John Quiggin

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such. Like this:Like Loading...

Another Message Board Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’ve moved my irregular email news from Mailchimp to Substack. You can read it here. You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin I’m also trying out Substack as a blogging platform. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

As borders reopen and Covid-related restrictions are relaxed, lots of academics are celebrating the return of in-person conferences. I’m not one of them. Although I miss a lot of aspects of conferences, I’ve tried to avoid indoor meetings since the pandemic began, and there’s no reason to change that yet. And with the climate disaster getting worse all the time, I want to minimise, or at least reduce, air travel. Another problem is that it’s become much more difficult for...

5 graphs that explain its economic crisis I’ve just written an “explainer” piece for The Conversation with my longstanding colleague co-author (and former PhD student) Thilak Mallawaarachchi, trying to make sense of the crisis in Sri Lanka. Thilak contributed his extensive knowledge of the Sri Lankan economy, while I focused on the specific role of a fixed exchange-rate regime. Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis in modern history. Its 22 million strong population is...

In the early days of the Ukraine invasion, one of the main lines pushed by Putin’s defenders was that the expansion of NATO posed a threat to Russia and that Ukraine was about to join. This didn’t stand up to even momentary scrutiny. The Baltic States had been members since 2004 without doing anything to threaten Russia. And while Ukraine’s constitution included a goal of joining NATO, Zelenskiy was describing this as a ‘remote dream’ even before the invasion took place, and clearly...

When I first found out that the UK Treasury proposes to issue Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as part of a general push to make Britain a world centre for crypto-currency, I assumed that this was a Boris Johnson stunt. The obvious model is El Salvador, where Johnson-style demagogue Nayib Bukele has made Bitcoin legal tender, with results ranging from disappointing to disastrous depending on who you read. It turns out, however, that the source of the push is Rishi Sunak, until recently...

Suppose(!) an Oz government or IR tribunal, wanted to shift the standard working week to four eight-hour days.Here’s one possible path: Reduce standard working week from 38 hours to 35, a demand of the trade union movement that’s been on the books for the last 50 years. With four weeks annual leave and 10 public holidays per year, that implies just over 1600 hours per year (excluding sick leave etc) 1/.. Now move to the four-day, 32 hour week, with the proviso that the full...

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such. Like this:Like Loading...

Last week, I presented a webinar to the Australian Industrial Transformation Institute at Flinders Uni. The slides are here – I’ll update when the video becomes available Summary: From four-day weeks to unconditional basic income to free education, it’s possible to imagine a future where society’s focus has moved from consumption to quality of life. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

My latest Substack newsletter, a report on what I’ve been up to in June and early July. My biggest news is that I’ve decided to take a break from commenting on day-to-day politics. Even starting with low expectations, I’ve been deeply disappointed by the Albanese government. That feeling seems to be widely shared, especially as regards Covid and Climate. Perhaps the public response will turn things around, but I don’t have anything much to add beyond what I’ve said already....