The Future of the Federation : Lessons from the pandemic

There’s been a wealth of lessons to be learned as economies try to recover from the pandemic.

Most are being ignored.

A return to pre-pandemic days is what most policy makers appear to want.

Back to the days which have produced the mess we are now in.

The pandemic has brought all our problems into sharp focus.

We have a lopsided economy.

Capital and profits have increased their share of the national pie at the expense of wages. The trickle down effects haven’t eventuated. Asset prices have risen instead.  Owners want a return on their capital and to that end the financial sector  has been tasked with extracting more and more from the real economy leading to a more unbalanced economy. Government spending has been unable to keep up with the needs of the economy.

Are we going to rely on tax reform to help rebalance the economy?

We might be waiting a long time.

This note is intended to review the state of play and look for other ways to relieve the pressure on services delivery, particularly for State governments, the engine rooms for so many services that are crucial to our well-being.

Post pandemic policies have shown how government spending, borrowing and the role of the Reserve Bank interact.

As a rule most focus is either on the role of the General Government or the RBA. They are rarely considered as a consolidated Group.

Only when they are treated as one, does a realistic picture emerge of what is happening. Peer at the economy through an accountant’s lens and the view looks awfully like what Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) adherents see when they view the economy.

Government spending creates private assets. Budget repair will reduce private assets. Do those promoting budget repair understand this simple iron law of accounting?

Banks are intermediaries in the settlement process, interposed between the government (RBA) and the people. If instead of having a/cs at various banks for settlement purposes, everyone had an a/c at the RBA, then government spending would be directly credited to peoples’ a/cs. The balance of peoples’ a/c at the RBA would appear as a liability of the RBA just as notes and coins do. 

But they’re not debts that the government need to repay. This is one of the fundamental points most commentators and scaremongers fail to grasp.

With banks as intermediaries, reserves are created each time the government spends. Convention dictates that some of the reserves need to be swapped for government bonds should the government wish to spend and finds itself without any money.

It’s a convention not a necessity.

A recent development that eventually made it to Australian shores, has seen the central bank, the RBA, purchasing some of the government’s issued bonds.

A close look at effect of spending on the consolidated government (which includes the RBA) shows it makes no difference if the government spends what’s in its RBA a/c, or whether it runs an overdraft at the RBA or whether it raises funds by issuing bonds which are bought by the RBA and subsequently written off.

A government borrowing from itself doesn’t impose a burden. The reverse is more likely. Private assets are boosted when spending occurs.

Looking at the consolidated government, gives a more realistic view than focusing on just one of the members of the consolidated group, the General Government.

It is instructive to look at the Australian government’s financials, which aren’t included with the Annual Budget, but do appear 5 months after year’s end usually in November.

When RBA Governor Lowe tells us RBA bond buying is not supposed to indicate a new way to finance government spending is he saying net government borrowings of $684 billion at June 2021 compared to gross borrowings of $888 billion, the difference being those bonds bought by the RBA, is a figure without meaning. 

What does it mean then?

Surely it must mean the government only owes $684 billion to third parties.

Then why does everyone parrot on about a trillion dollars of debt?

Is it a rounding problem or a lack of understanding of what consolidated accounts mean?

As to where RBA got the money to purchase bonds, and how it was recorded in its accounts, this can be answered by having a look at RBA’s cash flow statement. It reveals how money is created in a modern economy.

The means to create money isn’t confined to the RBA. Most is created by private banks.  Outsourcing money creation to banks is an enormous privilege.

 ‘Creation’ is the operative word here. As the Bank of England reminded us in 2014, loans are not made from existing deposits. Loans create deposits. The Commonwealth Bank’s cash flow statement reveals this reality, with operating activities divided between income and expenses on one hand, and new loans and deposits on the other. It is a tell tale snapshot of how banking in a modern economy works as opposed to how most people imagine it to work.

The pandemic and the subsequent response have emphasised the crucial role State governments play in service delivery in a wide variety of important areas. Compared to the measures enacted to help banks by the RBA, much more could have been done.

