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Category: Constraints

19/11/2022

The Myth of Liberal Competence-1

19 November 2022

One of the enduring myths of politics is that conservatives are better money managers. This is the case in the US, where the Republicans, who enthusiastically dismantle government programs that help poor people and the UK Conservatries who do the same. And it is the case here with the Liberals.

Perhaps the logic is that since they are rich, they must be better with money. But I wonder at the influence of Christianity. The key message is that you must suffer to be redeemed. Suffering is worthy and will later be rewarded. This seems to play into notions that the country will benefit if we all suffer now, ‘we’ in this case being those more dependent on welfare, or those at the bottom of the heap.

The other overarching fact in a market economy the more wealthy people can set the prices, which effectively means they set their incomes. At the bottom of the social pyramid, those at the bottom compete for the jobs and wages set by others. In short, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The game ‘Monopoly’ was designed to illustrate this. People play Monopoly, and when they win or lose, they stop the game and go on with life. But what is the game were real and never ended? The losers would get poorer and poorer until they had nothing else to give. That arguably is what a market economy will do without some intervention from an outside force, like a government, to intervene in the cause of those going backward.

Arguably the world’s leading economist is Thomas Piketty. He is a Frenchman who, as he rose, was offered a post in Harvard. He did not take it, opining that economics in the US was theoretical and not based on hard data, as a science should be. Records of national income and death duties going back for 400 years in 4 countries had been put together and he analysed it. His book, ‘Capitalism in the 21^st Century’ is a towering work. It is long, but it is very well-structured with concise conclusions at the beginning and the proof in the later chapters for those who want to read more. He observed that the wages of the population go up at the inflation rate, and the income of the rich who loaned money go up at the interest rate, but the interest rate was always higher than the inflation rate, otherwise there would be no profit in lending. So the income of the rich would always go up faster than the rest of the population, so social inequality would increase in the absence of other interference.

It has always been known that money goes round, and to stimulate the economy people have to spend more. But Piketty points out that poor people spend a greater percentage of their money than rich people. Very poor people spend all the money they have, rich people save about a third. So if you want to stimulate an economy, you should give money to poor people. This is of course not what conservative governments do. They give money to infrastructure, which these days means big private contractors or have industry assistance packages. But these initiatives are giving money to the rich, on the assumption that it will generate more jobs in the long term than the extra consumption would have generated.

(You might ask why Piketty has not got a Nobel Prize for being the first economist to use real data over centuries and come to such a profound conclusion. If you did ask that you might wonder if the Nobel prize economics committee are all neo-liberal economists and you might be right).

The point is without government intervention, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. The best way to minimise this is to have as much shared wealth as possible in the form of park and public facilities, such as transport, health, education and essential services that blunt the significance of income disparities, as a base-line is set without it having the stigma of charity.

But conservative governments, like the Nobel committee want to ignore Piketty and the obvious facts as they do not suit their ideological agenda. A cynic would say that the ideological agenda from right wing ‘think tanks is merely an endless list of convenient reasons to keep the money flowing to the top end of town, to lessen government ‘interference’ which might act for fairness, and to commodify everything such as housing, transport and education so they can become profitable, increase inequality and profit those at the top. How can this agenda ever be considered the foundation of good financial management?

But as Treasurer, Morrison was not even clever in his management of his own revenue. Here is a tale of how his GST deal with Western Australia was out by a factor of almost 10 times over 3 years. Yet the legacy of this shambles is contracts and deal that other have to grapple with.

One of the modest contributions that I am seeking to make to political discourse is to sheet home the blame for failures to the people responsible for them. Here is a start, from the SMH:

Cost of Morrison’s WA GST deal blows out by $20 billion as debt hits record high

By Shane Wright SMH November 14, 2022 — 5.00am

A deal put in place to placate Western Australia when its share of GST revenue was tumbling is on track to cost the nation’s taxpayers 10 times more than originally forecast, helping drive up federal government debt and interest payments to record levels.

Pulled together by then-treasurer Scott Morrison in 2018 before being put through parliament by his successor, Josh Frydenberg, the deal that was originally expected to cost $2.3 billion is now on track to cost more than $24 billion.

WA, which delivered four seats to Labor at the May election on the back of a 10.6 per cent swing, is vowing to fight to keep the arrangement, due to expire in 2026-27.

