How to turn the 122,000 plus vacant properties in Sydney into accommodation for the homeless, or at the very least lower the cost of renting.
How to reform our transport and power sectors so we don't go catatonic when oil goes up by $15 a barrel.
How to solve the problem of baseload power and how it can be sourced solely from renewable energy.
How to protect the less well-off from higher energy prices under a carbon trading/mass greenhouse abatement scheme.
How to ensure our farms can keep feeding us and save the Murray from becoming permanent sludge.
How to extricate US forces and allies from the mires of Afghanistan and Iraq while preventing those countries descending into theocratic feudalism.
How to prevent speculative nonsense like the CDO debacle happening again.
How to reform our international institutions on a multilateral, global and regional level to deal with problems of poverty, food security and irrational dictatorships.
How to manage the emerging power balance shift between the US, China, India, Japan and Brazil.
How to ensure our health and education systems deliver the best quality support for all of us at optimum cost.
Friday, May 30, 2008
On populism and political correctness
Two phrases that pop up more than perhaps they should are populism and political correctness. Populism has connotations of supporting the 'people' over the 'elites' (another horribly abused phrase in recent times). That would suggest that any policy that favoured, say pensioners over pharmaceutical corporations could be termed 'populist'. There is a clear hint in the term that such a policy choice is bad. However, as almost any economist this side of Genghis Khan will tell you, the PBS represents a world best practice model for reconciling drug delivery with low/middle income patients. So while technically it is 'populist', it is not bad policy.
However saying that policy helps the people must surely be a truism if we even imagine to live in a democracy which works in the best interests of the people. A better use of the term 'populist' might be to describe policy ideas that are at first glance 'popular', but on closer analysis reveal themselves to be bad policy. Such an analysis might apply to the petrol excise debate. The difference made by a 5 cent a litre cut would save a family maybe $3 per week in fuel, yet the excise cut would cost $1.8 billion. The policy would have little real effect on its target audience (beyond the psychological comfort of 'something being done'), but would potentially eat into funding for other areas such as health. It would also seriously compromise greenhouse abatement efforts and provide a perverse incentive for people to use more fuel, rather than move towards energy conservation and efficiency measures. On those measures, the excise cut call represents a populist policy in its truest sense.
Political correctness is one rather horrid phrase dreamed up as a backlash by right-wing bigots and their acolytes in response to greater ethnic and gender diversity in workplaces and society at large. The phrase is viewed by its proponents as a form of 're-education', akin to the worst excesses of Maoist zeal. By assailing measures aimed at reducing prejudice, political correctness becomes a de facto assertion of a right to maintain and exercise prejudice free from either government or commercial interference. How this is a good idea in an increasingly globalised world where disenfranchised individuals are easy prey for extremist movements of all persuasions remains to be seen. The recent Camden school controversy demonstrates a large group of Anglo-Saxon Australians either think exercising prejudice is not racist or they are locked into conservative doublethink which inverts anti-racist policies as de facto racism against Anglo-Saxons. Clearly the Howard-era messages of the dangers of political correctness have permeated the fields of Albion.
The concept of political correctness should be scrubbed from the political lexicon. In short, it is a backward-looking victim-mentality view based on pig ignorance and wilful misguidance by so-called conservatives. If anti-discrimination provisions and policies were recast as part of the rules of democratic society, safeguards rather than fetters, it would improve the prospects that the shock jocks and columnists would get the message. It is interesting that the very people who claim to be law-abiding citizens of the highest order are the first to denigrate laws put in place to safeguard the very order of the society they seek to defend.
However saying that policy helps the people must surely be a truism if we even imagine to live in a democracy which works in the best interests of the people. A better use of the term 'populist' might be to describe policy ideas that are at first glance 'popular', but on closer analysis reveal themselves to be bad policy. Such an analysis might apply to the petrol excise debate. The difference made by a 5 cent a litre cut would save a family maybe $3 per week in fuel, yet the excise cut would cost $1.8 billion. The policy would have little real effect on its target audience (beyond the psychological comfort of 'something being done'), but would potentially eat into funding for other areas such as health. It would also seriously compromise greenhouse abatement efforts and provide a perverse incentive for people to use more fuel, rather than move towards energy conservation and efficiency measures. On those measures, the excise cut call represents a populist policy in its truest sense.
Political correctness is one rather horrid phrase dreamed up as a backlash by right-wing bigots and their acolytes in response to greater ethnic and gender diversity in workplaces and society at large. The phrase is viewed by its proponents as a form of 're-education', akin to the worst excesses of Maoist zeal. By assailing measures aimed at reducing prejudice, political correctness becomes a de facto assertion of a right to maintain and exercise prejudice free from either government or commercial interference. How this is a good idea in an increasingly globalised world where disenfranchised individuals are easy prey for extremist movements of all persuasions remains to be seen. The recent Camden school controversy demonstrates a large group of Anglo-Saxon Australians either think exercising prejudice is not racist or they are locked into conservative doublethink which inverts anti-racist policies as de facto racism against Anglo-Saxons. Clearly the Howard-era messages of the dangers of political correctness have permeated the fields of Albion.
