Comments on: GDP growth does not equal a quality Australian economy.

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:05:28 +0000

The latest unemployment figures have me a little puzzled. Where are the new jobs being created I wonder? I will look into this over the next few days.

By: Dave L

Dave L — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:29:19 +0000

But the RBA & Treasury will continue to focus on GDP. I am not sure if they have enough depth to contemplate the merits/demerits of focusing on GDP growth alone.

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:24:20 +0000

Thanks Niko. I just try and raise some views that don’t get a lot of airtime in the mainstream media.

By: Niko

Niko — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:27:28 +0000

Great post. Good to see someone seeing through the spin.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:56:16 +0000

Yep, climate change is a red herring. I reckon the world talks big about climate change because it’s too $hit scared to fess up about peak oil. And peak gas, and eventually, peak coal. It’s all just too big to contemplate.

It’s taken us probably 150 years to build the modern economy based on cheap and abundant oil. Now we’ve got 30-40 years max to find something else to power the global economy. And we’re in no hurry.

I agree that climate change is spurious at best – something that we can quibble about and that our grandkids may get to witness. But peak oil is something that is geologically provable, will affect us in our lifetime and no one wants to talk about it. Probably a good enough reason to jump into oil exploration stocks.

By: Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:45:06 +0000

Ralph the problem we have now as I see it is most of the public cheer when GDP grows but really have no idea why they are happy. They are simply told that positive GDP is good and so that is the end of the debate.

Few in the media bother to look behind the numbers and even some of the leading financial journalists don’t seem to really think about the quality of economic growth.

Your point about Peak Oil is important for two reasons because:

1. We don’t seem to have an energy policy in Australia aimed on getting us weaned off oil and;

2. There is actually a point at which the world’s C02 emissions will start to decline anyway because we begin to run out of oil and coal.

Maybe we can solve a lot of future problems by simply focusing on reducing the use of oil and coal? We could stop exporting and using coal over the next 20 years and that would make a big difference but ooops, I forgot about “clean coal”, silly me

I also don’t buy into the “poor China needs cheap fossil fuels to develop” story. If they can spend a fortune building up their military then they can afford to invest in cleaner energy generation.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:40:25 +0000

Well said, Greg.

I’m sure GDP is not the best measure of economic activity, but that’s what we have for now. Much of it is political games, as you say. It looks like a bit of an exercise in churn. People in work, money spent, trinkets produced – it’s all good if the conveyor belt of the modern economy can be kept spinning and everyone can purchase more stuff. Genuine longer term outcomes for society are all secondary really.

And I think you’re spot on re the lack of interest in the rate of depletion of natural resources. That’s something that never ceases to amaze me – that we are in a hurry to exploit finite resources that by their very definition will run out at some stage in the medium term.

Take peak oil for instance. No one disputes that it will occur – just a matter of when. Even if we’re optimistic and say it occurs in 2040, that’s only 30 years to completely overhaul the fundamental building block of the modern economy. And no-one seems to care – we’ve got time, we’ll find more oil. Forget climate change, I just find that incredible.