Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
John Quiggin 
I’ve been following Prof Steve Keen for sometime and recently donated to his patreon. I’ve had a quick search, but wondered if John Q has ever expressed a view on Steve Keen’s efforts on position?
Steve Keen argues strongly that the current academic profession is creating a series of corporate monsters with no real value to society. “What is the economy for?”
From my observation, which might be incomplete, J.Q, Bill Mitchell and Steve Keen never acknowledge each others’ existence, let along engage in discussions or debates which might enlighten the rest of us. They seem to prefer their own silos.
Internet abuse is becoming newsworthy, no doubt this article will provoke further outrage from the keyboard warriors.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5167058/the-man-who-received-death-threats-for-taking-his-wifes-surname/?cs=7
I too would be very interested in JQ commenting on Keen. And Mitchell.
Yet id really like to hear thoughts on this… and comments. Seeing the authors names i just thought the emperors (rmit & the conversation) had no clothes… all I could see was eye P ay!
https://theconversation.com/kodakone-could-be-the-start-of-a-new-kind-of-intellectual-property-89966
…”In KodakCoin, the underlying asset – the thing that is being bought and sold, the thing that has the economic value – is no longer the photograph, per se. Rather, it’s the entry on the global blockchain ledger. Control of that entry constitutes ownership of the asset.”…
I fear my title deed now stored (the blockchain owns my house?) run by cryptokitties or kodak
@rog
It’s usually impoverished males who react in this way. I mean impoverished economically and/or educationally. They are fertile grounds for recruitment by essentially neo-fascistic movements like Trumpism in the US and One Nation here in Australia. It’s just another reason to get rid of neoliberalism. Any neglected group will rebel even if that rebellion is reactionary rather progressive. Even some low socio-economic status white men are getting seriously neglected now along with blacks and women who have had to put up with disadvantage for generations. It’s a sign of how bad neoliberalism is getting.
@Ikonoclast
Do you mean that the story I read about the three of them having a secret dinner with Max Keiser in Moscow was fake news ! BAD !
LOL. Point taken.
Cairns Airport = another stunning privatisation success.
https://cairnseconomy.com/2018/01/16/over-out-auckland/
rog and others, have a quick scan of Catallaxy for some eye opening opnions, different views on economy and so many other things. An Economist is also running the site over there.
@ Know Teeth
Blockchain ledgers are an attempt to establish eWealth. This can be misused to hide assets from governments, like France, that tax wealth directly. In Australia Capital Gains Tax avoidance is rampant. At a low level it revolves around the family home but at the high levels of wealth ownership it can be insidious. Blockchain tax avoidance schemes are now flavor of the month!
@Xevram
Once I got over the emotional/disgust response I found that there is some benefit to be had from fully realising the level of psychological dysfunction and distress that motivates the people who post and comment at that site that claims to be the “leading libertarian and centre right blog”.
I think it very safe to say there is nothing to be gained in terms of economic enlightenment of any variety from visiting Catallaxy now: it’s dominated by a deep and abiding Trump love of the most obsequious, obsessive and gullible kind from Steve Kates, who also likes to cast himself as pretty much the only economist who can explain fully how all mainstream economists have gone completely wrong; economic analysis of renewable projects premised on “there is no global warming” by Moran; routine “Liberals aren’t right wing enough” whinges by anonymous contributors who only think they are witty; and virtually nothing about normal economics by blog master Sinclair Davidson, who now talks mainly about the alleged coming miracle of blockchain, as libertarians who fetishise governments not being able to centralise anything are wont to do. I think he’s lost interest in the place, to be honest, as the comments threads have become a mutual support network for angry social conservatives only interested in the culture wars, with the typical ageing mindset that everything is worse than it was 30-50 years ago when they were in their prime. (There is little evidence that anyone under about 50 ever comments there.)
Even then, they fight endlessly over rubbish, with the only unifying core belief being that climate change is not happening and the world is going to realise that, any day now.
It is truly surprising how the internet has enabled such intellectual bubble universes to maintain themselves.