Morrison struck the deal at a time WA’s share of the tax pool had fallen to an all-time low of 30 cents for every dollar of GST raised within the state. Its iron ore royalties were effectively being redistributed among the other states and territories based on a Commonwealth Grants Commission formula that takes into account each state’s revenue sources and expenses.

Under Morrison’s deal, from 2022-23 WA must receive a minimum of 70 cents in the dollar before increasing to 75 cents in 2024-25. When the policy was put in place, it was expected iron ore prices would fall and WA’s share of the GST pool would therefore rise. Instead, prices have soared.

The Morrison government ensured other states and territories wouldn’t be worse off, which requires the top-up funding for the deal to come from outside the $82.5 billion GST pool.

It was originally forecast to cost federal taxpayers $2.3 billion over three years, including just $293 million in 2021-22, but the surge in iron ore prices has meant more top-ups and for longer.

The October budget revealed that last year, the deal cost $2.1 billion and is forecast to jump to $4.2 billion this financial year. By 2025-26, the cost of the entire deal is on track to reach $22.5 billion, with another $2-3 billion likely the year after that.

Throughout the entire period, the budget is expected to be in deficit, forcing the extra cash to be borrowed. In percentage terms, the blowout in cost is larger than the NDIS, aged care, health or defence.

Independent economist Chris Richardson said the deal had been ill-conceived from the beginning with the cost to be borne by future taxpayers.

He said all significant spending programs needed to be properly assessed, including the GST deal.

“Yes, the politics of it are difficult. But we have a whole host of other issues, like the NDIS, and the economics of them have to be dealt with,” he said.

Any change to the GST deal would create enormous political problems in WA which is likely to gain more political power with an additional seat in a looming federal electorate redistribution.

WA Premier and Treasurer Mark McGowan, who reported a $5.6 billion budget surplus for the 2021-22 financial year, told this masthead he expected the GST deal to remain.

“I have made it very clear that West Australians will not accept any changes to the GST distribution,” he said.

“Those on the east coast who are demanding WA lose out still do not realise that under the reforms, WA will receive 70 per cent of its population share of the GST next financial year. In complete contrast, no other state has ever received a share of the GST lower than 83 per cent.

“WA will continue to subsidise all the other states into the future under this arrangement. No state has lost a dollar under these reforms.”

The extra borrowing for the GST deal has contributed to the lift in gross debt, which on Friday reached a record $909.4 billion.

Ahead of the COVID-pandemic, gross debt was expected to reach $576 billion this financial year. Instead, it is now forecast to reach $927 billion before reaching $1 trillion in 2023-24.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the cost of servicing the debt was getting more expensive and was now the budget’s fastest-growing expense.

“We’ve made good progress in a very short space of time. We’ve found $22 billion in savings and kept real spending growth flat across the forward estimates,” he said.

“[But] it will take more than one budget and more than one term of government to make up for a decade of missed opportunities and messed-up priorities.”

05/11/2022

The Twitter Story- and the bigger subtext

5 November 2022
Elon Musk likes to play in every game. His car company existed on hope for many years, but has at last ramped up production. He is in software, AI, batteries, cars infrastructure with tunnelling and trains, space rockets, investments, and now politics.

Twitter has established itself as the world’s political events exchange platform. A new concept like Twitter, which allows direct person to person contact was a good idea. Naturally if there is to be a conversation, everyone has to be in it, so a monopoly system is favoured if the system is new and is seen to work. So Twitter has become unique and immensely powerful. But the technologies that have everyone able to have an equal voice enable radical and socially damaging perspectives to be aired and publicised, legitimised by their ubiquity. Radical groups can link up with others anywhere, adding strength to isolated opinions and tending to lead to discussions that become even more radical and may lead to action.

So the social effects of the new technologies have created new and effectively unaccountable power structures. The regulation of these can be by government edict, as in China, or left to the corporate owners as in the West. Both these regulatory actions and the lack of them are controversial and many have long term political and social effects.

Now Elon Musk seems to have offered to pay too much for Twitter. He tried to withdraw his offer, but was forced to honour it. Having paid too much, he now wants to cut staff numbers radically. I was under the impression that social and political pressure was making Twitter more responsive to concerns about its social and political effect and its staff were part of an effort to minimise any harm it might do. If this is so, it is likely to be, no staff = no action.

