National budgets are not constrained!

I received a call from a journalist at the Financial Review today asking how the Federal government could afford to run labour market programs given that it might suffer a substantial revenue loss if it cuts back net migration. I told him that irrespective of what happens to net migration and any losses to tax revenue that that might bring (should they cut it back), the Government will always be able to fund any labour market program if it thought that was the best use of its funds. It brings to mind a new theme in this period of turmoil – how can the government keep its programs going while at the same time bailing out all and sundry? Answer: easy, just keep funding them. The national government is not financially constrained and the size of its budget is nothing that can be determined independent of the shortfall of aggregate demand.

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Back to school for the US President!

The US President appeared on the US commercial television show 60 minutes program on March 22. He was talking about about the AIG debacle, the economy, and his first challenges in his new job. His responses to questions about the economy though were positively scary. The most powerful man in the World and he doesn’t understand how the modern monetary economy works. Very scary indeed.

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Population policy – cyclical or long-term?

The Australian government announced that as a result of the rising unemployment it would cut the skilled migrant intake by nearly 20,000 to 115,000 this financial year. It also removed some key industries (construction and manufacturing) from the critical skills list which will prevent firms from sourcing tradepersons from abroad unless they can prove local labour is not available. The announcement while seemingly a sensible statement of the jobs equation – less jobs require less workers – once again raises the question of how population policy should be formulated.

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G20 – we should all be worried

Put People First group are running a grass roots campaign for all of us to send a message to the G20 about their priorities. The campaign symbol is the megaphone logo appearing below. Their campaign will culminate in a march in central London on March 28, 2009 to push a case for jobs, justice and climate. I am not associated with this group but I share their priorities, even if I might see them in different terms. Anyway, this is the first of my messages to the G20. In summary: they need to learn how the economy actually operates and then they would use their fiscal policy capacity to ensure everyone has a job in a sustainable economy.

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The role of journalists …

Senior journalists often do more harm than good when they write about technical issues that they clearly do not understand. In many cases, they rely on the technical knowledge of their favourite economist or the flavour of the month economist and they are not skilled enough to know when their “economist” is also talking rubbish.

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Be careful what we wish for …

The global recession is presenting a new dilemma for the first world which will have significant impacts long after growth has returned. We saw in recent years that the price of oil rose sharply as the demand of energy from emerging nations skyrocketed. While we clearly have a short-term incentive at least for China to redirect its economic energies into domestic growth to give our export sectors a boost there will be implications of this that we might not have bargained for. Do we really want an extra 1 billion or more people to be as rich as us? It is a case of being careful what you wish for …

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ABC bias … what might have been

Lat night’s ABC 7.30 Report had a segment titled Australian economy resilient in tough times. It was so bad I was prompted to write to the ABC complaining of their neo-liberal bias. All the commentators were the usual coterie of investment bankers and private consultants all of who have particular vested interests which are not disclosed when they are held out by the ABC as so-called experts! Not one independent researcher was included in the segment. In another world, this might have been the way the show evolved.

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Underemployment rising – redux

As a follow up to my blog on underemployment this afternoon, I was interviewed on national ABC radio programme PM this evening. You can read the transcript here PM Transcript. You can also listen to the podcast (courtesy of the ABC) from the CofFEE podcast site. The discussion also had Ian Harper from the Fair Pay Commission on. You will not be surprised to hear that I totally disagree with him on minimum wage setting.

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The origins of the economic crisis

A good way to understand the origins of the current economic crisis in Australia is to examine the historical behaviour of key macroeconomic aggregates. The previous Federal Government claimed they were responsibly managing the fiscal and monetary parameters and creating a resilient competitive economy. This was a spurious claim they were in fact setting Australia up for crisis. The reality is that the previous government created an economy which was always going to crash badly.

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Labour force data surprises …

The ABS published the January Labour Force Survey data this morning which is the monthly indication of how the labour market is faring. All expectations were that with other indicators such as the NAB Business Confidence Index and the ANZ Job Advertisements count all heading south very rapidly in the last month that the Labour Force data would be equally grim and signal the slide into recession. How wrong we all were. But should we believe the data?

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Why pander to the financial markets?

In an article in the Melbourne Age today (February 11) entitled Taxpayer trillions fuel a monster mess, columnist David Hirst writing on the massive injection that the US Congress has approved quotes President Obama who said

“Only the stimulus package to be approved this week, the $US700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $US168 billion in tax cuts and rebates approved in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $US8 trillion in commitments are lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the authority of the Fed and the FDIC. The recipients’ names have not been disclosed.”

His issue is that the secrecy of the arrangements is troublesome given their magnitude. With that I agree.

