Comments on: The virtues and risks of fiscal packages

By: Michael Kalecki

Michael Kalecki — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:15:33 +0000

a very easy answer.

Howard’s time involved only increased economic growth where capacity constraints and infrastructure shortages were talked about for at least the last 4-5 years.

To implement spending on infrastructure would mean cutting spending in other areas.
Neither Howard not Rudd had the political courage to do that.

In tough times where recessions appear spending on infrastructure does not mean cutting in other areas.

Also spending on infrastructure takes time.

I am afraid I didn’t hear our Enry when the Government spent money on the Alic Springs to Darwin rail link.

Noe did I hear him when the Government wanted to spend $10b on the Murray-Darling without ANY economic input.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:53:30 +0000

Given the importance of infrastrucure investment, how come an ALP administration arrived after a decade in opposition without a plan, ready to implement? Apart from nonsense like the school computer revolution.

In the spirit of bipartisanship, how come the Howard administration ruled for a decade without developing a plan for infrastructure development, which they or some other incoming government could implement without further delay?

Did the Opposition regularly put questions to the Howard government about infrastructure planning?

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:38:58 +0000

A warning from Henry Ergas.

By: Fred Argy

Fred Argy — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:26:34 +0000

You raise a number of issues.

Of course, spending on productive infrastructure is a “plus all the time” – but especially when the economy is struggling.

There are many problems demanding much information – not just hospitals.

I do not accept your allegation that Rudd has been refusing support for a mjaor project in NSW, on the ground that it did not run through any marginal electorates. This is nonsense. I would love to get the evidence for that, if it exists. It cuts right against all his principles.

Repairing wooden bridges is a good one for the local councils.

As Keynes put it to Roosevelt, you have the take some of the bad with the good.

By: Tel_

Tel_ — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:26:05 +0000

An independent study by a university-based engineer has revealed safety concerns about a significant proportion of the elderly wooden bridges in NSW. I wonder if that is on anyones list of possible projects.

Dodgy roads only kill pot smokers, nothing for good upright folk to worry about.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:00:28 +0000

Some random thoughts on infrastructure spending, in between hospital visits.
First up, surely spending on productive infrastructure is a plus all the time, not just when the economy is struggling?
The hospitals of NSW are seriously run down but it is not all a matter of money because there have been major and expensive stuff-ups in the capital works program.
Despite that the quality of care being delivered in both the public and private sector is beyond praise, at least what I have seen lately. There have been some issues but people are only human and the pressure on the personnel in the system is intense.
Regarding the proposal to tie Federal finance to hospitals to reporting requirements regarding performance and quality, I really wonder if that is the way to go, given the amount of data that is collected already. Good data systems take years to design and implement. Surely professional people generally do the best they can, and I wonder about the benefit of having distant, desk-based administrators demanding more information.
It is a worry that Kevin Rudd is alleged to have refused support for a major transport project in NSW on the ground that it did not run through any marginal electorates.
It will be a disaster if the Rudd administration persists with the pork-barrelling modus operandi of the previous conservative social democrat administration.
An independent study by a university-based engineer has revealed safety concerns about a significant proportion of the elderly wooden bridges in NSW. I wonder if that is on anyone’s list of possible projects.

By: Tel_

Tel_ — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:59:14 +0000

May I please put forward a fourth school of thought which surely must have more advocates than just myself. Since the financial system is (by design) tied to the physical world of commodities, goods and services, and since we have seen substantial real-world changes in the past decade, a plausible explanation is that the financial system is being dragged along with no choice but to readjust.

Changes in the physical world include: running out of oil, global warming, moving the primary manufacturing base into Asia, the USA losing the war in Iraq (to Iran, who didn’t even have to fight) and halfway losing in Afghanistan (to Iron Age tribesmen who have been doggedly surviving the onslaught of empires since Persia and Genghis Khan), the increasing prevalence (and profitability) of drug trade, the partial political and economic unification of the EU, reduced US dominance of technology, the rise of the Internet, and a steady movement away from a concept of personal liberty.

Big changes in the world generally have winners and losers, the financial system can only go up and down so big change in the underlaying physical world tend to map onto instability in the financial markets, including bigger booms and deeper crashes. A fiscal package may be useful in all of this, but we are talking about riding a storm in a rowboat and arguing about whether it is better to row upstream or downstream.