So looking at Twitter as purely a financial entity verges on the absurd, but that is what is happening. And a financial mistake by Musk, and his corrective action in sacking people may have considerable effects. Commentators are already talking about the polarisation of US politics and the rise of violence with the storming of the US Capitol and the easy and unsophisticated attack on Paul Pelosi.

So the subtext of the situation is that an unregulated world market allows the immense concentration of power such that when the world’s richest man corrects what is for him a relatively minor financial error a major world information system is significantly disrupted and may become dysfunctional. (Whether it was considered dysfunctional before is a matter of opinion- it is hard to get an exact understanding of how much power the Twitter information model has).

One of the more ridiculous features of our society is that those with money, or who know about it are assumed to know about everything. They know about money, and have usually specialised in making it to the exclusion of other concerns. Often, it is dubious that they have the faintest idea about the implications of their actions.

Because the world’s economy advisers have allowed the world to become just a market we have the equivalent of elephants in China shops and we wait and wonder which way they will turn. A more cynical view would be that we have a situation where the playthings of the rich can have massive uncontrolled consequences and there are no regulatory mechanisms that have either the will or the power to influence the situation in the public interest.

The jobs of the Twitter employees are the tip of a very large iceberg, and the stories of Twitter’s share price have a much larger subtext. Here is an article from today’s SMH:

Twitter staff shut out as global purge starts
Zoe Samios, Nick Bonyhady

Twitter Australia staff were being locked out of their company accounts yesterday as billionaire Elon Musk’s job cuts hit the local office in Sydney, which employs about 40 people.
Musk told confidants he planned to eliminate half of Twitter’s workforce to slash costs at the social media platform he acquired for $US44 billion ($70 billion) last month.
Local staff in marketing and news curation were shut out of Twitter’s systems after receiving an email signalling layoffs but without any official confirmation that their jobs were being axed. Others were waiting to see if they would still have a job come Monday.
One employee said there was a sense of relief. ‘‘It’s not the company that we joined, and it’s not the app that we all love any more,’’ they said.
Others familiar with the company said the news team, which selects articles on topical moments in the national discourse, is among the largest local units and had about 10 staff. Some communications staff for the Asia-Pacific region have also been locked out.
Twitter’s local public relations representative declined to comment.
Australian staff received an email yesterday morning saying Twitter would ‘‘go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce’’. Staff were to be told whether they still had a job via email by 9am Pacific Standard Time, or 3am AEDT yesterday, but the lockouts started early.
‘‘We recognise that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward,’’ the email, which was obtained by the Herald, said.
The Herald revealed in July that Twitter was closing its Australian office in Sydney, with staff to work from home.
All told, Musk wants to cut about 3700 jobs at San Francisco-based Twitter, people with knowledge of the matter said this week. The entrepreneur had begun dropping hints about his staffing priorities before the deal closed, saying he wants to focus on the core product.
‘‘Software engineering, server operations & design will rule the roost,’’ he tweeted in early October.
Twitter was sued over Musk’s plan to eliminate the jobs, with workers saying the company is doing without enough notice in violation of federal and California law. A class-action lawsuit was filed on Thursday in San Francisco federal court. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act restricts large companies from mounting mass layoffs without at least 60 days’ notice.
Security staff at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carried out preparations for layoffs, while an internal directory used to look up colleagues was taken offline on Thursday afternoon, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Employees have been girding for firings for weeks. In recent days, they raced to connect via LinkedIn and other non-Twitter avenues, offering each other advice on how to weather losing one’s job, the people said. with Bloomberg

01/11/2022

Want to know about high energy prices?

4 September 2022

It is about market failure. When public power utilities were privatised a market was set up and power producers could bid into a market to supply at a certain price for each period of time. But obviously if someone bid in at a low price for part of the market, they would then watch as others bid in higher and made more money. So the price to all producers was set at the last bid, so the cheap producers made a lot of money.

There were a few problems. The amount of electricity needed varies widely. Coal fired power is not very flexible-it needs a constant load, cannot be stopped and can vary its output only slowly and within a limited range. When renewables came, solar is only in the daytime, and wind varies, so the system had a problem with ‘stability’- the ability to dispatch power when it was needed.

