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Keywords: Deregulation

  • AUSTRALIA

    Economists undaunted by car industry canning

    • Ray Cassin
    • 12 February 2014
    18 Comments

    Malcolm Turnbull assures us that something will come along to fill the gap left by the demise in Australia of Toyota and SPC Ardmona. But new sources of employment do not magically appear because they have been foretold by economic doctrine. Only about a third of those who are about to lose their jobs in car making or food processing are likely to find new jobs on equivalent incomes. Another third will probably never work again.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Deciphering capitalism's corrupt metaphors

    • David James
    • 07 February 2014
    15 Comments

    'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'. This was George Orwell's parody in Animal Farm of the vicious use of language in communist states. It was one of his memorable depictions of how the absurdities of language not only reflect evil, but also predicate it. Language was a tool of oppression in communist states. In capitalism it is no less vicious.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Supermarket self-regulation is a joke

    • David James
    • 10 December 2013
    15 Comments

    It is hard not to smile over Woolworths' and Coles' 'voluntary' adoption of a code of conduct. Now that the duopoly has decided to mend its ways, it seems it can occupy the moral high ground and preach to everyone else. The Western world has been subject to a quarter of a century of propaganda about the virtues of deregulation. A closer consideration of the supermarket giants' promise to do the right thing offers little reason for confidence.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Finagling free trade in the Pacific

    • Jemma Williams
    • 16 August 2013
    2 Comments

    Many Pacific Island nations question what they will gain from PACER-Plus, the free trade agreement that is being negotiated this week between these nations, Australia and New Zealand. If Australian and New Zealand really want to achieve development in the Pacific, why are they pushing these islands to reduce their barriers to trade in a manner which could restrict their achievement of human development goals?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Inconvenient advice for a business-friendly prime minister

    • Michael Mullins
    • 08 July 2013
    4 Comments

    One of Kevin Rudd's key points of difference with Julia Gillard lies in his determination to project a business-friendly image for himself and the ALP. This may have something to do with his decision to dump former parliamentary secretary Andrew Leigh, who is Australia's leading inequality expert and clearly unsympathetic to the demands of big business on government.

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  • ECONOMICS

    How financial devils came to rule the universe

    • David James
    • 05 June 2013
    7 Comments

    Religious authorities may not spend a lot of time pondering the nature of global financial systems, but the Pope's recent comment that 'money has to serve, not rule' suggests it can be useful when they do. Given scope to become rule makers, rather than just people who know how to exploit the rules, financiers have moved themselves to a position of mastery.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Good policy comes second to voter trust

    • Ray Cassin
    • 08 May 2013
    13 Comments

    Gillard's adroit manoeuvring of Abbott into supporting the NDIS will do little to help her come September. People typically vote for whoever they trust to govern, and the public's lack of trust in Labor derives not from policy or the legislative record but from the circumstances in which she became prime minister in the first place.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Banksters' deadly game of Sheldon's three-person chess

    • David James
    • 01 May 2013
    3 Comments

    In The Big Bang Theory Sheldon invents a game of chess which 'utilises a three-sided board with transitional quadrilateral-to-triangular tessellation to solve the balanced centre combat-area problem'. This gobbledegook sounds suspiciously similar to the application of mathematical models to financial securities in derivatives markets.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Don't bet on the Australian dollar

    • David James
    • 08 February 2013
    4 Comments

    This week the Australian dollar reached its lowest point in three months. Tangible factors such as interest rates and trade with China influence its strength. But what really determines the direction of our currency is the whim of the currency traders. In that sense, the Aussie is is arguably the most 'unreal', or virtual currency in the world.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    NSW Labor's diseased ethics

    • Tony Smith
    • 06 February 2013
    11 Comments

    The Labor Party's ethical problems are deep seated. Once it adopted pragmatism as its first principle, policy debates lost meaning. The ideological vacuum was filled by enslavement to poll driven politics and media images. The Left struggled to retain its influence and Labor's heart vanished. We should expect much more from our politicians.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Debunking the global financial con job

    • David James
    • 12 November 2012
    12 Comments

    Even after the most dangerous financial crises ever seen, finance industry lobbyists still argue that the sector should not be too heavily regulated as that would be counterproductive. This is nonsense. Money is rules. It is a question of who sets the rules and what kind of rules they should should be.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Before and after Bali's searing flash

    • Pat Walsh
    • 12 October 2012
    4 Comments

    The bombing in Bali ten years ago today did not target Balinese directly, but they took the collateral damage to tourism, their bread and butter, very personally. Drawing his finger across his throat in a slitting motion, a smiling Balinese says he is happy the bombers have been executed.

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