If the Tasmanian experience is any guide, reporting income on a profit and loss basis by State governments, has helped disguise the cash flow losses that are likely to persist for quite a while, with the supply of services likely to fall further behind what’s needed.

Tasmania’s looming fiscal sustainability problems have been well documented but largely ignored by politicians. Admitting to problems always prompts questions about what the proposed solutions are and why has it taken so long to confess.

At this stage there are no firm solutions. The progress of tax reform is glacial, and like glaciers in the era of climate change are just as likely to melt before much progress is made.

The prospect of Stage 3 tax cuts and possible budget repair which will reduce Australian Government coffers even more, suggests States aren’t a priority for the Australian government/RBA.

We need a backup plan to assist them.

The RBA needs to be given an enhanced role in the Federation, not just as banker to the private banks but helping States and Territories as the pre-eminent deliverers of services to the people.

When the Federation is viewed as a consolidated whole, government financing and spending by the States can be carried out in the same way as the activities of the Australian government since March 2020.

All government spending increases private assets.

But the key to the future is grasping the fact that government liabilities created by spending aren’t necessarily debts which must be repaid.

They only become debts if we so choose.

We need to run the show for the benefit of the people not the banks.

Debt deficits and the new Federation

What happened to the spring of hope we hoped would follow the Covid winter of despair?

The shortcomings of the existing system have become glaringly obvious. There was much talk about life on the other side of the pandemic, a place where we could build a better and fairer future on more secure foundations.  

However, two weeks of electioneering has confirmed that a move to a better place is too bigger task for our bickering political class. We are back to the same old ways of policy free mudslinging scaremongering and pork barrelling. We have learnt nothing.

There is a conspiracy of bipartisanship not to delve too deeply into important issues.

For instance, consider government debt and deficits and the all-important question of where money comes from. There has been so much to learn from how we managed the Covid crisis that should be front and centre of any election campaign. But discussion is conspicuously absent.

Most Federal government debt is not repaid. It is rolled over at maturity, replaced by new debt. As any Accounting 101 student knows debt may appear on the liability side of a balance sheet but so does owner’s equity. Debt that doesn’t have to be paid represents additional equity in the nation. Government debt is mostly owned by banks and large funds and are analogous to redeemable preference shares in Australia Inc. Interest gives the holder a regular return. The holdings can be sold at any time or redeemable at the end of the term, usually replaced with new borrowings. Debt may be owned by foreigners. But the interest on those borrowings is still paid into Australian bank accounts. If the owner wishes to repatriate the funds the Australian dollars are swapped for whatever currency is needed, so the interest always remains in Australia. Government borrowings should not be used an excuse for austerity by constantly raising the spectre of burdening our heirs and successors.

The Covid response required massive new borrowings. However, most of the new debt is owned by the Reserve Bank (RBA), our bank. We owe the debt to ourselves. The RBA now owns $288 billion of government debt. One third of government debt which is approaching $900 billion is now owned by ourselves. How is this a burden? Interest is paid to us. If bonds are ever redeemed the proceeds are returned to the government as dividends by the RBA.  This is the new reality. Central banks around the world are doing the same.

Federal government borrowings are the nation's equity

 

BUDGETS are a concoction of economics and politics with the mix depending on the electoral cycle.

The latest federal budget appears to have a heavy dose of politics given an election is on the horizon. But what of the economic aspects? What does this budget reveal?

The most welcoming change is the ready acceptance by the government of the need to continue with deficits. The reason there will be public deficits is because the private sector will continue to run surpluses. That’s the iron law of macro-accounting.

Pollies and the commentariat talk about the need for budget repair, implying the public sector needs fixing when the private sector’s predisposition to run surpluses is the flip side of the same problem.

It is normal for households and businesses to strive to be net savers over time, for a rainy day, say. This implies the normal position for a government is to run deficits, especially if the economy is growing. Bob Menzies ran 16 deficits in 17 years in the 1950s and 1960s.

However, over time, rising household indebtedness has increased the amounts required to repay loans. From a national income perspective, income is either consumed or saved or used to pay taxes.

