Weird things happen.
At 2 o’clock in the morning on Easter Sunday a mate at the BBC beams me a question. “Haven’t your mates been saying this for years?’ seconds before another Youtube video link is fed through. This is it.
Within minutes another close mate a long way up the tree at Europe’s largest gas hub beams me another. ‘DLS and LVO have been running this story a decade’. He, like me, is of the view that a square call about Australia’s utter cock up of its gas resources – particularly in relation to its energy costs at home (read your electricity bill) – has only really been made at Macrobusiness or Michael West. The video he linked was the ABC finally twigging to the story. It still glosses over the reluctance to reserve, but its a better presentation of the issue than we have seen, and in the end the sheer logic of gas reservation is undeniable.
Both out yesterday. Two weeks before a federal election. Go figure.
The simple fact of the matter is that for well over a decade anyone wanting a data backed square call on the major economic issues Australia is facing – and for nearly all of that time utterly making a policy mess of – has needed to get that square call from a website run by some cantankerous family raising, bill paying, traffic and public transport irritated, ageing dudes working out of spare bedrooms in the burbs of Melbourne. With Chris and Damien on backing vocals.
In that time it is indisputable to say that nobody has put as much time into exploring, and putting into words Australia’s laughable positioning in relation to:-
- Australia’s economic cul-de-sac
- House prices and economic growth.
- Gas exports and the return to Australians.
- The Population Ponzi and Australian education.
- Incomes growth and indebtedness.
- Australia’s tax and spend economy.
- The economic shit sandwich we are handing future Australians.
- The pawned positioning of Australian politics and bureaucratic elites vis all of the above.
Piece after piece, issues after issue, all relating the data, almost all with charts, often in the face of a mainstream media output all too often utterly dismissive of the facts. All too often in the face of a mainstream media looking away from the facts, and often trying to drown out the facts.
Those of us part of the milieu at Macrobusiness would like to say thanks to the pure bloody minded obduracy of Leith and Dave for continuing to slug it out.
But it has got results which will bring about policy change. When Bloomberg and the ABC are eating the points you have made for so long out of the palm of your hands it is worth a cheer.
……though we shouldnt discount the possibility our elites and mainstream media, and politicians or bureaucrats as well as the usual media pundits will continue to promote the reaming ordinary Australia is getting