Another problem was rorting, though no one wanted to talk about this. There were big players who could withhold power so that there was a shortage; the price went up, and then they all cashed in. ‘Imperfect competition’ as economists would call it. No one wanted to build coal plants and there was not enough storage to let renewable energy last overnight or for dull or windless days. So the Morrison government said that gas was a ‘transition fuel’ and more gas plants would be built.

Meanwhile the Australian gas industry agreed to massive export contracts on the assumption that they could frack Australia as the US had been fracked. But the environmentalists realised the harm this did and resisted. So our price of gas went up. So the companies pressured the Albanese government, which is now breaking its election promises and approving fracking. Sorry environment- what is a bit of permanently polluted groundwater and desertification between friends?

Of course years ago, publicly owned utilities run by professional engineers were charged with providing electricity and gas to the public on a non-profit basis. They charged enough to cover their costs with some money for maintenance and future planning. The price was the average price of generation, not the most expensive component. The model worked quite well and could again. The change to a ‘market’ was ideological.

At an international level, the problem is similar, but it all being blamed on Russia, which is only partly true. Naturally in a globalised world, we are also affected by the European gas market, but less directly, especially if we frack to get out of it; which is a very bad solution, substituting a long-term problem for a short-term one.

Here is an international article:

https://eand.co/this-is-why-your-energy-bills-are-going-through-the-roof-cc99e2a59d12

26/10/2022

Electric Vehicles: How helpful are they for Climate Change?

5 June 2020

There are claims and counter claims for how much electric vehicles (EVs) improve the greenhouse gas situation. The production of batteries is quite energy-intensive, so a large battery car takes about twice as much energy to produce as a normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car.

The ‘payback’ time for that extra energy is about 2 years based on the number of km an average (UK) driver does per year.

But the key variable is how the electricity is generated, both in making the battery and in running the car. If it is made in Asia with coal fired electricity to manufacture the car and then charged with coal powered electricity, there is very little benefit. If the battery is produced by renewable electricity and the car charged with renewable electricity, the savings are more than two thirds by 150,000km.

If you keep your old ICE car for 4 years, it will have produced about the same amount of greenhouse gas as it takes to produce a new electric car. Looked at it the other way, it takes 4 years for a new electric car to pay for itself from an emissions point of view as against paying just for the petrol of an existing ICE car.

www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change

16/10/2022

‘It’s the Monopoly Game Stupid’

13 August 2022
In case you missed it, that is a misquote of Bill Clinton’s 1992 election mantra, ‘It’s the economy,
stupid’. (He beat George W Bush when the US economy turned down).
Other apposite quotes are Stalin’s ‘The only thing I believe in is the power of the human will’ and
Mao Tse Tung’s ‘Power comes out of the barrel of a gun’.
The Stalin and Mao quotes relate to the power of governments, Clinton’s the power of economic
forces. It seems that the economy is more powerful than governments, as it was responsible for the
collapse of the Soviet Union, and the current rise of China is partly because they have a new model
where they set the rules for the economy.
The other variable more powerful than governments is technological innovation as it totally changes
the way we live, but this is not a point I want to discuss now.
The two Wars last century were over access to markets, so at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944
that set the rules for a post WW2 economic system the object was to eliminate trade barriers so that
countries that were doing well would rise, and those doing poorly would fall, all this happening
gradually and without wars. This has turned the whole world into a market, and because money
crosses borders so easily, big companies can take over smaller ones, and governments, being
restricted by their borders have their powers limited. The ability to move jobs offshore makes
workers compete globally.
As governments’ power has fallen relative to big companies and the best brains in the nation go into
companies rather than into government, many governments do not believe that they can defy big
corporations. The Australian governments following the interests of the mining lobby and the
Murdoch press are just a couple of examples. Another is the tax and (non-)royalty system, and yet
another the drive to privatise public utilities as Capital wanted the returns from performing certain
functions that had previously been done by the public service for no profit. The governments did
not have the courage to say ‘No’, particularly as the companies were generous donors to the
political parties.
As in a Monopoly game, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer unless there is government
intervention, and even this has limits.
As we struggle with rising inflation rates, falling relative wages, house prices supercharged by 40
years of negative gearing and manifestations of rising inequality, we need to look at the root causes
and to what extent they can be modified. Governments need to rattle their cages domestically and
cooperate more internationally. Is Albanese up to it?
www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2022/08/13/how-tax-bludgers-are-ripping-their-
fellow-australians

