Invest in the future: read the opening keynote address to the jobs summit
Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood has delivered the opening speech for the jobs summit in Canberra. Read the full document below.
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A great analysis of the economy but no solution to the elephant in the room, or actually two elephants.
This second one is based on over 40 years of successful grooming of the voting public by those for whom that paradigm serves which prevents real action on urgent needs of this time: mental and physical health & well being that begins with people’s basic needs being met, and the looming slow motion disaster that is climate change.
Does it cost the govt anything in practical terms?
No.
Because the govt can issue or withdraw as much money as the economy needs to run optimally.
There is no “upper limit” of govt spending or taxing other than perception. They should be done to the level that serves the greater good.
It is as wrong to say “the govt cannot afford to spend more dollars” as it is to say “astronomers cannot afford to calculate the distance to newly discovered galaxies because they can’t afford more light years”.
.
That is, dollars, like light years are simply a unit by which we can measure real things. Or maybe better, dollars are injected into the economic engine to an optimal level, too much will flood it and lead to other problems, too little sees it grinding noisily and straining, parts breaking down, and unable to deal with unexpected emergency demands (where we are now).
A government deficit is balanced by, reflected in economic surplus. Full employment is only one “lodestar” and achieving this with good pay and conditions is easily achieved if we shift our perceptions,. Proper social services and access to all the basics of life for all has to be another “lodestar” which is achievable, if we want it. The idea of withholding support as an incentive is patriarchal sadism.
There are other factors and parameters by which decisions are to be made but, for our federal government “lack of money” is not one of them. A government that is monopoly issuer of its own currency can afford anything measured, priced, in that currency.
Correct. The neoliberal financial doctrine, is, and always has been, a resounding failure.
Benefits flow to the already priveledged, at the expense of the population majority. Sadly, Labor are too terrified to address the multinational stranglehold on our economy.
Ms Wood has presented a comprehensive roadmap for both the economic and social prosperity of Australia. If her provocations are adopted and implemented, then this alone would make the jobs summit are resounding success.
We’ve had at least a decade of Govt policy actively favouring rent seeking industries and the suppression of labour.
It would be nice to see this Government categorically state that the days of those leaners are numbered (and deliver policies that drive a partnership approach to prosperity)
Hmmm ‘Full Employment’; wasn’t that the Reserve Bank’s original raison d’etre?
Well worth the read!