Archive for August 2010
The mining industry and the rent resource tax: The Institute of Public Affairs gets it wrong
Gerard Jackson Monday 24 May 2010
There have been complaints that my attack on Ken Henry’s destructive resource rent tax was dishonest because “… you know that strictly speaking these are profits and not economic rents”. But my point is that there is no such thing as an economic rent and hence Henry’s rent tax can be logically extended to the profits of any enterprise. Moreover, I explained in detail why the doctrine of economic rent is utterly fallacious, a fact that most of Ricardo’s contemporaries readily exposed.
The Treasury wants to impose the fallacious rental resource tax on mining companies
Gerard Jackson Monday 16 November 2009
The concept of economic rent is an absolutely dreadful fallacy that has been a permanent part of economic theory since John Stuart Mill published his Principles of Political Economy in 1848. Fortunately it has been largely ignored with respect to economic policy. Enter Treasury boss Ken Henry who in his wisdom has decided that a resource tax based on this long-refuted fallacy is an absolutely spiffing idea. According to this genius a tax on what most economists call economic rent could yield $20 billion to $25 billion over the next ten years. And guess what? It will be absolutely costless. Why? Because economic rent is an unnecessary surplus the taxation of which has no effect whatsoever on investment and output.
Rudd’s disastrous resource rent tax: how the right let the country down again
Gerard Jackson Monday 14 June 2010
A short time ago Gina Rinehart — Australia’s richest woman — helped lead a protest in Perth against Prime Minister Rudd’s destructive resource rent tax. The striking thing about this event is that no one who addressed the crowd, including Rinehart, indicated even a passing acquaintance with the true nature of the tax. If they had done so perhaps they would have realised that the reasoning upon which the tax is based is totally fallacious.
The Greens’ policies would destroy the Australian economy
Gerard Jackson Monday 16 August 2010
Senator Bob Brown has emerged as a destructive parasite. A green fanatic living at the public trough whose economic wish list would destroy the Australian standard of living, which is exactly what it is intended to do. Not only has the media overlooked just how elitist and loony Brown’s green economics really are so have our rightwing.
Exports cannot save the Obama economy
Gerard Jackson Monday 16 August 2010
No matter how grim the economic situation some Pollyanna will find a silver lining that indicates a mother lode. And as night surely follows day we find that said silver lining was only tinsel. The current silver lining is the old fallacy of export-led growth. Some commentators are arguing that recovery in Europe will spur the demand for US exports which in turn will generate sufficient economic growth to restore full employment. I guess one needs a PhD from an accredited university to come up with this nonsense.
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