Don’t be fooled by Morrison’s benevolence – soon it’s back to tax cuts and smaller government

‘Doubling Newstart? Free childcare? A wage
 subsidy that is very close to a universal
 basic income? All previously dismissed as
unaffordable or even “communist” are
now government policy.’

This week the latest job vacancy figures were released, and as with so much economic data they were laughably out of date the moment they were published.

In the February quarter the number of job vacancies barely fell, but the number of unemployed in that time fell by a bit more. It meant the average number of unemployed per job vacancy across Australia dropped from 3.1 to 3 persons.

It’s ludicrous, of course.

Now the numbers are nowhere near that.

Just how bad they are is tough to estimate. Callam Pickering, economist at global job site Indeed, estimates that currently job adverts are running about 33% below what they were last year.

It would actually be surprising if they don’t drop by more – during the 1990s recession they fell by half.

Read the story from The Guardian by Greg Jericho - “Don’t be fooled by Morrison’s benevolence – soon it’s back to tax cuts and smaller government.”

If business leaders want to regain our trust, they must act on climate risk

Business leaders seem astonished that community trust in their activities is at an all-time low, trending toward the bottom of the barrel inhabited by politicians. To the corporate leader dedicated to the capitalist, market economy success story of the last 50 years, that attitude is no doubt incomprehensible and downright ungrateful.

 ‘Already one of the world’s largest carbon polluters when
 exports are included, Australia is complicit in destroying the
 conditions which make human life possible’

But it is hardly surprising given continuing scandals and declining ethics across the corporate and banking worlds, driven by the pernicious impact of short-termism, rising inequality and undue political influence; in large part the outcome of the oxymoron of “pay-for-performance” remuneration. So how is trust regained? The need for stronger leadership, ethics, greater transparency, open communications and improved culture feature prominently in current responses.

But a far more fundamental requirement is ignored, namely that business must lead on really critical issues, particularly the point raised long ago by economist Kenneth Boulding: “Anyone who considers economic growth can continue indefinitely in a finite system is either a madman or an economist”. The constraints Boulding anticipated have now arrived, as burgeoning population and economic growth crash into global biophysical limits which cannot be circumvented.

Read the piece from The Guardian by Ian Dunlop  - “If business leaders want to regain our trust, they must act on climate risk.”