16/10/2022

An Optimistic View of Australia

22 July 2022
It is nice to have some sensible optimism.

Spanish tycoon tells our fortune
David Crowe SMH 15/7/22
A global green energy mogul sees Australia as a sure bet. Other money will follow his.
The bulls were running through the streets of Pamplona when a young Jose Manuel
Entrecanales encountered some of the first Australians in his life – and promptly got into a
fight. The Spanish businessman, now one of the biggest investors in Australian clean
energy, is hazy on what the fight was about. He was in his late teens at the time and had
joined thousands of others at the San Fermin festival in northern Spain. Was alcohol
involved? No doubt. But he remembers settling the argument at a pub.
It turns out that the way Australians settle their arguments is one of things Entrecanales likes
most about the country. In short, he respects a place with a solid court system. It is one of
the reasons he is planning a pipeline of projects here worth $26 billion over the next few
years.
Australians are prone to putting their country down. Or complaining about the politicians who
have messed it up. So the view from Europe might help explain why Australia still has
immense opportunities ahead. Entrecanales was born into money but knows how to make a
lot more of it. And he is placing big bets on Australia becoming a powerhouse in renewable
energy.
‘‘From an objective point of view I find that you have, by far, the best variables for growth
and for stability,’’ he says when asked if he is happy with Acciona investments here since

‘‘I mean, you are a legally binding country. Which is, in fact, a show of legal maturity
because people need the resources of law and legal arbitration because it is very efficient. In
other countries you cannot do that because, in the first place, it is not fair and, secondly, it is
not efficient. So that is, to me, one of the
biggest assets you have, that you are naturally a very solid democracy. Then you have the
biggest amount of natural resources in the world.’’ He is not just talking about oil and gas
and coal: his investment plan is all about wind and solar.
‘‘And then you have something that, I’ve noticed, you Australians don’t see so much as an
asset and you’re very worried about, which is the infinite capacity to attract talent. I mean,
you have a line standing outside your borders of probably three billion people just waiting
outside to be allowed in. And you can select who comes in. ‘‘That asset, together with all the
other elements – space, resources, the rule of law, democracy, political stability – all of that
is just unheard of. Think about where you can find that. Maybe Canada,
despite the fact they have lousy weather most of the year.’’
Why should Australians care what one of Europe’s elite thinks about investing here? Parts of
Australia, including most of the Nationals, are convinced Europe is wasting its time on
renewable energy. Their scepticism about the Acciona boss would only rise if they learned
he has been advocating a price on carbon for years. To make things worse, he plays polo
and his family is worth about $5 billion, which puts him at No.4 on the El Mundo rich list for
Spain.
Yet Entrecanales has made that fortune by being smart enough to anticipate the change in
global energy over the past three decades. He inherited a construction company and turned
it into a renewable energy giant. He put money into the wind farms in Spain in the 1990s.

Around the time others were inventing the worldwide web, he was commercialising clean
power.
That makes his opinion count. And if he thinks Australia is a good place to build more clean
power, you can be sure others will reach the same conclusion. Some will do it for the good of
the planet. Others will do it to boost their bank accounts. Either way, the change is coming.
The Acciona chairman believes there is a solid rate of return on Australian renewables when
measured in the basic unit of global finance, the basis point. He evaluates everything by
whether it can deliver 300 or 400 basis points, which is to say 0.3 per cent or 0.4 per cent in
returns above the cost of finding the capital to build the project. He says 300 points would be
‘‘a reasonable objective’’. In Australia it might be between that and 400 points. That might
not sound like a lot, but it suggests Australia may have a slight edge in attracting investment.
What is next? Probably hydrogen. The commercial barriers are significant. But Europe is
putting immense amounts of time and money into making green hydrogen work as a way to
store and
transport energy created by electrolysis that is powered by electricity from renewable
sources.
In the Netherlands, the Port of Rotterdam has struck deals with companies including Shell to
import and generate hydrogen to send by pipeline into Europe.
In Spain, the company that builds the trams for Sydney’s inner west light rail, CAF, has built
a hydrogen train using fuel cells from Toyota. It will be tested on the country’s rail lines at the
end of this month. Navantia, the company that built three air warfare destroyers for the Royal
Australian Navy (and wants to build three more), is developing a submarine powered by
hydrogen.
Entrecanales says Australia would be a natural exporter of green hydrogen. But he thinks
the trade in hydrogen will only happen at large scale when the price is cut in half from the
current $12 or so per kilogram.
‘‘We’re living a moment of truth in trying to develop this technology,’’ he says. ‘‘I think we’re
close, meaning I’ll see it in my shift – meaning, my professional life.’’
So Entrecanales is betting on Australia. He is running with the bulls. Some of the crowd will
be mauled, of course. Some will get into a few fights.

