Unpublished letter to the Editor, Politics of envy edition
Your editorial (Politics of envy threatens our economy and ethos, 2 May) claims that “Research by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling has...
One of the challenges facing Greece
In 2007 Greece spent 9.9% of GDP on age pensions. This was the fourth highest level of spending on pensions in the OECD (after Austria,...
Minor Blog Wars – my part in their genesis
As a regular reader of Brad DeLong I was slightly alarmed at a recent post reporting an outbreak of unpleasantness about which OECD country has...
Inequality in Australia – are the rich getting richer and the poor poorer?
Cross posted from Inside Story Australians like to think of themselves as egalitarian, and in the past Australians also liked to believe that we had...
The clean energy plan: compensation or redistribution?
A major component of the government’s clean energy plan is a package of assistance measures to compensate households for higher prices. The government will provide...
How fair is Australia’s welfare state?
Cross posted from Australian Policy Online http://inside.org.au/how-fair-is-australia%e2%80%99s-welfare-state/ IN ITS 28 May edition the Economist carried a long feature about Australia, praising our resilient economy, criticising the...
Could we abolish poverty if we didn’t spend so much on public servants?
In the Sydney Morning Herald of 1 June, Julie Novak of the Institute of Public Affairs criticised an article by Gavin Mooney and Alex Wodak,...