From Dad’s Army comes a bolshy Callam Pickering:
Australia may need a recession to force through structural reform and address growing imbalances in the economy. Major reform has fallen by the way side, from housing policy and competition reform to climate change and tax, as households and businesses become complacent and our politicians increasingly lazy, ideological and incompetent.
…We have one of the most overpriced property sectors in the world. Our tax system encourages property speculation over productive investment, while our banks are bloated and over-leveraged.
But we also have a manufacturing sector that is uncompetitive and headed for extinction, a victim of high wages, elevated land prices and an elevated real exchange rate.
Callam argues that the 1980s and 1990s recession triggered great reform periods. That is kind of true within the broader narrative that economic failure ushered in reform.
The same will no doubt happen this time – cometh the moment cometh the man and all of that – but first will come the pain and new lows in stupid policy.
