Clik here to view.
Is China going to be the first online retail economy?
It’s hard to underestimate the impact of the internet on China’s economy and society. The internet is fundamentally re-shaping the way people in China do business and interact with each other, society...
View ArticleClik here to view.
China as a command economy: the market failure argument
Last Friday I was challenged by the following question: What other command economy has ever been long term successful? It’s a common enough question to which I wanted to offer a short answer, but...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In Time: Our less than abundant future?
On the recommendation of Izabella Kaminska I spent my long weekend holiday watching In Time, starring Justin Timberlake. The plot was summarised by Twentieth Century Fox: Welcome to a world where time...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Felix Salmon: Capital scarcity is driving higher returns, lower wages
Felix Salmon has posted a piece on the declining share of income in the US economy. It’s generated significant comment. Most of which seem to be measurement issues and chatter about how to tax capital...
View ArticleClik here to view.
China and price: there’s no MITI
China and price As a follow up to the question of China’s status as a command economy I’d like to look at the prevalence of the price mechanism in its economy. A number of years ago I read a book on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thoughts on the NSW economy
Tonight, I have been invited to talk at the NSW Labor Jobs and Economy Policy Commission. The aim of the Commission is to provide the Labor Party with policy ideas that constitute a clear economic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Disagreeing in agreement; John Kay and the manufacturing fetish
Last week John Kay wrote an article in the FT titled Fetish for making things ignores real work. The article sits well with the themes of this blog. The world is an abundant place because we have the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Abundance and the inevitability of deflation, bubbles and panics
My last post was designed to offer historical precedent for the rise of China. It might have achieved that. But it raises more important questions. The most important is: how do financial systems cope...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Abundance: Equity prices and inflation expectations
Let’s put my view on abundance into action. A chart that’s becoming increasingly common in financial markets is the divergence between equity prices and inflation expectations in the US. The current...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The positive case for technology, the one Bernanke avoided
Ben Bernanke is an academic historian. Academic because his personal observations and experiences are seemingly of limited value (see Kate Mackenzie’s reminiscences of her 1980s childhood) and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Post-scarcity economics in the LA Review of Books
Tom Streithorst has written an essay entitled Post-scarcity Economics in the LA Review of Books. In light of this blog’s title, I thought it worthwhile reading and commenting. The conclusion I can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Have Australians become German? Or are we just a little stale?
The answer to both these questions, historically, is yes. In the future, it’s all change. German, really? If I was to characterise the behaviour of non-mining Australians in the last five years it...
View Article
