Blog
About 70-80 people attended the screening of the documentary Finding the Money on 27 Feb 2024 at the Franklin Palais (hosted by Circular Economy Huon).
The doco explores the fierce debate within academia about some economic fundamentals, especially how much should governments spend and the effects of such spending.
Our media is all-but silent on this important debate as it continues to serve the interests of wealth and power. See our blog page for more on Modern Monetary Theory.
Where did money come from?
Steven Hail, The Conversation, 13 May 2024
For the most part, economists continue to believe a story of money told to generations of students by a series of textbooks over the past 150 years. The problem with this story is that there is no historical evidence to support it. In fact, governments invented money – it did not emerge independently from pre-existing barter systems.
https://theconversation.com/where-did-money-come-from-229481
Our two big problems
Stephen Williams, 12 May 2024
Tasmania’s problems, like the rest of Australia, fall into two broad categories. The first is the use of questionable economic theories. The second is the erosion of democracy.
Stronger environmental laws just got indefinitely deferred in Australia
Ritchie et al., The Conversation, 17 Apr 2024
We’ve long known Australia’s main environmental protection laws aren’t doing their job, and we know Australians want better laws. Labor was elected promising to fix them. But yesterday, the government walked back its commitments, deferring the necessary reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act indefinitely in the face of pressure from the state Labor government in Western Australia and the mining and resources industries.
The disintegration of party politics in contemporary Australia
Allan Patience, Pearls and Irritations, 5 Apr 2024
Both the Coalition and Labor parties have become sclerotic machines confirming the efficacy of the “iron law of oligarchy.” As that law predicts, they are focused exclusively on preserving the positions of leading party apparatchiks who are divorced from the realities affecting the lives of most Australians.
https://johnmenadue.com/the-disintegration-of-party-politics-in-contemporary-australia/
The government only hears what it wants to on climate change
Polly Hemming, The Australia Institute, 4 Apr 2024
Australia’s climate and environment policies are characterised by, and nourished on, a strikingly similar diet to what fed robodebt. This is not to diminish the seriousness or tragedy of robodebt. It is to highlight that, while undoubtedly an extreme sequence of events, the behaviour behind it was not anomalous.
Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests will be wiped out by heatwaves unless we step in to help them
Tim Wardlaw, The Conversation, 21 Mar 2024
Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests are globally significant. They accumulate carbon faster than any other natural forest ecosystem in the world. But climate change is making it harder for these forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in wood. During heatwaves, they stop removing carbon altogether and release it instead. What will happen as heatwaves occur more frequently? Tasmania’s tall eucalypt forests will become carbon sources more and more of the time. As temperatures continue to rise, the forests will reach a “tipping point”. When this happens the forests will no longer be able to store carbon and mass tree deaths will occur.
What should we make of the new MMT documentary?
Gareth Hutchens, ABC, 10 Mar 2024
Another thing the film does well is explaining why some arguments politicians use to convince people that federal governments can't spend more freely in some situations — such as "we've run out of money" and "the government's broke" — are simply not true. Part of MMT's ambition, as I understand it, is to make it impossible for those types of arguments to be used anymore.
Improving our democracy
A case for the Voices movement’s support for citizen juries and asking voters what we want.
Stephen Williams, 7 Mar 2024
Central to the Voices movement is the belief that voters should have more say in how we are governed compared with the present. This is usually called ‘participatory democracy’ or ‘direct democracy’.
Can we farm the sea using permaculture principles?
Scott Spillias, The Conversation, 12 Feb 2024
The booming “blue economy” is no panacea. Fish farms can pollute the water. Mangroves are often felled to make way for prawn farms. The solutions of today could turn out to be problems of the future. We cannot simply shift from one form of environmental exploitation to another. There is an alternative: permaculture. This approach has proven itself on land as a way to blend farming with healthy ecosystems. What if it could do the same on water?
What’s the secret to attracting more women into politics?
Leah Ruppanner, Andrea Carson, The Conversation, 8 Feb 2024
Australia struggles with women’s representation in its parliaments across our three tier system. Despite a record number of women entering the federal parliament in 2022, Australia is currently ranked 34th in the world for women’s representation in the lower house.
Achieving this goal is important because it makes society more equal, reflecting the fact that women account for just over 50% of the population.
A government job guarantee
Stephen Williams, 5 Jan 2024
Stephen Williams, 5 Jan 2024
A government job guarantee (JG) is a scheme where a national government offers a job up to fulltime hours at the minimum wage to anyone of working age. It would therefore eliminate involuntary unemployment and underemployment, the latter being where people have some work but want more.
Human rights, including the right to a healthy environment.