Increased loan payments mean increased savings and therefore less consumption. Increasing house prices and associated mortgages suppresses consumption in the real economy.

Student indebtedness has similar effects. With little or no growth in real wages, paradoxically one of the boosts to consumption comes from borrowed funds made possible by increased home equity.

We are living in a Ponzi world.

At the same time, there has been a conspicuous fall in workers’ share of national income. The amount going to capital owners has increased. Not just old-fashioned capital like machines and buildings but the new variants — licences, permits, goodwill, intellectual property, franchises — all designed to clip the ticket and benefit paper shufflers at the expense of workers. Greater returns to the new capital owners have kept a cap on wage costs, which in turn has led to wage exploitation, insecure work regimes and the influx of workers from overseas which has created as many, if not more, problems as it has solved by extra strains on housing and infrastructure.

Our economy is out of whack. The financial economy is devouring its host, the real economy. There’s little point tackling so-called budget repair if the foundations need fixing.

Why doesn’t the private sector spend more rather than requiring the government to run deficits? There’s not enough demand for their goods and services partly due to the erosion of the workers’ share of the national pie and the system’s incentives to speculate in second-hand assets such as houses and shares rather than investment in the real economy.

Capital gains from shuffling paper are taxed at lower rates than personal exertion income. Share owners wallow in the illusion they are business owners rather than speculators and thus entitled to a refund of company tax via franking credits.

The common good is becoming an outdated concept.

The spectre of increasing government debt that has resulted from deficits has been used to scare the populace into believing that we can’t afford to employ our idle resources to perform much needed and demanded public tasks, and also as an excuse to offload public assets and outsource public services to the private sector, all in the cause of freeing our grandchildren from the burden of excessive debt.

The latest government spin has toned down the rhetoric without a full explanation. It’s easy, as the Labor Party and many commentators have done, to point to the hypocrisy of the government’s backflip, but unfortunately it strongly suggests there’s widespread belief that government debt remains a burden for future generations.

The breakthrough in understanding why government debt is not a problem has come with the move by the Reserve Bank, our bank, to buy much of the new debt. We owe money to ourselves. Accountants have a name for owner’s loans to their businesses. It’s called equity. Accounting 101 students learn about it in Week One.

Government borrowings held by the RBA represent equity in our nation. Even much of the debt held privately will be rolled over at maturity, implying this also is de facto equity in the nation.

A nation without borrowings is a nation with a pretty skinny balance sheet.

Japan’s government debt, relatively speaking, is five times the size of our debt and almost half is owned by the Bank of Japan, the government’s central bank. Nobody believes the debt will ever be paid. It will either be written off or rolled over. The same will apply here.

We are on the threshold of a better understanding of how government financing works.

However, with most other issues in our rapid changing world our political class is still at the remedial stage.

Downturn demands bigger spend

 

The penny has finally dropped that increased public debt is not a burden, but spending in this year’s Federal Budget should have been better directed.

Recovery bonds

How governments address funding  of the forthcoming fiscal stimulus  is yet to be seriously tackled. My last blog Staving off recession concluded with the observation:

The future will be one where if governments aren’t directly funded by the RBA, the RBA will own some government debt. And that should include State government debt. Money owed to ourselves won’t be a burden. It’ll be our salvation.

Bill Kelty former Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary and former Reserve Bank board member, was reported to be working on a recovery plan.

Don't forget the States

DON’T FORGET THE STATES

All the post Covid-19 recovery talk centres on the Commonwealth government’s fiscal position and its unprecedented deficits for the foreseeable future.  How are States going to fund their share of the required spending? Hoping the current Commonwealth government will continue to run deficits to help fund State budgets seem somewhat forlorn at this stage.

The Commonwealth provides 40 per cent of State government revenues with approximately half of that coming from GST. Local governments receive 10 per cent of their revenue from the Commonwealth, not directly, most comes via the States.

The Commonwealth government being in control of the currency, with a central bank (RBA) to assist, and with fiscal policy that raises over 80 per cent of the nation’s taxes, can easily attend to its own needs. If it wasn’t for the States that is.