16/10/2022

Priorities for a Pro-Life US State Senator

3 July 2022
One of my US friends quipped that ‘Republicans are pro-life until it is actually born’. During the birth
process Republicans are against free health care and after the birth they are against welfare, child
support, living wages, equal opportunity in education etc.
The Pro-life senator in Oklahoma, Wendi Sherman, who was the proponent of the abortion ban
there, said, “The purpose [of government] is to protect life, not to provide for citizens.”
The practical corollary of this definition of the role of government is that women are forced to have
children that they did not want and then forced to care for them, when they knew before the birth
that this was too difficult to attempt. One might ask whether this is the same religious view that was
extant when I was young that having a baby was punishment for the sin of having sex. There is no
quote or evidence of a question on this subject, but these sort of fundamentalist views do seem
extant in the US.
I wonder if political hardheads in the Republican party just use abortion to shore up the significant
religious vote. Abortion is painted as a ‘life and death’ issue and so has great weight. Other policies
like foreign wars, tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts to Medicare and welfare programs can sail
through because of this preoccupation/obsession.
www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/abortion-rights-oklahoma-roe-v-wade/101167280

24/04/2022

Huge Corporate Rort with Petroleum Resource Rent Tax

24 April 2022

Foreign companies are paying no tax due to deficiencies in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT). You may recall that the Rudd government tried to bring in a realistic tax based on the one that they have in Norway with a sovereign wealth fund set up to tide the country over a rainy day (like a COVID epidemic perhaps). The extent of the tax avoided is currently 13% of GDP!

Rudd was targeted by a combination of the miners and Murdoch, who he was trying to stop getting a virtual monopoly of the Australian media.

When Rudd fell, Gillard came in and introduced an alternative tax, which allowed her to save face, but one commentator some time later noted that the increase in miners’ profits that year was almost exactly what Rudd’s tax would have raised, and the new tax raised almost nothing. It was also said that the Tax Office had not modelled the new tax, and it came from the miners. This fits the theory that it was a face-saver so that Australians would still think that the government was actually in control.

Here we are a few years later, with a whole election debate is about tax, tax cuts, handouts and the cost of living, yet neither of the major parties have the guts to call out the real tax avoiders, who actually changed the legislation in their favour. The Greens do and for that they are called radical lefties!

The government takes credit for the COVID bounce-back recovery, which has nothing to do with their policies, and for the low unemployment rate which relates to the lack of backpackers and students, who usually do the dirtiest and least safe jobs for sub-award wages, not to mention the definition of ‘employment‘ as having at least one hour of work a week. The claimed 4% unemployment rate is actually a bad joke.

Here is an article in Crikey from Bernard Keane:

www.crikey.com.au/2022/04/20/prrt-could-be-biggest-theft-in-history/

08/04/2022

Bullshit Jobs

8 April 2022

The idea of bullshit jobs is not new. It comes from a book in 2018.

However, with employment supposedly doing well, largely because we have excluded guest workers due to Covid, it is worth looking at how many jobs are actually needed.

Everyone needs something to do and a reasonable income to live on. The status of having a job relates generally to its perceived income, though there is some ‘doing good’ status associated with jobs like nursing despite their being chronically underpaid.

But technology replacing people has not brought the expected benefits because there seems no plan to spread the benefits evenly, or look at whether what is being done has any social utility. Many jobs that need doing are not done. Many people who want to work cannot, yet much energy and money is spent doing useless things.

