Who needs a car industry anyway?
Holden’s outrageous pay deal is just the tip of an iceberg of wasted subsidies. Australia needs a car industry as much as Germany needs its own black coal mines. [...]
2012
In search of a Greek hero
To escape from its current mess, Greece does not need more Sisyphus work. It needs someone to tackle the Herculean task of cutting the country loose from Europe’s monetary union. [...]
A Ponzi by any other name
Draghi’s central bank thwarts any attempts at economic reform by taking yields pressure off periphery governments. It keeps a terminal monetary union on life support without curing its many diseases. It creates vast amounts of money which one day may well create inflation outside asset markets, where it is already underway. And it is an imaginative monetary scheme that keeps on giving as long as the next shot of monetary stimulus is in sight – but not a single day longer. [...]
Time to drop the Dick
To the prospective new owners of DSE, drop ‘Dick Smith’ from the business name. Any association with him and his ranting is a liability. Maybe the chain would become profitable once more if customers were not greeted by his face at the stores. [...]
An EU fix stuck at German denial
Berlin is only focussing on the fiscal crisis since it does not want to change its own ways. But as long as the Germans are unwilling to accept that they are part of the problem they cannot offer workable solutions to others. [...]
Wrong person for a difficult job
Lagarde was always the wrong choice for the job. The least that countries like Australia should do is vehemently defy her demands for additional contributions to her compromised IMF. [...]
Driving a false message
A car industry is only worth having if it is able to stand on its own feet. Keeping an industry alive for the sake of having an industry is economic folly and a waste of taxpayers' resources. [...]
Hallmarks of an EU power play
The tragedy of the European crisis is not that it was caused by striving for too much economic efficiency. The real tragedy is that it could have been predicted by public choice theory [...]
Paying for Europe’s wishful thinking
Europe has run out of easy solutions to its many simultaneous crises. When it runs out of money to even buy itself more time to gloss over the symptoms of a dysfunctional monetary union, perhaps European leaders will finally start tackling the underlying problems. Time has become unaffordable [...]
Taking taxpayers for a ride
A car industry is only worth having if it is able to stand on its own feet. Keeping an industry alive for the sake of having an industry is economic folly and a waste of taxpayers’ resources. [...]