Via the AFR:
If Mathias Cormann is elected the next secretary-general of the OECD, he will have to get his head around one of the most complicated and important policy issues facing the global economy – the taxation of global technology giants.
A lot of water has to flow under the bridge before Cormann is comfortably ensconced in the OECD’s Château de la Muette in central Paris.
But assuming his candidacy wins the support of the Europeans, his job description will include global advocacy for ending tech company profit minimisation.
Erm, cough, sure it will. I have it on excellent authority (that is, insiders of the Aussie Parliament) that Mathias is the Morrison Government’s most radical supply-side nutter. He is not corrupt which might make this position forgivable. He actually believes in trickle-down economics, which leaves the room short of oxygen given Cormann is obviously intelligent.
This obsession can be seen today in Australia’s ill-conceived budget response to COVID-19. The budget featured an unprecedented focus upon supply-side stimulus that overturned a century of Keynesian public spending and investment evidence. As direct result, the Australian recovery will be weak and further entrench inequality, as well as secular stagnation.
The other major recovery initiative of Cormann’s Government is a spectacularly retrograde energy plan that rewards an egregious gas cartel with government subsidies for worldbeating malinvestment to privilege fossil fuels over renewables for the remainder of the cycle.
This speaks to a deep climate skepticism in Cormann that is evidenced by his never having voted in favour of climate change mitigation in the Australian parliament.
Finally, Cormann has been a key part of an Australian Government that has gone out of its way to persecute refugees so that it can sustain public support for economic migrants from cheap labour jurisdictions to smash Australian wages (that is, more wholesome trickle-down at work).
In short, if the OECD would like to swing towards:
- a supply-side agenda that will intensity class divisions, exacerbate secular stagnation and privilege corporate greed, plus
- become more climate change skeptical and slow mitigation policy whenever and wherever possible, and
- harden its stance against refugees…
then Mathias Cormann is your man!
