So currently, if you earn more than $50,000 you get charged an extra levy if you don’t take out private health insurance. That income threshold is set to double next week. Suffice it to say, that will reduce the incentive for many households to take out private health insurance. It is like a tax cut except that some households will also be deciding to save themselves insurance premiums while the government will have to deal with some extra costs from them. Read more »

Annie Leonard argues in the presentation at the top of her site that the modern means of production and rates of consumption are fatally flawed. She backs up her assertions with some interesting (though US-centric) numbers. I particularly like how every time she refers to the “golden arrow” of consumption, there’s a little “aaah!” sound. Read more »

Another dispatch from LP’s Indiana correspondent: Aside from the Democrat primaries, the major talking point in the U.S. this week is whether the United States is losing ground in the global economy. This is different to the question of whether or not the U.S. economy is in recession (or ’slowdown’ as GWB prefers to put it), but is rather about whether the U.S. is losing the competitive race against the emergent economies of East Asia and the Middle East, and indeed to Europe. Read more »

What is the economic narrative of the Rudd Government? It used to be investing in new infrastructure, increased productivity and broad reform. Their argument was that the Howard Government had squandered the proceeds of the boom in mineral exports instead of investing in infrastructure and education and health to enhance and expand the capacity of the economy. That is their big picture. Read more »

To recap, the goal of parental support policies is the ability to move between work and home life frictionlessly. However, in evaluating whether the market is failing in this area points to possible problems to do with the indivisibility of work life, externalities associated with child development, discrimination and liquidity constraints. Read more »