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Volume 13 No.6 November-December 2021
Contents
BHP is offloading oil and gas assets
Showing that the global market has turned on fossil fuels
John Quiggin
When will America declare war on climate change?
A “war structure” mobilization is needed, which Australia could emulate
J.D. Alt
Equality and fairness: vaccines against this pandemic of mistrust
The COVID crisis has laid bare a crisis of trust
Tony Ward
Evil Doers: the pharmaceutical industry and the pandemic
The WTO should not be protecting patent monopolies
Dean Baker
Nationalise the banks: don’t blow up the banking system
The supply of credit money should be elastic and flexible
Steven Hail
Evolution of Global Finance
Developments in money and finance are absent from conventional macroeconomic textbooks
Asad Zaman
Consumerism and the denial of values in economics
Six extracts from Neva Goodwin’s paper in Real World Econ Review
Neva Goodwin
How we are trying to buy an identity in capitalist economies
Trade deals are not really about trade
Molly Richardson
The dangers of exalting GDP and its associated economic paradigm
There are cogent lessons therein for all nations
Elinor Hurst
David Card and the minimum wage myth
The author has found that Increasing the minimum wage can reduce unemployment
Lars Syll
Volume 13 No.5 September-October 2021
Contents
Patent monopolies and inequality
When we give rich people money, why does inequality surprise us?
Dean Baker
Slipping back into old ways of thinking
Extracted from a Facebook posting on 9th May 2021
Steven Hail
Large all-electric container barges are launching soon
Extracted from Physics and Astronomy Zone
Editor
Finance capitalism vs Industrial capitalism
The alliance of banking, Insurance and real estate is the dominant rentier sector
Michael Hudson
Home ownership is out of reach for many young Australians
Editor
Outcomes of the ‘Biodiversity, Natural Capital and the Economy’ report at the G7 summit
What action is the Australian government taking to conserve our biodiversity?
David Shearman
Is 2021 Public Banking’s Watershed Moment?
Public banks offer a path toward democratization and definancialization
Ellen Brown
Eco-overshoot
Human societies are in “ecological overshoot” propelled by excessive economic activities and growing populations
William Rees
Why modern monetary economists reject the loanable funds theory
There are many problems with the standard presentation and formalization of the loanable funds theory
Lars Syll
Can modern technology resolve our ecological concerns?
Debunking the ideas which aim to allow economies to keep growing indefinitely
Editor
Volume 13 No.4 July-August 2021
Contents
Please, no more questions about how we will pay off the COVID debt
It’s not debt in the conventional sense of the term
Steven Hail
Power and the dialect of economics
The dialect used in Economics 101 is called econospeak, and is designed to suppress the idea of power
Blair Fix
Bagehot’s free banking naiveté
Do we need central banks, and if so, why?
Asad Zaman
The gender wage gap
Women may be ‘structural’ victims of impersonal social mechanisms
Lars Syll
Federal budgets used to have a gender impact statement
And we need it back
Rhonda Sharp, Monica Costa, Siobhan Austen
Modern money perspective on Biden’s $1.9-trillion big spend
Not all government deficits are necessarily inflationary
Lars Syll
The scarcity machine
Expanding public goods and services is central to successful degrowth
Jason Hickel
Population growth, and the which way is up problem, in economics
An economic recovery that moves Australia far beyond fossil fuels is the way forward environmentally, socially and economically
Dean Baker
Angus Taylor’s tech roadmap is fundamentally flawed
Renewables are do-able almost everywhere
Mark Diesendorf
The U.S. has ample resources for all its energy needs, says report
The U.S. can build an energy system using only renewables
Jenna McGuire
Why the U.S. New Deal became the No Deal
U.S. progressives need to make a special effort to re-kindle the vision of Franklin Roosevelt
J.D. Alt
Human consumption of energy (1900 to 2020)
Comments
Ikonoclast
Rooftop solar can teach us three things about our electric car rollout
Successful technology transitions must be carefully planned and steered
Bjorn Sturmberg, Kathryn Lucas-Healey, Laura Jones, Mejbaul Haque
Move over neoliberalism; rentier capitalism is now king
Australian progressives need to understand rentier capitalism’s drive to chaos
Ted Trainer
Volume 13 No.3 May-June 2021
Contents
Four purposes of federal taxes
Investments in sustainability and social justice may not require higher taxes
Steven Hail
Unmaking socio-economic cohesion part 2
Abstractions used by economic orthodoxy allow neoliberalism to flourish
Evan Jones
Manhattan project to prevent hyperinflation
Addressing the climate crisis adequately will not collapse the production of goods and services
J.D. Alt
A Green New Deal without growth
Uniting the GND approach to decarbonising the economy and the Degrowth approach
Editor
The death of coal-fired power is inevitable
Yet the government seems to have no plan to help its workforce
Chris Briggs
Against the odds, South Australia is a renewable energy powerhouse
How on Earth did they do it?
