Triple down economics and the Emma Alberici article

Triple down economics and the Emma Alberici article - Pearls and Irritations

The ABC says that their decision to withdraw Emma Alberici’s article was because it represented an opinion for which there is allegedly no evidence. In fact there is plenty of evidence that increasing corporate profits will not lead to any increase in investment or employment and wages if aggregate demand continues to remain weak. Furthermore this evidence has been endorsed by the IMF, the OECD and others. Can the ABC cite anyone or provide evidence to the contrary, other than the ramblings of Scott Morrison and the Business Council?

Michael Keating, AC, a former Head of the Departments of Employment and Industrial Relations (1983 -86), Finance (1986-91), and Prime Minister and Cabinet (1991-96) wrote on 18 January:

Despite the evidence of the last few decades that ‘trickle-down’ economics doesn’t work, big business and its apologists in the media are calling for a company tax cut to stimulate investment. The reality, however, is that increased investment is principally in response to increasing aggregate demand. The required increase in aggregate demand in turn requires less inequality and faster wage growth, not bigger business subsidies. ...
As the Governor of our own Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe (2017) recently commented: ‘The crisis really is in real wage growth’. Pleas for company tax cuts by big business and their media lackeys, on the grounds that the benefits will trickle down, are the height of self-interested hypocrisy. They are not supported by any evidence, not by any authoritative commenters who have explored that evidence.

There's no case for a corporate tax cut when one in five of Australia's top companies don't pay it - ABC

By chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici
Updated February 14, 2018 11:53:51 There is no compelling evidence that giving the country's biggest companies a tax cut sees that money passed on to workers in the form of higher wages.
Treasury modelling relies on theories that belie the reality that's playing out around the world.

“Don’t Feed the Trolls” Is Even Better Advice Than it Used to Be - Mother Jones

Journalists as a group evaluate social media poorly, and we evaluate Twitter especially poorly. Think about how Twitter works. There are a very few influencers who are determined to root out and denounce anything that’s even remotely problematic. They do this mostly via absurdly hostile readings of other tweets or by making connections that most people would never notice. Nonetheless, once that bell is rung, it can’t be unrung—and their followers all rush in to denounce the micro-slight in question. Why do the influencers do this? Because they’re zealots, and that’s what zealots do. And why do they attract mobs who follow them so uncritically? Because those are the kinds of mobs zealots always attract.

No evidence to support APS staff cap, no idea how many contractors fill the void - The Mandarin

Deputy chair of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit Julian Hill has received very little new information out of senior executives from Finance and the Australian Public Service Commission.
This was despite subjecting them to sustained questioning in the opening hearing of the committee’s inquiry into contract reporting on Friday.
The APSC team could not tell him how many labour-hire contractors are working across the APS, and Finance officials could not explain exactly how the staffing cap is a net benefit to public service efficiency.

Campaigners to stop Brexit prepare six-week advertising blitz - Financial Times

Billboard and digital publicity will target voters in Midlands and north

SA 2018 Election Preview - Antony Green ABC