The latest Productivity Commission report marks the end of an era

That’s the headline for my latest piece in Inside Story I look at the rise and decline of the Productivity Commission as an advocate of radical neoliberal reform. It spans the fifty years from the creation of the Industries Assistance Commission, replacing the old Tariff Board to the present, a period that spans my entire adult life. think I have outlived neoliberalism, at least as an intellectually credible ideology. But I’m very tired

I’ve lived through quite a few financial crises, some local to Australia, and others global. Invariably, the first failures are those of obvious shonks (Australianism?) who would probably have failed anyway. Then there are seemingly reputable institutions that turn out to have been shonky. Then there are institutions that played by the rules, but it turns out the rules weren’t good enough. After that, no one is safe and the government steps in to bail the bankers out.Of course, ordinary people pay the bill.

So, I thought I’d get a headstart on listing the hierarchy of excuses, explaining why this isn’t just an inherently corrupt system, doing its inherently corrupt thing. Here we go:

*Silvergate: jumped up crypto bank, not really a bank at all
*Silicon Valley: mismatched assets and liabilities, classic mistake, also woke

• Signature: more crypto, more mismatch, also Trump
• First Republic: all these midsized banks misused the 2017 deregulation
• Credit Suisse: turns out all those capital adequacy requirements could be gamed. And just to prove this, we’ll wipe out the bondholders who helped make the books look good, while bailing out the equity holders
• TBC

The AUKUS subs plan will cost Australia way more than that

That’s the headline for my latest piece in The Conversation . Using defense procurement as a job creation policy is a really bad idea

… contains the seed of a good idea but his version is an inequitable mess

That’s the headline for my latest piece in the Guardian , over the fold

That’s the headline for my latest piece in Independent Australia, responding to some appalling warmongering from the Nine papers. The main point is that a seaborne invasion of Taiwan would be doomed to failure. Everyone knows this, but all the important players have good reason to deny it.

That’s the title of my latest piece in Inside Story, expanding on this recent post. More over the fold