State government do not have the same flexibility as the Commonwealth and are more inclined to austerity. Erring on the side of austerity is likely to make any recovery slower and more painful for all those affected, potentially scarring a whole generation.

Where the money will come from in the case of State governments needs to be addressed at the same time as for the Commonwealth.

We need a plan for the Federation.

The starting point for a discussion about any entity’s future must include an understanding of existing balance sheets. If that entity is a country then it must include an understanding of the nation’s balance sheet, its assets and liabilities.

The only balance sheet item that gets mentioned is the debt figure for the Commonwealth. In other words, the level of borrowings of the general government sector. So, we’ll start by having a look at the balance sheet for the Commonwealth General Government. This will lead to a look at the consolidated balance sheet for the Commonwealth, which includes government businesses, particularly its wholly owned bank, the RBA. It is crucial to include the RBA in any discussion about Commonwealth finances.

The consolidated balance sheet leads to a closer look at the Commonwealth’s debt and borrowing, how spending, money creation, debt and QE (quantitative easing) impacts the Commonwealth’s balance sheet. Understanding the mechanics of the system must be a prerequisite for policy making.

A more nuanced view of debt will lead to a look at the consolidated balance sheet for the nation’s public sector. It is only with a more realistic view of debt that the Federation’s problems can be properly addressed.  The Commonwealth/RBA needs to allow States greater access to the RBA to organise debt and spending in the same way as is possible for the Commonwealth. If the government via the RBA can provide liquidity to private banks by acquiring their assets, if the RBA can led $90 billion to banks at 0.25 per cent to onlend to SMEs because the banking system is not up to the task, it can provide liquidity to States by acquiring their bonds. QE for States with RBA holding State government bonds will mean the overall total public sector debt need not produce insomnia for policy makers or burden our grandchildren.

Surplus obsession

Death and taxes are often cited as two of life’s certainties.

There’s one other. If the Federal government runs a surplus, then the private sector must run a deficit.

“I am pleased to announce a budget surplus of $7.6 billion” Treasurer Frydenberg proclaimed on Budget night. He was of course referring to an expected figure for 2019/20.

It would have been equally valid if he had said:

“Next year we expect the private sector to run a deficit. We know the household sector is one of the most heavily indebted in the world, largely due to the string of surpluses run by my esteemed predecessor Peter Costello and the reckless greed of the banking sector as recently identified by Commissioner Kenneth Hayne, but we believe the time is right for the private sector to borrow even more”.

A surplus means the government is taking more out of the economy that it is putting back. The private domestic sector is already burdened by servicing an overseas current account deficit. Government surpluses will make this worse. Private domestic debt, needed to operate the real economy is constantly rising, due also to the rapid growth of the finance sector’s cash cow loans for residential housing which must be serviced by the real economy.

The government is selling the return to surplus as a magnificent achievement but  with a weakening economy, stagnant wages growth and a labour underemployment rate of 15 per cent, is this the right time to add to the debt burden of the private sector struggling to service the overseas current account deficit plus the rapacious demands of the finance sector?

Labor's tax policy

A system supposedly to avoid double taxation, has become a tax deferral system for the privileged. Company tax has become a withholding tax to be refunded later.

Progressives are their own worst enemies

Misunderstanding our current problems is reaching epidemic proportions if one is to judge by Dr Michael Powell’s comments ( see here )on the new GST arrangements and the wider more crucial issue of Federal budgetary difficulties.

Just to quickly address the GST issues before moving to the broader matters of budgetary policy.

The bank competition myth

“Australian banks are upset. Their $30 billion per year gravy train of profits from the Australian people is finally being slowed down.

A levy on bank liabilities of 0.06% annually was announced as part of the 2017 Federal government budget, and is expected to raise about $1.5 billion per year, or 5% of bank profits.


To be clear, the banking system is a regulated cartel. Its primary function is to provide a public good in the form of the money supply of the country. As such, we would expect it to be uncompetitive, and use tight regulatory controls to ensure that the privileged position of private banks is not being abused.

