Archived publication for 2009 in IPA Review article
Recent publications
Another Nobel for market economics
Elinor Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, is not your average Nobel winner, writes Julie Novak
Australia's lonely stimulus
Much has been made of the fact that the government has acted to shield the economy from the impact of the crisis. The Rudd government's response to the global financial crisis was to ‘Go early, go hard, go household.' Since September 2008,...
Reckless stimulus: lots of money, almost no accountability
If you wanted evidence of the recklessness of the Obama administration's approach to economic policy, you need look no further than its response to the global financial crisis. Obama's stimulus package, otherwise known as the American Recovery...
Wayne Swan vs. The Wall Street Journal
Wayne Swan's second budget speech was magnificent in its rhetoric. The budget had been ‘forged in the fire' of economic crisis and Australians were ‘too strong, too resilient, and too united to be overwhelmed'. He told of how Australia...
Sinking into debt
The past few months have shown just how fragile the perceived orthodoxy of government financial management has been. Seemingly gone are the days when Australians could rely on their governments to deliver budget surpluses without mortgaging the...
Editorial, March 2009
Is this the biggest financial crisis since 1987? Since the 1970s? Since the Second World War? Since the Great Depression? Since the word ‘finance' was coined? Who knows - my economist can beat up your economist. Like those American political...
So where is our GasBuddy? Can't mates be buddies too?
There is a ruthless efficiency about Kevin Rudd. The man who bewailed Brutopia's coming is as ruthless as his own caricatured ‘neo-liberals' and market forces. Even more ironically, market metaphors best describe the Prime Minister's...
Bailout Bonanza!
IPA Review | March 2009 Periods of economic turmoil have a habit of exposing weaknesses in policy, whether it is through inexperience, a lack of understanding, or a combination of these. Only a short twelve months ago, a newly elected Rudd...
The 'mining boom' myth
Mining isn't the be-all and end-all of the Australian economy. If the ‘mining boom ends', as widely predicted by politicians and other interventionists, life will go on. Apparently, Australia is even luckier than we generally think. We have...
Hitler's grotesque economics
Sinclair Davidson reviews The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze(Allen Lane, 2007, 799 pages). In the acclaimed television series Band of Brothers the Webster character abuses a column of German...