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The D word – a time of national rejoicing …

Various estimates about the size of the federal budget deficit are starting to emerge. The Government has acknowledged that the data shows that tax receipts have fallen dramatically and now their budget is in deficit. For me that is a time of national rejoicing … finally … the federal government is doing what it should … resuming its crucial role in financing non-government (in this case) domestic private savings. Finally, there is a net injection of financial assets coming from the excess spending over receipts. Finally, the drain on private wealth that the creation of budget surpluses requires is at an end.

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Social capitalism …

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has written an essay extolling the virtues of a new era in public policy which he calls “social capitalism” which is based on a strong guiding role for government and an abandonment of self-regulation by corporate interests which was the hallmark of the neo-liberal era. He sources the current global economic meltdown to the neo-liberal takeover which began more or less in the mid 1970s after the first OPEC oil price rise. The problem is that his new vision is still tainted with the worst elements of the neo-liberal era.

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Recessions are terrible …

Today in the Fairfax press, economics writer Ross Gittins in an article entitled No good reason to feel depression claims that we should not be too worried about the looming recession because after all things aren’t likely to be that bad. Well from my perspective recessions are episodes that wreak havoc on the most disadvantaged citizens in our society and should never occur.

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The paradigm shift in economic policy

The extraordinary events in world financial markets which have undermined the basis of capitalism have led to equally amazing Government responses – massive injections of public spending, nationalisations of banks and bailouts of huge financial institutions with little regard for the relevant shareholder interests.

A major paradigm shift is occurring in economic thinking away from the free market deregulation era that has dominated since the 1970s. All the logic that justified government cut backs; the run down of public infrastructure; the harsh treatment of welfare recipients; the wasteful privatisations, and the rest of the neo-liberal litany that served to transfer wealth from poor to rich and create an disadvantaged underclass has been destroyed by these events.

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Why didn’t they build better houses!

I am in a quandary … as usual! I thought along the same lines when Australia was stricken with drought recently and there was a national urgency to provide both government assistance and support from the private sector (national appeals and such). At present the world’s media is focused on the events following the natural disaster in the Indian Ocean. Not without some justification given the extent of the calamity. Nation’s (some) are rushing to provide aid and our Prime Minister John Howard quickly committed $35 million in aid and has said more funds will be made available. He is quoted on ABC news today as saying “The amount will be added to significantly in the time ahead … We have a moral obligation on the basis of pure humanity to help and we will help.” Say that again John: “We have a moral obligation on the basis of pure humanity to help and we will help.” But try this logic out: the citizens who have been ravaged by the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis could have taken steps to avoid their exposure. Why didn’t they educate themselves enough to ensure they knew about the dangers and why didn’t they build better houses and why, why, why?

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The neoliberal destruction of Australia’s higher education system

Today, I am fully engaged in work commitments and so we have a guest blogger in the guise of Dr Scott Baum, who will soon be joining us at the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE) at the University of Newcastle as a senior research fellow. Scott has been one of my regular research colleagues over a long period of time and we currently hold ARC grant funding together to explore regional disparities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scott indicated that he would like to contribute occasionally and that provides some diversity of voice although the focus remains on advancing our understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its applications. Today he provides analysis of how lost the Australian tertiary education system has become in this neoliberal period. While focused on the Australian situation, the analysis unfortunately has relevance to higher education systems in most countries.

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What is the purpose of fiscal policy? Don’t ask Rachel Reeves!

It’s been a week of grand fiscal statements. Tuesday, it was for Australia as I discussed yesterday – Australian fiscal statement – rising unemployment amidst a moderate fiscal contraction (March 26, 2025). Then yesterday in the UK, the Labour Chancellor delivered the British Government’s – Spring Statement 2025. Both statements come at a time when the mainstream economics consensus is shifting with the US pushing protection and defunding many global initiatives. And, one of the statements was in the context of an impending federal election (Australia) and from a government that is in danger of losing that election to a bunch of populist Trump-copiers. And the content reflected that. The UK Statement was from a Government currently in no danger of losing office but which is progressively entrapping itself in its hubris and fiscal rules. An interesting juxtaposition. Anyway, the British Chancellor has lost all understanding of what the purpose of fiscal policy is. What is the purpose of fiscal policy? Don’t ask Rachel Reeves!

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The EU is in terminal decline

Some Wednesday snippets. First, I juxtapose the political machinations that the EU President is engaged in to consolidate and expand her power within the European Commission with the reality that Member State governments are becoming dysfunction because social instability and political extremism are rife. Then I reflect on my experience as Chancellor of Britain – a great success I should say, although I was told I had broken all the rules. It tells one how stupid the rules are. Then, finally, some music to enjoy.

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