In my book, Game of Mates, I explain that the result of this uncompetitiveness and lack of adequate regulation in Australia is that over half of the banks' profits can be considered economic rents, which could be taken back with better regulation and shared with the public at large.”

Read the full article on Cameron Murray’s blog.

A note on GST relativities

If you want to understand more about how the GST pool is split between States have a look at the following table.

Good vs bad budget nonsense

It’s good that the Federal Treasurer has raised the possibility of legitimising more government debt. 

The Federal government budget papers are to be revamped, we are told, to more realistically reflect good and bad debt.

What does all this mean?

Budget challenges: Money debt & other myths

This is an address to a breakfast meeting of the Burnie Chamber of Commerce & Industry on 12^th April 2017.

I’d like to advance the proposition that most of what is commonly believed about money, government spending and debt is wrong. Seriously wrong....and it’s stopping us from sensibly moving forward.

You may remember the Queen in 2008 going to the London School of Economics to open a building as I recall. Referring to the GFC (global financial crisis).... Lehman Bros had just collapsed....she was famously captured on camera saying "Why did nobody notice it?" Their models were wrong that’s why. Money wasn’t in the models. Banks were assumed to be passive intermediaries lending funds from patient savers to willing borrowers. That may have been the situation pre 1971 before President Nixon abandoned the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement which incorporated the gold standard and underpinned bank lending practices. The world changed after that .....and economics didn’t keep up.

Put simply...a lot of economists don’t understand accounting.

Australia's new class war: A return to the Gilded Age

The betrayal of an entire generation of young Australians by the political classes by refusing to do anything about the Great Housing Bubble is a national disgrace.

Matt Ellis writing as Rational Radical sets out the arguments.

 “Even the so-called party of the youth, the Australian Greens, and the traditionally progressive Australian Labor Party are just as leveraged into landed wealth as any political force in the country.”

.        .        .        .        .

“But for the most part, the vanishing class consciousness of the newly minted home owner or property investor has created a political and media culture of looking the other way as wealth inequality and economic imbalances threaten to tear the system and community apart. It is so ingrained in the every day Australian cultural psyche, that it has become a truly rarified exceptionalism, wherein any person of influence or power who dares to question the path of the great Australian Housing Bubble is patronisingly reminded that history does not apply to Australia, and that genuine reform is for doomsayers and bankrupt European states.

Indeed, our exceptionalism has morphed into full a blown collective denial of the very same imbalances that brought half of the modern world to its knees only 8 years ago. That somehow these forces do not apply to the economic miracle that is Australia, and that income inequality is only a matter of a few mega-rich corporations evading their tax obligations.”

Spend five minutes to read Matt’s compelling blog..

Superannuation fairness

THE age of entitlement will not end if baby boomers, in or approaching retirement, keep hijacking public policy debate.

With average superannuation balances at retirement scarcely more than $100,000 mainly funded by employer contributions, topping up with surplus private savings is but a dream for most Australians.

Being prevented from transferring more than $500,000 in surplus savings into superannuation is of little concern. Yet it almost caused the downfall of the Turnbull Government so we are told.

The purpose of super is to provide funds for members’ retirement. It is not intended to be part of an estate plan for a family dynasty.

The tax system is biased in favour of older, wealthier people. Not only are withdrawals from superannuation funds tax-free beyond the age of 60, earnings on superannuation in the pension stage, which can occur even while still working, are tax free. Once aged 65 a higher tax-free threshold applies, which means the wealthy can receive extra unearned income on a tax-free basis in addition to their superannuation spoils.

Meanwhile other taxpayers paying tax on income from toiling are subsidising this rort. Couples can earn $60,000 apart from their tax-free superannuation and still be spared the need to contribute to tax coffers. At a rate of return of 4 per cent per annum that’s $1.5 million. Adding this to the May budget proposal to limit tax-free pension balances to $1.6 million or $3.2 million per couple gives a tax sheltered nest egg per couple of $5 million.

