Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
The Saturday Paper (NOVEMBER 11-17, 2023 I No. 475 in the article:
Mike Seccombe “Why the cost of living is too high” (pages 1 & 8);
suggested that it is the older generation that is to blame for the “sticky
situation” regarding inflation in this country. Simply put, that article argues that
older Australians have the surplus cash and also benefit from rising interest rates on their
fixed term deposits. Assuming they are correct in their analysis, Danielle Wood
(“noted economist” and head of the Gatten Institute) is mentioned as a proponent of this analysis, then there may be a way to break the back of inflation using fiscal policy.
My suggestion would be to zero rate both the GST and the fuel excise levy for one year.
That should knock the CPI into the RBA inflation band.
To stop the older generation from continuing to “spend up big” I would suggest that a golden oldie be revived. Return the Australian Savings Bond to regular issues. Aimed at soaking up the excess liquidity of the older generation, they could be offered at one percent above the official cash rate. The smallest bond would have a coupon value of $50. Multiples of this could be accepted up to a limit of $50 000. That would give those who are unhappy with the interest rate on offer for long term savings accounts from the banks, a viable alternative. And these bonds would be guaranteed by the federal government.
Now all this may appear to be far fetched. But in my forty-seven years as an economist I have seen Australian Savings Bonds work. So have many older Australians. It’s not a new idea and that would appeal to many older Australians.
The money raised from these Australian Savings Bonds could go to cover the revenue fall to the States and to the necessary road maintenance programs.
As there is no Wage-Price spiral this time around and price gouging is so rampant, these two measures could just do the trick.
Leon Simons tweeted on Nov 13:
Note that the temperature anomaly curves are relative to the 1981-2010 baseline (NOT the IPCC 1850-1900 baseline).
The 10 Nov 2023 Hansen et al. communication includes:
why have so many people, at so many different places and so many different times wanted people known as Jews, dead?
who benefits from this current hate song?
why is the reporting of carnage in this place more prevalent than the carnage in “pick-a-war-zone”?
Re Anonymous says NOV 8, 2023 AT 8:35 PM https://johnquiggin.com/2023/11/06/monday-message-board-621/#comment-264403 “How can you not blame the ones actually dropping the bombs on children. Children and babies are being killed by Israel. That’s a war crime. There is NO excuse. As for this absurd idea that “we must stop Hamas”. Sorry but I will not condone genocide and will certainly NOT partake in it. Not do I support my government sending young soldiers over to do Israel’s dirty work. This is a problem created By Israel. They chose to deal with Hamas not the Palestinian Authority. They allowed settlers to kill people in the West Bank. Anyone who supports this becomes complicit.””
When the British retreated all Israel became an ongoing crime site not just the Zionist crimes that sporadically occurred repeatedly during the British Mandate for Palestine and before in Ottoman Palestine. Israel is a war crime, a crime against humanity, from end to end, from “Dan to Beersheba”, and from start to finish.
As for not sending young soldiers to do Israel’s dirty work… what of the silence today concerning the ~300,000 IDF fighters that continuously cycle through Australia carrying Australian passports and some citizenship?
Ten years ago there was much ado about Australian citizens, visa holders, and Australian passport holders travelling to various Middle East conflict zones and much ado about the supporters of such so called Islamic foreign fighters. That practice and any association with it was criminalised, passports were confiscated, return was refused, citizenship removed, and some maximum security incarceration with subsequent deportation ensued. The pollies made a huge feast out of the hyped up Islamic foreign fighters issue. The msm featured a great deal of alarmist coverage of the issue. However, at the same time the media also covered the issue of highly trained resident/dual-citizen Israeli IDF foreign fighters, the actual facts and the scary large numbers, albeit with less beat ups. Apart from the Israeli Lobby in Australia apparently having learnt a thing or two, the only difference in Australia now ten years later on is that an ALP government is in power and therefore the reactionary media carries on as it always does but the fake left media is silent on Australian IDF Foreign Fighters.
Svante
Bottom of the pit – James Wimberley
We really need some good news. Here it is, from China. Lauri Myllyvirta, a well-known and level-headed analyst and the author of a report for Carbon Brief:
“These record additions [in renewable capacity] are all but guaranteed to push fossil-fuel electricity generation and CO2 emissions into decline in 2024. […] This is because – for the first time – the rate of low-carbon energy expansion is now sufficient to not only meet, but exceed the average annual increase in China’s demand for electricity overall.”
The IEA tells a similar story:
“In recent weeks, the International Energy Agency added that emissions from all energy sources – including fossil fuels used for heating and fuels – could peak in 2025 before starting to decline in a historic turning point for the energy industry.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carbon-emissions-set-for-structural-decline-from-next-year
2023 is now increasingly looking like Peak Cr*p. Now to fill in the pit we dug.
Anonymous makes the standard error of assuming that the way to eliminate inflation is to reduce prices – his suggestion to abolish the GST and the fuel excise for a year. That addresses the symptoms of inflation not the cause which is excess demand. As I argue the way to address this is to either increase supply (Labor’s IR reforms will have the reverse effect on this) or reduce demand – by cutting government spending or raising (not lowering) taxes. If such measures are not introduced the only alternative is to further increase interest rates. The latter impinges on the young and helps oldies like me who have no debt but live of interest earning assets.
I think there is a wage price spiral already underway particularly among blue collar workers. This again can be offset by cutting back on infrastructure spending which is having macroeconomic effects on the availability and costs of tradies and construction expertise. Why build homes when you can work for big spending state and federal governments and earn much higher wages? Be in it mate while those pollies with low concern about debt and future generations remain in power!
