John Quiggin

That’s the headline for a piece I just wrote for Independent Australia, looking at a new report from Greenpeace about the harm done by air pollution from coal-fired power, in addition to the climate-destroying effects of CO2 emissions. The report estimates 800 deaths per year, and is, from what I can see, consistent with other studies. Final para As a possible recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic comes into sight, it’s time to place human health above the desire to maintain the...

That’s the title of my latest piece in Inside Story, expanding my earlier discussion of intangibles and monopoly to take account of Apple’s startling market valuation of $2 trillion. As I observe, this can’t be accounted for in terms of big profit gains Admittedly, Apple’s business hasn’t been harmed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but neither has it greatly benefited — earnings in the June quarter were only about 10 per cent higher than in 2019, yet the stock price has doubled in less...

… is available here, and over the fold. Hi all,Another update on what I’ve been doing, nearly all remotely of course.I’ve started work on my new book, Economic Consequences of the Pandemic, which I’ve agreed to write for Yale University Press. The title is a play on two polemical pieces by John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of the Peace (a critique of the Treaty of Versailles) and Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill (written when Churchill, as Chancellor to the...

Back again with another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...

I’m busy working on my book on the Economic Consequences of the Pandemic, and thinking about implications for the information economy. In the process, I dug up a blog post from 2004, which reproduces an article I wrote in 1995 (I can’t remember if I managed to get it published). An interesting aside is a reference to Camille Paglia, a big name back then, who did the whole Jordan Peterson thing earlier and better, though I’m obviously not a fan of either. With 25 years of hindsight,...

Back again with another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...

A few thoughts on the fact that r < 0, where r is the real rate of interest on long-term (< 30 years) debt for developed country governments Situation predates pandemic and has happened despite central bank attempts to resist it, such as abandoned attempt by Fed to raise funds rate in 2019. Extends to corporate bonds as well. Lowest investment grade BBB currently offering 2.38 which implies expected real return (net of inflation and expected loss from default) also below zero....

Back again with another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...

My latest piece in Inside Story. Standfirst is Has the Coalition learnt the wrong lessons from Margaret Thatcher? Thatcher saw that the existing system has failed and proposed a radical alternative. In that sense, we need to emulate her. We don’t need to trawl through the leftovers of her program: an uninspiring ragbag of policies that turned out to be either unworkable (money supply targeting, for instance) or so politically toxic that they are unsaleable even forty years...

In a recent post, I pointed out that long-term (30 year) real interest rates on safe (AAA) bonds had fallen to zero, and suggested that this meant the end of capitalism, at least in the sense that the term was understood in classical economics. On the other hand, stock markets have been doing very well. So what is going on? This is a complicated story and I’m still working it out,An important starting point is the fact that the most profitable companies, particularly tech companies,...