How much do these guys want? Obviously more than $1.5 million outside superannuation is unacceptable. It is true that once tax starts being paid for incomes above the seniors’ privileged threshold it is paid at a rate of over 40c in the $1, so wouldn’t it be nice to be able to transfer a bit more into a tax-free superannuation environment.

Under the age of 65 ordinary income thresholds apply and transferring surplus savings into superannuation funds saves tax, especially if a pension can be triggered and the earnings become tax-free.

High net worth individuals run multiple pension streams, segregated from each other. Even though pension payments are tax-free beyond 60 years of age, tax may be payable if a stream is commuted and paid to non-dependants upon death. Each stream is different.

In other words the adult kids might have to pay a bit of tax, unless the pension streams can be structured correctly. That is done by withdrawing amounts funded by employer and other deductible contributions and replacing them with brand spanking new non-concessional contributions which Mr Turnbull is trying to limit. Draw out the amounts that might end up being taxable in the kids’ hands and replace them with contributions that will solve that problem. The tried and true withdrawal and recontribution strategy is perfectly legal, but a rort nonetheless.

It may be that the alleged backlash against the proposed superannuation change is being used as a rod to beat Mr Turnbull. Assuming that it is not, there may be an argument the changes violate the principle of retrospectivity. Usually that means outlawing something that has already occurred, not scaling back previously allowables on a prospective basis.

Politicians are always lambasting opponents from their high horses while ignoring their own inconsistencies. When Mr Shorten mounted his shetland pony to berate the Government about proposing retrospective changes he forgot his own policy to put a cap on the amount of tax-free earnings of pension balances also involves changing the rules midstream. But what changes are not? Perhaps all changes should be grandfathered so they only apply prospectively? Two sets of taxpayers for each and every piece of legislation? That’s the retrospectivity argument in a nutshell.

Instead of limiting the quantum of tax-free pension earnings as suggested by the ALP, the Liberals propose limiting the level of tax-free pension balances, administratively a superior method to achieve a similar result.

The ALP’s disingenuous claims of retrospectively gave oxygen to a campaign which may thwart changes that will restore a little more equity to superannuation policy.

For too long the system has been skewed in favour of the wealthy. The system could have been so much fairer and simpler if recommendations in the Henry report had been adopted. These included a flat 7.5 per cent tax on fund earnings from accumulation right through the pension stage and a contribution tax at the contributor’s marginal tax rate less 15 per cent meaning low-income taxpayers would pay nil contributions tax, more equitable than at present. Overall tax revenue from superannuation and fund balances at retirement would be higher. Currently, high-income earners are estimated to pay no tax on two-thirds of lifetime fund earnings. That’s a big subsidy. A rate of 7.5 per cent is hardly a weighty impost. Or should aged-based rorting continue to take precedence?

Superannuation failing the fairness test is not the only problem. The system is good at attracting funds. Compulsion helps. It is a form of national savings. While savings is an admirable sign of prudence at the individual level, collectively it means less is spent on current consumption. Lack of demand can restrict an economy. The paradox of collective thrift is a well known phenomenon made even worse by the fact in the case of superannuation, the screen jockeys responsible for the custodianship of $2 trillion of the nation’s savings do not invest in nation building, but instead buy and sell existing assets among themselves hoping to make a capital gain so they can clip 1 per cent to 2 per cent from the ticket to overindulge themselves even further.

It was assumed the trusty old market would solve the problem of the large pool of savings created by the superannuation. Unfortunately, it has done so by providing sustenance to the speculative economy at the expenses of jobs growth and the real economy.

The whinges of the wealthy and the wannabes are a crass example of self interest at a time when fairness, more revenue and a system that integrates with the real economy are long overdue.

(Published in The Mercury 21st July 2016)

Australia's real lifters and leaners

Economist Philip Soos argues our current system is a racket designed to generate free banquets for the rentier class. Spend a few minutes and read the compelling analysis. It’s a crackerjack article. First posted in  Independent Australia.

WHEN THE infamous duo of Abbott and Hockey came to power in 2013, they embarked upon a polarising rhetoric of “lifters” versus “leaners” separating Australians into one of two camps.

