Economics

I recently had a conversation with Cameron Murray about the economics of an ageing population, and some of his arguments challenged the way we usually think about demographics.

When the United States and Israel kicked off the ongoing war in the Persian Gulf back in February, it set off a chain of events that will continue to echo around the world long after the conflict has been consigned to the history books.

Over the years, MB has tried various tactics to bring attention to Australia’s disappearing sovereign industrial capability.

It is the time of year when pundits come out to wrap up the past year and lay the conceptual framework for how they want the world to see the year ahead.

The global stock market looks stretched at first glance—but the story is more nuanced once you dig beneath the surface.

This week’s Treasury of Common Sense with Radio 2GB is a 17-minute deep dive into the ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration policy and its impacts on Australia (video below).

Australia’s international trade is a major player in the world’s economy and a key driver of its own growth.

Australia is encouraging electric vehicle adoption with tax exemptions. Keep reading to learn how the FBT exemption affects novated leases. In December 2022, the Australian government made a change to tax law providing a Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemption to eligible electric vehicles (EVs).

Those hellbent of pushing workers back into overcrowded CBDs via underfunded public transport and congested road systems need to look at the data on why working from home should be encouraged.

It’s not been a good start to the year for cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin halving in price from its November 2021 high to below $33,000 last month and barely moving since.

The number of memes around financial assets – and their cryptozoological Frankenstein cousins – continues to mount as the world’s central bankers unleash as many acronymic “easing” programs they can to arrest the COVID economic depression.

See our Coronavirus data Dashboard for individual country data.

by Chris Becker Should Australia “dramatically increase military spending” due to the temporary perceived unreliability of Trump’s Presidency and hence the collective defence of the continent?

Via Shane Oliver comes a nice piece on the rise of the Millennial left: When I was in my early 20s I thought socialism might be the way to go.

We are sorry to report that the AFR’s US correspondent has been kidnapped by aliens and felt the cold kiss of a rectal probe today: Australia’s treasurer hunkers on the top floor of his department’s Langton Crescent HQ in Canberra putting final touches on the government’s finances.

The Economist tackles MMT today: That perspective is not always clear; there is no canonical mmt model.

Via Bloomie comes Mohamed A.

At The Australian today comes Alan Kohler hosing MMT: The trouble with modern monetary theory (MMT) is that, as with fiscal policy generally, it would be run by politicians, and we’ve only fairly recently managed to prise monetary policy away from them.

by Chris Becker From the bowels of Ross Gittins comes “Positions vacant: the nation needs economists (women preferred)” Never in the field of economic conflict was so much analytical effort devoted to so few… as in Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe’s one-man crusade to save the economics profession.

by Chris Becker It’s always interesting to hear mega-capitalists complain about the very system that provides them opportunity to turn their talents into Scrooge McDuck size piles of cash.

Trust the ABC to  like this idea: The radical idea of offering every person a government-funded job is finding new supporters in Australia as proponents claim it could eliminate unemployment overnight.

From Paul Krugman: The answer, I’d argue, is that business decisions are a lot less sensitive to financial incentives — including tax rates — than conservatives claim.