@Xevram
Had a look, and Catallaxy seems to be populated by climate change denialist wingnuts.
@Steve from Brisbane
That’s correct in all respects. I agree the entire site is clearly dominated by sclerotic white males over 50 (and maybe over 60) who have not learned one new thing since about age 15. Imagine someone who has not learned anything since 1975. It’s a rather scary thought.
Lacking logic they employ vitriol which they seem to imagine demonstrates enormous cleverness.
@Ikonoclast
No really it’s not all men, there are quite a few women – also over 50 if not in reality in attitude –
who comment there and are able to ignore or agree with the misogyny that is also a feature of the site.
The collapse of Carillion (and to a large extent the PPP method of service delivery) was predicted by Garry Sturgess.
“In a meeting with industry, a senior civil servant expressed his view that contracting was suitable for procuring paperclips, but not for complex public services.”
Click to access Just-Another-Paperclip-FINAL.pdf
@Pete Moran
I reviewed his book a long time ago
http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/johnquiggin/Reviews/Keen0112.html
Anyone noticed the number of Council Mayors in trouble for corruption in Qld.? Is this a result of creating the larger, regional local governments? I think when shires were small, they were too small for excessive corruption in a sense. Everyone knew everyone else and their business. There were local, small-scale social checks and balances on corruption. State and Federal governments, on the other hand, are big enough for the national press and national institutions to notice and control, to some extent. These regional councils however appear to be just the right size for corruption. They fly over local notice and under national notice. Just ripe for lots of corruption.
@Ikonoclast
Definetly.
It is amazing what appears as basic serious crime like official corruption, secret commissions for a start seems to lack the political will for real prosecution. It is variously described including the way business is done.
Most of the suspicious councils have obvious political links extending to the federal level of government too.
I suggest anyone go to the Qld. CCC site and under “Investigations” read the transcripts of Operation Belcara starting with the Gold Coast Council as a “test case”.
One candidate raised $180,000 in developers’ donations for an election in which she was elected unopposed. We are still awaiting the use of these funds.
How bizzare is this?
“A former Coalition minister says the date of Australia Day needs to be changed so that everyone, including Indigenous Australians, can celebrate together. Ian Macfarlane, who resigned from Parliament last year, admits he’s only had the change of heart in the last few months. He insists he’s no ‘bleeding heart’, but says he wouldn’t want to celebrate his Scottish heritage on the day his ancestors were murdered, and a new day should be chosen.”
http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/ian-macfarlane-calls-for-australia-day-date-to/8214424
I predict that ,just like last year, Melbournes invasion day march will be several times larger than the Australia day parade (including all the onlookers) which precedes it .This will register little media attention as per usual.
John Quiggin or any commenters:
Can you recommend a good economics writer from Victoria who doesn’t work for the mainstream media?
There are heaps of shops empty in central Bendigo and Ballarat, and in Melbourne retail precincts like Chapel St and in Richmond.
The State Government is ploughing money into heaps of infrastructure projects in regional Victoria and in Melbourne.
I’ve been studying planning on and off since 2010, and most of the infrastructure projects have the appearance of white elephants. They are not the infrastructure that planning and transport experts say that Melbourne needs. Experts have said for years Melbourne needs better public transport infrastructure for the outer suburbs especially in the West and North, almost all the new public transport infrastructure developments is for the CBD and inner suburbs or South East suburbs.
An article said that the infrastructure spending was to counter the effects of the mining boom dwindling.
From the empty shops and infrastructure projects I would guess the economy in Victoria was slowing down, but the mainstream media isn’t reporting that.
Are there any good alternative media economists in Victoria who write about the State economy?
@ZM These locations, are they pedestrian malls? If so, they are a legacy of poor planning decisions in the 1980s, where Councils spent $Ms closing off main streets to traffic and paving the surface from one side to the other.
Invariably these have been disastrous with shoppers heading to the big name centres, which provide parking, climate control and security
@rog
I will reply in the new Monday Message Board, so hopefully people might have recommendations of economists there