Blogotariat

Oz Blog News Commentary

Articles from John Quiggin

Assessing Albanese: an annotated list

October 7, 2024 - 12:03 -- Admin

I’ve been consistently critical of the Labor party since Anthony Albanese became leader after Labor’s narrow but unexpected loss in 2019. It’s always easy to fall prey to confirmation bias in this kind of thing, making much of the bad and ignoring the good. To check my beliefs, I’m taking a widely circulated list of Labor’s claimed achievements, and giving my own responses.

We or They

September 16, 2024 - 08:34 -- Admin

Like most academics these days, I spend a lot of time filling in online forms. Mostly, this is just an annoyance but occasionally I get something out of it. A recent survey in which the higher-ups tried to get an idea of how the workforce was feeling, asked the question “Do you think of the University as We or They?”.

Chalmers is more in touch with the economy than the RBA

September 4, 2024 - 14:16 -- Admin

In today’s AFR. It’s paywalled and I don’t have access (I’ve been promised a PDF) so here’s what I submitted, which may not be final.

Six months ago, Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers was planning legislation to remove his own power (never used, but always available until now) to over-ride decisions of the Reserve Bank. Now, he has not only decided to retain this power, but has openly criticised the Bank’s interest rate decisions as “smashing the economy”.

Academic nepo babies

September 2, 2024 - 08:20 -- Admin

This study showing that US academic faculty members are 25 times more likely than Americans in general to have a parent with a PhD or Masters degree has attracted a lot of attention, and comments suggesting that this is unusual and unsatisfactory. But is it? For various reasons, I’ve interacted quite a bit with farmers, and most of them come from farm families.

Australians should be angry about Coles’ latest billion-dollar profit. But don’t blame the cost of living

September 2, 2024 - 05:04 -- Admin

The latest massive $1.1bn profit reported by Coles will doubtless produce a new round of hand-wringing about the “cost of living”. Governments will produce initiatives aimed at capping or reducing prices. Pundits will use a variety of measures to argue as to whether such measures are inflationary.

Pages