Institutional Economics: ‘Light Reading It’s Not’

Never Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Dumb Story

Chris Joye points to a piece by Michael Pascoe, reporting on a speech by RBA Deputy Governor Ric Battellino:

Reserve Bank deputy-governor Ric Battellino quietly destroyed a bunch of major myths this week – turns out we’re actually good savers, our household debt isn’t a problem, the housing affordability crisis has been exaggerated and our foreign debt is sustainable. In short, most of the usual scary headlines about the domestic economy are rubbish.

You’d think that would be worth a few headlines, but the RBA made a couple of mistakes in the timing of what is really a very good news story.

Pascoe thinks the speech got buried by the RBA minutes, released the same day. But Pascoe is mistaken if he thinks Battellino’s comments were newsworthy in the usual sense. Battellino and other RBA officials have been arguing along these lines for years. The comments are only news to those who haven’t been listening. If Battellino’s comments were under-reported, it is perhaps because his remarks are embarrassing to the lazy prejudices peddled by so many media commentators over the years.

As noted in the previous post in relation to the Henry review, the media are more than capable of ignoring arguments that are inconvenient to established narratives. Commentators like George Megalogenis and Mike Steketee could hardly ignore the most comprehensive review of the Australian tax system ever undertaken, but they still managed to write it up in way that pretended it was something other than a wholesale repudiation of most of what they have previously written on the subject.

posted on 20 June 2010 by skirchner in Economics, Media

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Electronic Frontiers Australia Fundraising Drive

Electronic Frontiers Australia has been campaigning for online civil liberties since 1994 and is currently on the frontline of the battle against the federal government’s internet filtering regime. They are currently conducting a fundraising drive and I hope IE readers will join me in making a donation. EFA Board members are not paid for their efforts, so you can be sure funds will be used for campaigning purposes.

posted on 22 March 2010 by skirchner in Media

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Transparency Policy in Practice

The federal government often references IMF reports in support of its policies, but is none too keen on facilitating interactions between Fund staff and the media. The IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office report on interactions with Fund members notes that:

the authorities of some advanced economies that had been major proponents of the Fund’s transparency policy in practice resisted the timely disclosure and dissemination of mission findings.

That would be us:

Press conferences/calls associated with the publication of the Public Information Notice and the Staff Report took place in the remaining countries, with the exceptions of Australia and New Zealand.

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