It is a fact that the Australian economy escaped recording a technical recession (2 consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth), having recorded only one negative real GDP quarter (December quarter 2008 = -0.7 per cent). In that quarter, the first of large fiscal stimulus measures began and growth accelerated after that. The downturn, however, did push up official unemployment and underemployment and the legacy of the rationed employment and hours growth is that Australia currently has a broad labour underutilisation rate of 12.5 per cent. Aggregate policy (fiscal and monetary) is now tightening and is being justified by official statements that the economy is about to explode on the back of a very strong commodity boom (mining) and that we are close to full employment anyway. We are being told that unless policy tightens now inflation will break out. The problem with the official rhetoric is that a sequence of data releases is telling a different story. In the past few weeks we have seen exports falling, a weakening construction sector, flat credit demand, and yesterday, a very weak investment outlook. The outlook for next week’s September quarter National Accounts data is becoming increasingly pessimistic. In the meantime, unemployment rose in October. The justifications for the policy tightening are vanishing although I would argue they never were credible in the first place. The miracle Australian economy is a little less shiny at present.

I have noted in recent weeks a periodic reference to long-run neutrality of money. Several readers have written to me to explain this evidently jargon-laden concept that has pervaded mainstream economics for two centuries and has been used throughout that history, in different ways, to justify the case against policy-activism by government in the face of mass unemployment. It is once again being invoked by the deficit terrorists to justify fiscal austerity despite the millions of productive workers who remain unemployed. I have been working on a new book over the last few days which includes some of the theoretical debates that accompany the notion of neutrality. There will also be a chapter in the macroeconomics text book that Randy Wray and I are working on at present on this topic. Essentially, it involves an understanding of what has been called the “classical dichotomy”. It is a highly technical literature and that makes it easy to follow if you are good at mathematical reasoning. It is harder to explain it in words but here goes. I have tried to write this as technically low-brow as I can. The bottom line takeaway – the assertion that money is neutral in the long-run is a nonsensical contrivance that the mainstream invoke to advance their ideological agenda against government intervention. It is theoretically bereft and empirical irrelevant. That conclusion should interest you! But be warned – this is just an introduction to a very complex literature that spans 200 years or so.