unambiguously progressive development on this account:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podemos_(Spanish_political_party)
Fran Barlow @ #21 said:
For years Ive been trying to figure out which historical figure Fran reminds me of, and now it hits me: the Blue-stockings of the mid-Georgian period. They were, of course, proto-suffragettes who promoted education as the surest route to emancipation. Im sure Fran would be pleased with that.
They did something to improve the tone of London society, Their soirees included and A-list of London intellectuals, Horace Walpole, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Edmund Burke
The term “bluestocking” refers to the plain color of the leg wear they wore. They disdained fashion as a form of frippery and domestic duty as drudgery that held back the progress of their sex. Unfortunately this did not endear them to some men:
But they were also Puritans who opposed all forms of gambling, drinking and the various other vices that were rife in Gin Lane Britain. Im sure Fran would nod her head in solemn agreement:
This did not make them popular with some of the more ribald members of London society, in particular Lord Byron who did a splendid hatchet job on them in “The Blues”, here speaking through the voice of Sir Richard Bluebottle, long-suffering husband of Lady Bluebottle the Bluestocking hostess with the mostest:
“We should stop horse racing”
That’ll go down well with he punters.
It annoys me when racing fans say its about the love of horses, when they really only mean that they love horses that win. They wax lyrical about their love of the champ who lives in luxury, but dont mention the many who didnt make it. The numbers are hard to come by but I’m guessing that horse racing is like the dog racing industry where there are many 1000’s each year that are killed because they arent likely to win enough. With horses its only the one that dies publicly gets peoples attention -not surprising i suppose .
@rog
It’s ethically compelling whether the punters like it or not.
Who cares what goes down well with bogans who get drunk, gamble and enjoy cruelty to animals?
Melbourne Cup is getting a lot like Jan 26 “celebrations”. A good litmus test for civilised behaviour. Participate – you fail.
re: Melbourne Cup. Is the actual cup equivalent to a sacred relic now. Notice all holders wearing white gloves. Lol.
@David Allen Amazing how gambling and religion share so much common ground.
@Jack Strocchi
I’ve been living in Germany on and off for 10 years now, after 30 odd years in Sydney. Your description on the quality of life, etc. rings true. Sure I miss the smell of eucaylptus in the air, but the trade off is that even the proles here are more informed than your average Australian uni graduate on most important issues (climate, social, history, politics, economics). The support of the arts as an honourable pursuit in life, as opposed to the size of your house/mortgage, is one of the most attractive reasons to live here.
Double incomes are the exception, not the rule, and increasingly the male takes the “haus-frau” role. A$100 per month for 35 hours per week pre-school care! We haven’t had a car or a TV for 8 years now. Don’t miss either. Bicycle and public transport around town, train or plane for interstate or international. Free university education, including for foreigners. I won’t mention that great Bavarian and Czech beer cost around A$3 per liter!
So sure, tell me all about your low tax-rates in Australia, and then ask your self what you get for that? Less education quality, less ABC quality and more privately owned toll-ways. At least the beach is (still) free.
God how I miss the beach…
Historian David Kaiser has an interesting take on the Republican long struggle, “dau tranh” to win government so as to limited it, other than the Orwellian exceptions such as the MIC and the Surveillance State.
A step forward in the long campaign is expected in the Mid-Term Elections. Expect the invitation to soon follow for a certain fellow traveller to address a joint sitting of Congress. Should either Mr Cameron or Mr Harper be unavailable, perhaps Mr Abbott might be called. Australia and Canadia are as one in their “Republican response” to Climate Change. If Climate Change could be privatized, it could be acknowledged as real and requiring action.
@David Allen Racing and religion, not uncommon bedfellows.
When Howard first floated the idea of an ETS all the the money shufflers in the investment banking caper thought they’d make a motza by clipping the ticket on all transactions. When it turned out they weren’t going to making out like bandits, the whole thing went dead. So, yes, you’re correct, when the greed heads find a way to make money out of climate change, then there’ll be action.
Test.
@wmmbb
“If Climate Change could be privatized, it could be acknowledged as real and requiring action.”
It is interesting that attempts were made to privatize the atmosphere via the ETS and these attempts failed at least in Australia. Corporate capital objected to big polluters being forced to pay. Now, if they could only find a way to make consumers and taxpayers pay and subsidise big polluters…. voila! Direct Action!
Yes big polluters were going to get subsidies under the ETS changeover too but obviously the subsidies weren’t big enough for them. Anyone know what happened when the ETS was canned? Had any subsidies already been shelled out? Did they have to pay them back?
@Ikonoclast
I don’t think they do as the only losses would be for purchased permits, which obviously aren’t subsidies in the usual sense. Some of these costs would have been recovered in the sale of goods/service.
As always, it is worth calling for fossil fuel subsidies to be axed.
http://environmentvictoria.org.au/fossilfuelsubsidies#.VFlDE8kxgf4
@Fran Barlow
I didn’t make it clear but I was referring to this;
“Handouts to Australia’s dirtiest power stations – $1 billion in 2013-14
The carbon price is an important reform that is starting the transition to a cleaner Australian economy.
However one part of the carbon price package represented a massive payday for polluters. Under the Energy Security Fund, Australia’s dirtiest power stations have been receiving around $1 billion in assistance annually.”
Did these polluters receive these subsidies? It appears so. If so, were they required to pay them back when the ETS was axed? I refer to “1 billion of cash payments distributed to eligible generators in June 2012 by the former Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency”. What were these payments for? Did the polluters deliver anything for these payments? Were they even required to deliver anything? If they were required to deliver something and then did not have to so deliver with the closing of the ETS did they pay back or keep the $1 billion?
OMG, Australian carbon emissions policy has been and still is a total debacle.
The joke of direct action is that it is anything but a free market solution (for that matter, anything but a solution), and a Liberal theo-con brought it about.
In the meanwhile, being a captive of the apartment complexes we urbanites have to live in these days, there is damn little I can do about my energy use, and more frustrating is that apartment living in Australia during summertime is pretty tough going without an air-conditioner. When a small cottage is over half a million and your employment is under an Abbottian cloud…apartments are a forced choice.
The more urbanised we become, the less living space we have, the fewer permanent products we can purchase for want of somewhere to stash-‘n’-forget them. Clearly the e-book and online digital content revolution is positive in this regard, but what of big traditional furniture makers, cabinet makers, etc? I suppose they just go upmarket and sell at a killing to the newly rich house owners, rather than bother with poor muggins apartment dwellers. As for TV and other entertainment pieces, they simply reduce the innovation cycle, inviting higher churn rates and more dangerous landfill, I suppose.
@Ikonoclast
Debacle isn’t the half of it. With the new government at 180 degrees out of phase with previous government’s policy implementation of an ETS (i.e. fixed price for first couple of years, then floats on the open market), and 180 degrees out of phase with the increasingly dire conclusions of successive IPCC reports, this government is staring up its own arse-end—and still doesn’t know if its own arse is on fire. Even if PM Tony thinks coal is a good thing, why this constant undermining of every attempt to avoid/curtail serious consequences from its use? It makes no logical sense.