Month: October 2010

For Australia as a nation, population growth is an opportunity. Many other developed nations in Europe and Japan would love to swap their problems of population ageing and shrinking for our task of dealing with growth. But we need to ensure that our growth is properly managed. Fixing the relation between Canberra and the states is a necessary first step.

As one of the very few rich countries that still has a young and growing population, Australia should embrace this opportunity and continue to grow. Other countries may well abolish themselves but Australia should not.

should stop pretending that they can control what Australia’s future population will look like. Instead, they should turn their attention to the real policy issues that will be affected by population growth and ageing: housing, roads, pensions and our natural environment.

Indien — das ist ein Land, das ich bislang nur von meist nächtlichen Überflügen kenne, wenn ich wieder einmal zwischen meiner ersten Heimat Europa und meiner zweiten Heimat Australien unterwegs bin. Auch wenn ich das Land selbst nicht kenne, so kenne ich doch genügend Inder. Und getroffen habe ich sie weniger in Europa, dafür umso mehr in Australien.

Economists should take the time to ask themselves what they can learn from the events of the past three years. If they were honest with themselves, they would conclude that many of them had been too optimistic about their ability to predict the future with certainty. They would have to confess that the world is too messy a place to be expressed in models of ‘general equilibrium’ or ‘perfect competition’.

The updated Monopoly promises to be great fun for all the family – once they have worked through the thousands of pages of game instructions. Happy 75th birthday, Monopoly!