debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
A showdown over the ALP leadership, and therefore the Prime Ministership, has been inevitable for some time, and Kevin Rudd has finally brought it on, resigning as Foreign Minister in the face of direct personal attacks from Simon Crean (himself, apparently, a covert contender for the top job) and others. Readers won’t be surprised to [...]
I’ve just read ‘Tales of Fiscal Adjustment’ by Alesina and Ardagna, which appears to be the founding text for the idea of expansionary austerity. The level of scholarship, at least as it applies to Australia (which is their first illustration) is exceptionally poor, to the extent that it requires a rescuscitation of the ancient Internet [...]
The issue of climate change is unlikely to play much of a role in the US Presidential election campaign, which will begin in June with the nomination of a Republican candidate to face Barack Obama. It may however, have already decided the outcome, by ensuring that any possible Republican nominee is unelectable. The Republican position [...]
My critique of Tyler Cowen’s post arguing the unimportance of social mobility has started off, or maybe merged into, of those old-fashioned blog firestorms we used to have back in the day, now also reticulated through Twitter – a few links here, here and here. But rather than criticise Cowen further, I thought I would try to work through the bigger issues involved [...]
The endless EU vs US debate rolls on, but now with an odd twist. Although the objective facts about economic inequality, immobility and so on are far worse in the US than the EU, the political situation seems more promising. (I’m not talking primarily about electoral politics but about the nature of public debate.) In [...]
Not long ago, I read Daniel Ellsberg’s[1] autobiography, Secrets, and also watched the film, The Most Dangerous Man in America. A striking feature of the book was that Ellsberg’s biggest problem in leaking the Pentagon Papers was the logistical difficulty of making 20 or so copies of a 7000 page cache of documents. It took him and [...]
At the peak of his power as Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell marched north from London to fight the rebellious Scots. One of his lieutenants commented on the enthusiastic support they were given by the London crowd, to which Cromwell is said to have replied ‘Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons [...]
Understanding developments in the European crisis has become rather like Kremlinology, trying to figure out the meaning of subtle changes in wording, and rearrangements of the Politburo on the podium for May Day parades. In particular, Mario Draghi of the ECB goes back and forth, sometimes suggesting that the ECB will do what nearly everyone [...]
One of the most striking successes of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been the “We are the 99 per cent” idea, and more specifically in the identification of the top 1 per cent as the primary source of economic problems. Thanks to #OWS, the fact that households the top 1 per cent of the [...]
There’s been a lot of discussion about the need for concrete demands from the #AmericanAutumn #OccupyWallStreet protests. I just want to toss up the wholly unoriginal idea of a tax on financial transactions, originally proposed by James Tobin (he focused on international transactions, but the distinction is no longer meaningul). I’ve seen a sign advocating [...]
That’s the title of my most recent Fin column, over the fold. Responding to US President Obama’s announcement of his proposed American Jobs Act, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney tartly observed that it was ‘960 days late’ (referring to Obama’s time in office so far). This was rather unfair – Obama introduced a major fiscal [...]
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