The split was a simple one: those who earn and engage in productive activity, indicated by making a revenue or wage and hence paying income tax, in contrast to those who pay no net income tax, mostly social welfare recipients.

In Australia, the Duncan Storrar episode once again brought attention to this rhetoric. It expanded into a moral uproar with those who believe the poor should be provided more assistance, and those who think such people are a useless economic deadweight on society.

Earned versus unearned wealth and income

There is only one small problem.

The notion that the rich have earned all their wealth and income is completely false. Not only is it false, it is obviously false when one considers the issues at hand. Although the mass media and intellectuals often assert the rich must have become so by cause of effort, the available economic theory and documentary evidence, readily available, demonstrates otherwise.

Overwhelmingly, the pathway to riches is not through earned wealth and income but that which is unearned. The 18^th century physiocrats and the later classical economists from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill to Karl Marx, ultimately finding its peak expression in Henry George, argued for a clear difference between earned and unearned wealth and income. The term economic rent was used to identify this distinction. Those who make their living off economic rent are called rentiers.

Doubts about jobs and growth

Greg Jericho posted a good article HERE covering the growing doubts about the policies that are being foisted upon us. The following is a shortened version  without the charts.

As developed economies such as Australia’s struggle to encourage growth, even the disciples of austerity are admitting that they might have it wrong. For Malcolm Turnbull the election is all about jobs and growth and a belief that a company tax cut and reducing government spending is the way to achieve both. But in light of the failures of such standard economic thinking after the GFC to provide economic growth, new research is finding that policies that fail to consider other aspects such as inequality are actually undermining long-term economic performance.

Prior to the GFC, the pervading view was that neo-liberal polices of lower regulation, more competition, budget surpluses, increased trade and lower taxes had delivered the economic sweet spot.

And then the world with low regulation, budget surpluses, open markets and low taxes was blown to hell.

And yet the same thinking continues. The Liberal party pledges to cut company tax (to encourage foreign investment), crackdown on welfare spending (to reduce the budget deficit) and encourage more open markets (mostly through the talisman of free-trade agreements).

And certainly such openness has led to benefits – cheaper products that lift overall standard of living and improved the efficiency of local producers. But the neo-liberal strain of economic thought is one that would have us believe the GFC didn’t happen (ALP inherited a surplus, and then the blew it), that pursuing austerity or more open markets has no downside and that the benefits should just be taken as a given.

It’s the same thinking that underpins the Treasury’s justification for the company tax cut: it will eventually improve productivity via increased foreign investment and thus real wages will go up (despite it having virtually no impact on employment growth).

Productivity is a wonderful thing – increasing it improves all economic outlooks. The problem is over the past decade productivity growth has been falling and no one is really sure why.

It’s a bit of a worry (OK, a great worry) that no one is really sure that they are able to accurately measure what is basically the foundation of most economic “reform”.

Perhaps it is little wonder then that in light of the hits to economies from the GFC and the subsequent continued adherence by governments to pre-GFC thinking that the neo-liberal path is being more and more questioned – whether it be by supporters of Bernie Sanders in the USA , or more surprisingly by economists at the neo-liberal heartland of the International Monetary Fund.

An article in the IMF’s latest issue of is journal Finance and Development notes that “instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality” and jeopardised “durable” growth.

The authors note that there actually scant proof that the standard policies of encouraging foreign investment and reducing deficits and debt levels has improved economic growth.

They found that it’s tough to actually establish “the benefits in terms of increased growth” from these polices but that the costs from “increased inequality are prominent”. Even worse for those who desire economic growth above all else, they found that the “increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth.”

The authors note that their study of economies found that “austerity policies not only generate substantial welfare costs due to supply-side channels, they also hurt demand—and thus worsen employment and unemployment”.

As I have noted (repeatedly) lack of demand is a massive issue for our economy. Right now Malcolm Turnbull would have you believe that it is an absolute given that more foreign investment and lower taxation and government spending will deliver economic growth. The reality is such belief is based on a model that struggles to deliver proof that is actually works and which crucially ignores factors such as inequality that can actually undermine their goal of economic growth.

