Weekly roundup Saturday 1 August
Smaller and cheaper than a gas power station. (Neighbourhood battery Dickson ACT)
Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.
Australia ’s energy transition
Electricity prices continue to fall: batteries are changing the economics of electricity.
Less progress in the rest of the economy: the government’s offset measure, the Safeguards Mechanism, comes under question.
Other economics
Inflation, interest rates and all that stuff: perhaps CPI inflation has peaked, but does the Reserve Bank notice?.
The sad story of housing productivity: we still rely on a cottage industry to build houses.
The sad story of union membership: trade union membership is only 13 percent of the employed workforce — that’s bad for capitalism.
How wealth is spread: don’t be misled by mean data on distribution — look instead at median data .
Politics
Victoria’s political drama: Pauline Hanson, the CFMEU, the hard-line “Christian” right, and Ben Carroll all make for interesting politics.
Firearms control: Why Labor fails where the Coalition succeeded — did timing work in Howard’s favour?
Public ideas
Angertainment: “social media” allows scare campaigns to morph into hate campaigns.
Celebrating a big build
If you have comments, corrections, or links to other relevant sources, I’d like to hear from you. Please send them to Ian McAuley — ian, at the domain name ianmcauley.com