The concept of political correctness should be scrubbed from the political lexicon. In short, it is a backward-looking victim-mentality view based on pig ignorance and wilful misguidance by so-called conservatives. If anti-discrimination provisions and policies were recast as part of the rules of democratic society, safeguards rather than fetters, it would improve the prospects that the shock jocks and columnists would get the message. It is interesting that the very people who claim to be law-abiding citizens of the highest order are the first to denigrate laws put in place to safeguard the very order of the society they seek to defend.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A curious irony
One fact which no one appears to have picked up on in the current smoke and mirrors game which is the petrol debate is that the price could easily be even higher. Australian petrol prices are a function of two factors - world crude prices as indicated by the Singapore-based Tapis index and the exchange rate of the Australian dollar to its US counterpart. Due to our Indo-Chinese boom wake economy, our interest rates remain stratospheric compared to the US Reserve's offerings and consequently the Aussie dollar is worth a fair bit more. Those extra rate rises that so undermined the Howard government are effectively protecting people from paying (temporarily) in excess of $1.70 per litre.
What is odd about the current oil price surge is that it is counterintuitive. The Northern hemisphere is currently in summer, traditionally requiring the lowest demand on oil supplies. Further, the slow down across much of the world caused by the credit crunch and its aftermath is eating into economic growth and hence should result in less demand for oil. So that old adage applies, what goes up must come down.
One thing that is true though is that the higher a price peaks, the less likely it is to reset to its original level. Which means that an old oil price of around $60-80a barrel may well be history. So we should start adapting our fuel appetites by increasing fuel efficency standards and lowering oil reliance, rather than just talk of tinkering at the margins on issues such as Fuelwatch and beefing up the Trade Practices Act.
What is odd about the current oil price surge is that it is counterintuitive. The Northern hemisphere is currently in summer, traditionally requiring the lowest demand on oil supplies. Further, the slow down across much of the world caused by the credit crunch and its aftermath is eating into economic growth and hence should result in less demand for oil. So that old adage applies, what goes up must come down.
One thing that is true though is that the higher a price peaks, the less likely it is to reset to its original level. Which means that an old oil price of around $60-80a barrel may well be history. So we should start adapting our fuel appetites by increasing fuel efficency standards and lowering oil reliance, rather than just talk of tinkering at the margins on issues such as Fuelwatch and beefing up the Trade Practices Act.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Some Climate Change Parameters
Two debates have cropped up in the last week or so which touch upon resolving some of the hairy issues raised by climate change. The first is the global disaster unfolding that is the food crisis. Like the oil crisis, the food crisis has shown what happens when globalisation goes bad and instability in supply collides with growing demand. The second is the national issue of the Rudd Government's carbon capture and storage (CCS) dalliance. Both demonstrate the need to have a clear set of parameters in mind when considering how best to tackle climate change and produce a sustainable transition away from carbon-based fuels while maintaining standards of living and in turn the economic engine that supports them.
The food crisis has in part been exacerbated by the combined turnover of both beef pasture and wheat and maize crops to ethanol production. Like the Iraq debacle on oil, it is debatable precisely how great the effect on wheat and grain prices the ethanol trade is but it is inarguably contributing to global speculation in grain prices.
Ethanol and other biofuels may be a good option for climate mitigation, but they must be produced in a manner that does not compromise food security or worse become a climate fools' paradise by destroying rainforests to plant a crop. The turnover of corn crops in the US and Argentina to ethanol is akin to the Greek Titan Cronus eating his own children. If efforts to encourage climate change reform are to be successful in both developed and developing countries, a latter-day Zeus must step in and end this madness by penalising emission savings made at the cost of food crop production. Ethanol must therefore only be accepted from either non-edible sources (such as algae) or waste produce after the main food crop has been harvested. The US has shown that ethanol production can be rorted into a subsidy-driven carousel, compromising both food and climate security. This mistake must not be repeatedly globally.
CCS represents a tempting solution for coal-rich nations to have their climate cake and eat it. However it represents a tremendous gamble in unproven technology. The other point that CCS fails to deal with is its effect on developing other technology to cater for ultimately diminishing coal and oil supplies. This technology should receive some support to at least test its viability, but it should come within the existing subsidy structure for the fossil fuel industry and the accompanied by a considerable acceleration in renewable funding. Similarly, any CCS program must not be in conjunction with nuclear as this would greatly increase the problems associated with capture and disposal of carbon waste. Remember that CCS pipelines will be pumping noxious gases which in turn must represent a security threat if they can be breached. An excessive emphasis on extractive technology also reduces the prospects of creating innovative products that can be exported and installed in a variety of climates, not requiring access to the kind of fissures and chambers needed to store carbon or nuclear waste.
The food crisis has in part been exacerbated by the combined turnover of both beef pasture and wheat and maize crops to ethanol production. Like the Iraq debacle on oil, it is debatable precisely how great the effect on wheat and grain prices the ethanol trade is but it is inarguably contributing to global speculation in grain prices.