I waste about 80% of my time as I treat Workers Comp and CTP injuries. About 20% of my time is deciding what treatment is needed, and about 80% filling in paperwork or writing reports to try to get the treatments paid for. On the other side there are a phalanx of clerks trying not to pay and to transfer the costs elsewhere. (i.e. to Private Health Insurance, Medicare or the patient themselves). Many doctors and lawyers also strive mightily in this unproductive area. The bottom line is that while the overheads of Medicare are about 4.5%, the overheads of CTP are close to 50%,; i.e half the money goes in processing or disputing claims or in profits for the companies indulging in this nonsense. And since many patients often cannot get the treatment or suffer long delays because of their efforts, it is a really bad use of human energy.

Someone needs to look hard at what we do and where the benefits go. Assuming that ‘the market’ will fix it is about as sensible as saying that ‘God’ will fix it, and is usually espoused with the same uncritical zeal.

Here is Wikipedia summary of the book:

In Bullshit Jobs, American anthropologist David Graeber posits that the productivity benefits of automation have not led to a 15-hour workweek, as predicted by economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930, but instead to “bullshit jobs”: “a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”[1] While these jobs can offer good compensation and ample free time, Graeber holds that the pointlessness of the work grates at their humanity and creates a “profound psychological violence”.[1]

The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:

flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks;
goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers;
duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive;
box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers;
taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals.[2][1]

Graeber argues that these jobs are largely in the private sector despite the idea that market competition would root out such inefficiencies. In companies, he concludes that the rise of service sector jobs owes less to economic need than to “managerial feudalism”, in which employers need underlings in order to feel important and maintain competitive status and power.[1][2] In society, he credits the Puritan-capitalist work ethic for making the labor of capitalism into religious duty: that workers did not reap advances in productivity as a reduced workday because, as a societal norm, they believe that work determines their self-worth, even as they find that work pointless. Graeber describes this cycle as “profound psychological violence”[2] and “a scar across our collective soul”.[3] Graeber suggests that one of the challenges to confronting our feelings about bullshit jobs is a lack of a behavioral script in much the same way that people are unsure of how to feel if they are the object of unrequited love. In turn, rather than correcting this system, Graeber writes, individuals attack those whose jobs are innately fulfilling.[3]

Graeber holds that work as a source of virtue is a recent idea, that work was disdained by the aristocracy in classical times, but inverted as virtuous through then-radical philosophers like John Locke. The Puritan idea of virtue through suffering justified the toil of the working classes as noble.[2] And so, Graeber continues, bullshit jobs justify contemporary patterns of living: that the pains of dull work are suitable justification for the ability to fulfill consumer desires, and that fulfilling those desires is indeed the reward for suffering through pointless work. Accordingly, over time, the prosperity extracted from technological advances has been reinvested into industry and consumer growth for its own sake rather than the purchase of additional leisure time from work.[1] Bullshit jobs also serve political ends, in which political parties are more concerned about having jobs than whether the jobs are fulfilling. In addition, he contends, populations occupied with busy work have less time to revolt.[3]

As a potential solution, Graeber suggests universal basic income, a livable benefit paid to all, without qualification, which would let people work at their leisure.[2] The author credits a natural human work cycle of cramming and slacking as the most productive way to work, as farmers, fishers, warriors, and novelists vary in the rigor of work based on the need for productivity, not the standard working hours, which can appear arbitrary when compared to cycles of productivity. Graeber contends that time not spent pursuing pointless work could instead be spent pursuing creative activities.[1]

24/03/2022

Planning Minister Anthony Roberts scraps flood and fire checks in Planning Laws

March 24 2022

Almost unbelievably, NSW Planning Minister Andrew Roberts has scrapped requirement of his predecessor Rob Stokes that fire and flood risks be considered in planning approvals. This is only a week after the worst floods in history, and a few months after the worst bushfires.

His excuse was that he had a priority to act on affordable housing. No doubt flood-prone land is cheaper.

One might think that It is almost impossible to explain such stupidity, but we might note that the Property Council and the Urban Taskforce supported the decision, with the usual disparagement of ‘red tape.’

We might also note that Minister Roberts started working in Parliamentary offices at the age of 22, worked for Flagship Communications as a PR person and was cited by journalist Chris Masters as the liaison person between Alan Jones and John Howard’s offices. Flagship Communications was the PR company for the Orange Grove development, which set up a ‘factory outlet’ and turned it into a full blown shopping complex (until it was shut down by then-Premier Bob Carr after lobbying from Westfield). He became an MP at the age of 33 as member for Lane Cove.

