The Covid situation in Australia has deteriorated in recent months after the conservative NSW government allowed it to spread (after a lax approach to quarantine – privatising the service). For the last 9 weeks or so I have been stuck in another state, away from home, and wondering when I could get back across the border again. Well yesterday I finally acquired a travel permit to cross the border between NSW and Victoria and 10 hours later (by car) I am now back at home. So I am catching up on things this afternoon (with two computer monitors – yeah) and there will be no formal blog post. But there is some music. Back tomorrow.

My blog is on its ‘New Year’s Holiday’ today, while I devote more time to other writing commitments. To keep us amused, we have a great song from the 1960s, which might lead you down new musical paths to explore the musician featured. Regular transmission returns tomorrow. The photo is from the beach at Barwon Heads, Victoria, which is around where I was meant to be this week, prior to the border closures and flight cancellations last week due to the new Sydney virus outbreak. It is one of my favourite spots and I go there regularly.

My blog is still on holiday until Wednesday, December 30, 2020. All the best from my local beach (Bar Beach today). I have started to read the EU-UK agreement. Not very enlightening I can tell you. Music to follow …

My blog is on holiday until Wednesday, December 30, 2020 as I attend to other writing commitments. I am also doing a lot of calculations to see whether the current proposed US stimulus bill that the lameduck president is holding up as a last gasp exercise in power is sufficient given the output gap. This relates to comments that a Biden advisor made last week eschewing any notion of a $US2,000 cash payment to all Americans (including dependent children) on the grounds that it would overheat the economy. He has been systematically vilified by progressives but I haven’t seen any systematic analysis to see whether this statements hold up. Until Wednesday, all the best from my lockdown hub. But for today, some music to help us work better.

Today I am travelling most of the day – yes, its back – and so, given I did the National Accounts yesterday, when I usually don’t write much for the blog, I am calling today Wednesday and a holiday. I really don’t have time to write much at all today, which is the real reason. So in my travel mode I am listening to Neil Young today from 1974. That is it.

I am travelling for most of today after a rather (exhausting) speaking tour of Europe and the UK. I met a lot of people, gave an (awful) lot of presentations and I thank all the organisers who helped set up the meetings. Special thanks to Tristan (Paris), the GIMMS team (UK), Kevin (Dublin), and all the other people who helped make the tour work. I will be back in Europe in June-July. On Thursday, I will be provide some information about the new book that Thomas Fazi and I are working on as the sequel to our last book – Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (Pluto Books, September 2017). Tomorrow, I will be providing some final remarks to cover the material that we did not get to in last Saturday’s London MMT Masterclass.