Svante, I’m not going to waste time arguing with you about your opinions. But I do have a question. For *how long* is it justifiable to physically fight against a country? Another 70 years? 300 years? I’m just curious.
This subject is of interest to me personally as I live in a place that could also be called “stolen.”
Thanks for good news, James
HC, the way to eliminate inflation is to eliminate the Big Australia ponzi immigration. Cutting immigration to a sustainable rate, as it was for a century prior this one, would drastically cut excess demand! Government spending rates are related to ponzi immigration. However, the out of control immigration feds forcibly offload most of that onto the states, onto state borrowings and their bargain-buy infrastructure sell-offs, so the spending is never enough to meet the need. Australia over the past decade at times has built near more new houses per 100,000 than any other OECD nation, iirc it ranked fourth of twenty on average. New housing supply is inelastic, whereas housing demand due to ponzi immigration is highly elastic – it can be cut overnight.
In the face of ponzi immigration population growth infrastructure spending for quite some time now has been cut well below the level required to maintain acceptable standards. All around we see aggregate and per capita infrastructure and services needs being unmet, always falling behind, going backwards. We see living standards falling, particularly those of blue collar workers. We see baked-in per capita recessions while the plutocrats make a killing out of their planned chaos.
In addition to their fossil fuel donors the pollies are only concerned with serving the closely related all encompassing Big Australia ponzi donors.
The Minister for High Airfares (Catherine King) has come up with yet another reason for not giving Qatar more access to the Australian Market. We need Qantas to evacuate Australians in emergency situations. In fact, it was Qatar (and Virgin) that helped evacuate Australians recently from Israel. Not that Mr Albanese could bring himself to thank Qatar. The Q-word is a no-no for the government as the litany of silly reasons for the Qatar decision grows. It is a plane-wreck:
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/albo-and-the-q-word-that-shall-not-be-named-20231018-p5edac
Whistleblower protection in Australia is farcical: it depends on so many factors that are outside of the whistleblower’s control, of even their ability to appreciate their actual legal exposure, as opposed to potential exposure, it is pointless legislation. McBride tried all the legal avenues that were permitted under his employment conditions, only for his efforts to be entirely thwarted. Clearly his evidence was of thing that at the very least needed a proper investigation with powers to prosecute and the rest of it. Once all the mandated attempts at remedy fail, the question is what then? Somebody like McBride should have been able to pass on the pertinent information to a formal body independent of the Armed Forces, and with the power to pursue. If not even that exists, such as our current situation in Australia, how can anyone bring to light issues of war crimes, or other corrupt activity, by our armed forces? Personally, I would want our forces to be subject to fairly strict scrutiny, given they have the mandate to kill people. Killing people should never be a matter of removing an inconvenience, or of some venal anger or irritation at a person caught/captured/bumped into, or of that person’s refusal to answer questions. We know for a damn fact these misbehaviours have occurred, and we also know that most of our armed forces don’t behave like this; so, why try to hide away the cases where we have pretty clear evidence of war crimes, or other corrupt behaviour, by those few but significant members of the armed forces?
And then there is the question of the ATO whistleblowers, the CBA whistleblower, and so on. All of them have landed in a world of hurt, and some of them face gaol time that far exceeds the gaol time any of the people they revealed as in commission of criminal or corrupt activity would ever face. It’s beyond disproportionate. Only legislative changes, a complete overhaul of the Acts, can salvage this. In the meantime, people who seemingly meant well are hauled over the coals. Even if the broke laws, the question is largely a matter of intent, and what the reward was. I don’t think you can argue that any whistleblower of recent times had been thinking of a monetary reward for blowing the whistle, or indeed any reward.
In the realm of debate, a spectacle bright,
An argument emerged, a remarkable light.
Words danced like fireflies, each point so clear,
Silencing all who drew near.
Logic’s force, a torrent, unyielding and strong,
Persuasion’s melody, an intellectual song.
Onlookers hushed, their voices ceased,
In the presence of reason, all tumult released.
(Thanks, Chat GPT)
Planet Earth is now around 1.90 °C (daily global mean 2 m surface temperature) above the 1850-1900 IPCC baseline. Will it exceed the early 2016 record of just under 2 °C (see the blue squiggle) this year?
um.
inflation.
idiot wonders.
one million empty houses.
air-b-n-b.
immigration by “buy-your-way-in”.(am i being a bit cynical thinking approx 400,000 people a year all pay? or is it just a few.)
and
every tap-n-go transaction costs the business providing it.
the small businesses doing so are not currently passing the cost on and prefer cash.
the market “force” to participate in the tap-n-go is not realistically optional.
they can’t carry the cost for too much longer and when it is eventually passed on the inflationary effect is all the governments’ fault?
oh and ibm (Hollerith punch cards) have withdrawn advert monies from a hatesong site.
cynicism just doesn’t have the necessary intensity.
Per Prof Eliot Jacobson’s tweet yesterday (Nov 19), on 18 Nov 2023, the Earth System breached the global daily mean 2 m surface air +2.0 °C threshold (relative to the IPCC’s 1850-1900 baseline). This is the first time in the instrumental record.
Meanwhile, per CNN Brasil, dated 18 Nov 2023 (translated from Portuguese):
https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/sensacao-termica-no-rio-chega-a-597oc-e-bate-recorde-historico/
I assume “thermal sensation” is similar to Heat Index?
43.8 °C (110.84 °F) at 41% RH yields a heat index of 139.8 F / 59.9 C.
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml
Lethal heat conditions in Rio de Janeiro are already being experienced even before the summer 2023/24 season has begun! The humidity (&/or temperature) only needs to increase a little bit more and people would drop like flies…