There has been quite a lot of negative reaction to his planning decision in the letters columns.

Here is the SMH story:

NSW Planning Minister scraps order to consider flood, fire risks before building

By Julie Power March 22, 2022

NSW Planning Minister Anthony Roberts scrapped a requirement to consider the risks of floods and fires before building new homes only two weeks after it came into effect and while the state was reeling from a deadly environmental disaster.

Mr Roberts last week revoked a ministerial directive by his predecessor Robert Stokes outlining nine principles for sustainable development, including managing the risks of climate change, a decision top architects have branded “short-sighted” and hard to understand.

But a spokesperson for Mr Roberts said the minister had been “given a clear set of priorities to deliver a pipeline of new housing supply and act on housing affordability” by Premier Dominic Perrottet.

The president of the NSW chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects, Laura Cockburn, said the decision was difficult to understand “after the recent devastating floods and with bushfires still scorched in our memory”.

The revoked directives had sought to address “risk-management and resilience-building in the face of such disasters”, Ms Cockburn said.

“In the midst of our current flood and housing crises, why would a government choose to remove planning principles aimed at disaster resilience, and delivering affordable housing?” she said. “This is a short-sighted decision that could have enduring negative impacts.”

Mr Roberts’ spokesperson said: “The minister did not consider that the planning principles due to take effect on March 1 would assist in delivering his priorities so discontinued the principles and issued a new ministerial direction to that effect.”

Mr Roberts’ move coincides with expectations the government will also scrap or substantially change the new Design and Place State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) under consideration for apartments and homes. The policy stresses sustainability, quality and liveability by requiring, for example, better ventilation.

Mr Stokes’ directive on sustainable development, issued on December 2 but in effect from March 1, was designed to simplify the planning system, cut red tape and put people first. It said housing should meet the needs of the present “without compromising those of the future”. It was scrapped on March 14.

These principles are also reflected in the new design policy developed by the office of the State Architect. It is being reviewed.

Mr Stokes directed the planning department, developers and councils to also consult Indigenous landowners, consider the risk of climate change, and provide the public with information about the risks of natural disasters where they developed, lived or worked.

“Land use should be compatible with the level of risk of an area, such as open space or playing fields in flood-prone locations,” Mr Stokes’ statement of principles said.

Many in the property industry expect Mr Roberts will abandon plans for the new Design and Place SEPP.

Luke Achterstraat, NSW executive director of the Property Council of Australia, supported Mr Roberts’ move. With NSW facing a shortage of about 100,000 dwellings, the council backed any measure that sought to reduce red tape and activity that would “unblock” the planning system.

“The added significance of why we support the Minister’s announcement is that he has doubled down on housing supply and affordability, and has recognised the industry has been in an elongated process of policy reform.”

He said the Property Council expected the new Design and Place SEPP would either be set aside or substantially changed. Mr Achterstraat said the government’s own modelling found they would cost an additional $2.3 billion.

The chief executive of Urban Taskforce Australia Tom Forrest also applauded Mr Roberts’ decision.

“Planners were confused. Lawyers were aghast. Developers were exasperated. It is great to see this unwelcome initiative abandoned,” Mr Forrest told The Urban Developer, which first reported Mr Roberts’ policy change.

Stephen Albin, an analyst and principal of consultants Urbanised, advised Mr Stokes on the scotched principles.

He was disappointed to see Mr Stokes’ principles abandoned when NSW’s planning system needed reform. “The definition of stupidity is doing something again and again, and expecting another result,” he said. “We wanted a modern planning system that was inclusive.”

Ms Cockburn said she hoped the latest change by Mr Roberts would not impede the significant efforts to design places to meet the needs of their communities in the Design and Place SEPP.

Architects across Australia are also campaigning for new planning policies that ensure clearer standards and codes to protect consumers from worsening impacts of climate change, including new controls for building in floodplains.

A recently released research report by Climate Valuation found a million homes nationwide will be “at high risk of devastating riverine flooding by 2030 without investment in adaptation and mitigation”.

The future of building on floodplains will also form part of the inquiry into the NSW disaster that has left nine people dead and thousands with damaged homes.