Ethanol and other biofuels may be a good option for climate mitigation, but they must be produced in a manner that does not compromise food security or worse become a climate fools' paradise by destroying rainforests to plant a crop. The turnover of corn crops in the US and Argentina to ethanol is akin to the Greek Titan Cronus eating his own children. If efforts to encourage climate change reform are to be successful in both developed and developing countries, a latter-day Zeus must step in and end this madness by penalising emission savings made at the cost of food crop production. Ethanol must therefore only be accepted from either non-edible sources (such as algae) or waste produce after the main food crop has been harvested. The US has shown that ethanol production can be rorted into a subsidy-driven carousel, compromising both food and climate security. This mistake must not be repeatedly globally.
CCS represents a tempting solution for coal-rich nations to have their climate cake and eat it. However it represents a tremendous gamble in unproven technology. The other point that CCS fails to deal with is its effect on developing other technology to cater for ultimately diminishing coal and oil supplies. This technology should receive some support to at least test its viability, but it should come within the existing subsidy structure for the fossil fuel industry and the accompanied by a considerable acceleration in renewable funding. Similarly, any CCS program must not be in conjunction with nuclear as this would greatly increase the problems associated with capture and disposal of carbon waste. Remember that CCS pipelines will be pumping noxious gases which in turn must represent a security threat if they can be breached. An excessive emphasis on extractive technology also reduces the prospects of creating innovative products that can be exported and installed in a variety of climates, not requiring access to the kind of fissures and chambers needed to store carbon or nuclear waste.
2020 Summit Part II - The Final Wash-up
This is a very belated post completing this blog's evaluation of the 2020 Summit, now fading into the rear view mirror of history. The Summit represents something of a lost opportunity, with dark suggestions that ideas were planted to endorse government proposals and that many of the ideas were not especially revolutionary. The whole thing in hindsight looks like a bunch of high-powered minds locked in a gilded cage, constrained by the tight timeframe and need to fit the results of their labours into the pre-packed report summaries. It is hard to see how the Summit could have operated differently, as alloting more than a weekend risked reinforcing the idea of it being a think tank rather than a symposium. Perhaps cutting the numbers to 500, removing the government co-chairs and allowing a staged reporting of group conclusions might have been a less political approach.
On the ideas front, the main runner to date is the HECS-for-volunteering scheme which appears to be an adaptation of the Clinton (I) AmeriCorps program. Macquarie University has already mooted a compulsory community scheme for students from 2010. This idea looks useful for closing the gap between students from our various social and cultural backgrounds. One big negative of the Summit was the treatment of climate change. The recommendations of the climate change group are about as strong as miso soup. Green protests suggest that Rudd's hands were tied by virtue of the coal industry's efforts. More on this position in further posts.
The range of taxes suggested by most groups to fund particular initiatives such as preventative health centres was predictably attacked by the don't-tax-me-I-didn't use it crowd. Interestingly the much-maligned Cate Blanchett-steered Arts group did not propose any additional taxation, even offering a suggestion that the arts be directly financed by every other government department.
Curiously it was the economists who came up with some of the more innovative ideas such as the business-schools support program and the Golden Guru program to use the skills of older Australians. The governance stream produced the usual menu of republican sympathy and international institution building without providing clear pathways on solving the issues of governance and increasing the quality of democracy.
Overall, the Summit got the headlines, but hamstrung by offering few concrete solutions on either governance reform or carbon transition of the economy, it was left to the little nuggets to carry the day. The use of so many stars in the arts group risked turning the coverage into a branch meeting of the Hollywood Democrats and probably did not help public respect for the project.
High degree of difficulty but relatively modest success. 6/10.
On the ideas front, the main runner to date is the HECS-for-volunteering scheme which appears to be an adaptation of the Clinton (I) AmeriCorps program. Macquarie University has already mooted a compulsory community scheme for students from 2010. This idea looks useful for closing the gap between students from our various social and cultural backgrounds. One big negative of the Summit was the treatment of climate change. The recommendations of the climate change group are about as strong as miso soup. Green protests suggest that Rudd's hands were tied by virtue of the coal industry's efforts. More on this position in further posts.
The range of taxes suggested by most groups to fund particular initiatives such as preventative health centres was predictably attacked by the don't-tax-me-I-didn't use it crowd. Interestingly the much-maligned Cate Blanchett-steered Arts group did not propose any additional taxation, even offering a suggestion that the arts be directly financed by every other government department.
Curiously it was the economists who came up with some of the more innovative ideas such as the business-schools support program and the Golden Guru program to use the skills of older Australians. The governance stream produced the usual menu of republican sympathy and international institution building without providing clear pathways on solving the issues of governance and increasing the quality of democracy.
Overall, the Summit got the headlines, but hamstrung by offering few concrete solutions on either governance reform or carbon transition of the economy, it was left to the little nuggets to carry the day. The use of so many stars in the arts group risked turning the coverage into a branch meeting of the Hollywood Democrats and probably did not help public respect for the project.
High degree of difficulty but relatively modest success. 6/10.
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