Nearly a decade on from the GFC it perhaps it time to acknowledge the neo-liberal model might have a few cracks in it.

Jobs and growth within our means

It’s not long since Prime Minister Turnbull promised an end to three word slogans and the start of a mature conversation with voters.

Alas we are still waiting.

Many were hoping the PM would pinpoint the problems as he sees them and explain why his policies offer a solution. He’s now using a three word slogan, jobs and growth, to promote a solution to the problem he didn’t bother to explain.

We all know the symptoms of the problem, too many borrowed funds devoted to buying and selling existing houses instead of investing in the real economy, private debt sky high, real wage increases slowing down, oodles of unused supply capacity both capital and labour. Unused capacity and unmet demand. Nobody’s buying.

What to do? Cut penalty rates? That may increase the supply of lattes but where will the extra demand come from? From other industries? But won’t all industries suffer if wages share of the national pie falls? What if café owners reduce their high private debt instead of employing more staff? The economy will be worse off. The paradox of thrift may strike again. Cutting wages may have some effects at the margin but the case is not overwhelming. Government austerity suffers from the same drawbacks. The comprehensive rejection of the 2014 Federal budget shows the general sentiment in the community. People struggle to understand the underlying assumptions of proposals when politicians present them.

How about more jobs and growth by cutting company taxes as the PM is now promoting? If there’s unused supply wouldn’t a better solution be to find a way to introduce Mr Supply to an eligible Ms Demand? How will cutting company taxes promote jobs and growth if nobody’s buying? What comes first, the cart or the horse?

The jobs and growth plan is just another name for a two hundred year old economic theory known as Say’s law that economists used to explain how the economy works……… supply creates its own demand. The Great Depression revealed that an economy was a liitle more complicated than Say’s Law assumes. But it has never disappeared completely. Thatcher and Reagan revived it. Recently it’s been variously described as supply side economics or trickledown economics. It fades from view from time to time, and then reappears after its failings are forgotten. The jobs and growth plan is the latest reincarnation.

Even if new supply creates its own new demand, what about those who became underemployed or unemployed because of low demand before new supply created new demand? What do we do about them? Give them new skills? Apply a supply side solution to expanding VET courses and job placement agencies? Has it worked? Build bigger universities? The suppliers are building their own businesses funded almost entirely by governments but will the supply of a more skilled workforce be enough? It’s as if all the problems are on the supply side. Fix that and you’ll fix the economy? If that’s what the PM believes he should say so. After all he’s supposed to be the Great Communicator.

Underpinning the jobs and growth plan is the constant chant of the need to live within our means. It’s this falsehood, that there is a finite supply of funds the Federal government can lay its hand on that is condemning the economy to a sub-optimum future.  Sure a household may have to live within its means. It needs money to survive, income or maybe even loan funds. Any politician who says the country is like a household and has to live within its means, doesn’t understand banking at the macro level.

Budget: A wish or a plan?

(As published in The Mercury 5th May 2016)

It’s difficult to detect an economic plan underpinning the Turnbull government’s budget.

It’s a hotchpotch of measures ostensibly designed to fix the tax system, to  target jobs and growth and maybe even win an election, not necessarily in that order, all bundled together with the usual narrative of living within our means, balancing the budget and reducing the burden of long term debt.

Smokers will be hit with more tax than multinationals. Reform of the tax system is off to a shaky start.

Jobs and growth rely on increasing aggregate demand, the missing ingredient in our sluggish economy. Without measures to address this problem the target of jobs and growth becomes a wish rather than a plan.

The major change to the tax system is a commitment to reduce the company tax rate to 25% over ten years. The jury is still out on whether reduced company taxes will lead to more jobs and growth.

Negative gearing

At last the public discussion on the subject of negative gearing seems to be making progress.

Matt Ellis writing as  Rational Radical sums up the arguments to perfection here. If you've got a few minutes it's a must read.