Michael McGreevy and Fran Baum
NAIRU — closer to religion than science
Decisions by policymakers based on NAIRU models systematically implement austerity
Lars Syll
Renewables met 97% of Scotland’s electricity demand in 2020
Reducing greenhouse emissions requires continuing use of renewables
Editor
Extract from the Gallup World Happiness Report for 2021
We can have welfare and happiness without destroying our ecosystems
Editor
Funding for social housing, not home buyers’ grants, is the key to construction stimulus
Funding social housing will not boost house prices but will employ building workers and help the vulnerable
Brendan Coates
Financialisation and bureaucracy have perverted higher education
Extract from an interview with Steve Keen
Steve Keen
The “trickle down” assumption
Limitations to growth rule out any chance of lifting the poor to rich world affluence via trickle down benefits. Extract from an article.
Ted Trainer
Volume 13 No.2 March-April 2021
Contents
Neoclassical economics III: a machine to destroy the world
If you live by traditional values you won’t destroy the world
Geoff Davies
LobbyLand and the politics of fossil fuels
Fossil fuel lobbying is a cancer inflicting illness, misery and death
David Shearman
How Bronze Age Rulers Simply Cancelled Debts
Clean Slate proclamations were part of the community’s self-preservation
Michael Hudson
Giant oil tanker goes electric with massive 3.5 MWh battery pack
A project to build the first all-electric oil tanker
Fred Lambert
Unmaking socio-economic cohesion — part 1
Should Australia mimic the US’ and Thatcherite Britain’s ideological bias?
Evan Jones
Ideology triumphs over evidence
Federal government drops the ball on banking reform
Kevin Davis
The cause of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe
Continued mismanagement and tolerated corruption caused the hyperinflation
Editor
The wealth of many Australians puts them in an elite club wrecking the planet
The immense social and ecological challenges the world faces require new thinking and creativity
Alex Baumann, Samuel Alexander
Not enough work: how power keeps workers anxious and wages low
The stall in wages growth exacts a very high human cost
Barbara Pocock
Australia will face carbon levies unless it changes course
Doing nothing will set Australia up for a series of international humiliations with real and damaging consequences
John Quiggin
My advice to an aspiring economist — don’t be an economist
Economists are disinclined to rethink the foundations of their field, but a new world must be seen and explained on its own terms
David Bollier, Lars Syll
Volume 13 No.1 January-February 2021
Contents
Neoclassical economics, part II: pseudo-scholarship
Neoclassical economics is without scholarly integrity
Geoff Davies
Why Keynesian economic theories are needed in the modern world
Modern Keynesian economics as alternative to neoliberal ideology
Steven Hail
Superannuation isn’t a retirement income system – we should scrap it
Why super is not a legitimate retirement pillar
Cameron Murray
Climate change after the pandemic
Human activity is primarily responsible for increased greenhouse emissions
John Quiggin
Ecological Economics
The environment crisis is due to humans’ predatory net consumption of much of the biosphere and geosphere
Asad Zaman
New report: Australia’s gas expansion puts the nation in harm’s way
Petroleum gas emissions are cancelling out renewables gains
Tim Baxter
Transition to a different model of business behaviour
The root and branch transition to sustainability
Matthew Washington
Does the national debt matter? Part 1
Looking at the national debt from a different perspective
David Andolfatto
Modelling the energy and economic damage of climate change
The highly flawed research of William Nordhaus
Steve Keen
Australia’s credit rating is irrelevant. Ignore it
Credit ratings aren’t important for the federal government
Steven Hail and Matthew Crocker
ERA’s concerns and reforms
A summary
John Hermann
Economic Recovery from Covid-19 while mitigating Climate Change
Green growth with reduced material consumption
Mark Diesendorf
