Month: March 2012

Business Spectator

Carmaker triumph or GM hypocrisy?

29/03/2012
The question marks hanging over the future of Holden and Opel are substantial. It is courageous, in the ‘Yes, Minister’ sense at least, of any government to subsidise carmakers in these circumstances.

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Business Spectator

EU referendum is a bad Irish joke

22/03/2012
Economically, whatever happens in Ireland will not be decisive for the future of the euro. That is more likely being decided in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris, Athens and Lisbon. But to the rest of Europe watching the farcical march towards a pseudo-referendum on a pseudo-significant agreement, it is a reminder of the anti-democratic tendencies of the EU.

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Ideas@TheCentre

Coming apart

16/03/2012
For a society of free individuals to work, or to at least avoid social conflict, there needs to be some common ethical ground. This is being eroded by the welfare state for the underclass. Meanwhile, at least parts of the upper class have apparently decided they can get further without sticking to traditional rules of behaviour.

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Business Spectator

Striking a French euro tinderbox

14/03/2012
Either Sarkozy or Hollande will win France’s presidential elections, but the project of European cooperation and integration will surely lose. And the political uncertainty dominating the coming months will exacerbate the euro crisis.

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Business Spectator

The hypocrisy of Europe’s bankers

08/03/2012
As the eurozone crisis has now seemingly calmed down and my friend’s updates become more ecstatic by the week, I am afraid that we are edging ever closer towards his dream scenario. To most Europeans, bankers excepted, it may actually seem more like a nightmare.

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Uncategorised

Beyond the Invisible Hand (book review)

06/03/2012
After the turmoil of the Global Financial Crisis, economics needs to escape from the dead ends of neoclassicism. Unfortunately, Basu’s self-proclaimed ‘groundwork for a new economics’ fails to achieve this.

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Ideas@TheCentre

Wasteful energy

02/03/2012
Australia is trying to return the budget to surplus, so a saving of $10 billion would be handy. But blinded by activism and without a sense of economic logic, Australia is bound to waste both money and energy.

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Business Spectator

A zero-sum carbon game

01/03/2012
As Groucho Marx once put it, you have to learn from the mistakes of others because you can never live long enough to make them all yourself. If Australian policymakers heeded his warning they could save the $10 billion they are prepared to commit to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

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