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The 20th Century economic debate

 

For much of our history NSW (then, after 1901, Australia) has been extraordinarily vulnerable to climate and agricultural trade cycles.

 

 

‘The chart shows Australia’s economic progress over 140 years... ‘The volatility was enormous both before and during the Industrial Age (1865-1964) largely due to weather. Agriculture remained over 15% of our GDP for most of that period…  ‘a 25% fall or more in output would slice 4% off the economy by itself - with a domino effect through the food & fibre input-output chain - causing a recession. We had 27 such years or one every 3-4 years...’

Phil Ruthven IBIS 

 

During the 20th century Australian governments experimented with the full spectrum of government interventions to develop manufacturing; both to reduce our dependency on agriculture and to increase Australia’s military resilience.  To grow and protect manufacturing Australia applied, then abandoned: selective tariffs; publicly owned businesses; and enforced government purchasing preferences. 

Until the start of the 20th century the political differences in pre-federation Australia were polarised around the issue of ‘free trade’ verses protection (NSW versus Victoria).

The electoral success of the Australian Labor Party (in 1910), following the Marxist social analysis in the mid 19th century and English Fabianism, led to a new polarisation around worker’s rights and the socialist alternative to capitalism; retaining a strong protectionist sentiment.  With the split in the Labor party, at the start of the ‘Great Depression’, a new ‘United Australia Party’ (in government from1932 -1941) formed around Lyons and Labor splinter groups, together with elements of the older establishment parties; both free traders and protectionists.

Thus by the middle of the century, both major parties had elements combining the older protectionist movements, as well as elements supporting socialism and public ownership. Protection and government owned enterprise became an accepted reality on both sides of politics; reinforced by two world wars.

By the mid 1960’s, under the protection of import tariffs and direct government involvement in economic production, manufacturing in Australia had grown to become the largest and most productive sector in the economy, long supplanting agriculture, services and mining.

But at the end of the Menzies/ McEwen era, in the late 1960’s, it was apparent that much of this manufacturing and government enterprise was inefficient and unable to compete internationally. With the new Universities, post-war academic sentiment was swinging towards Neo-Keynesian (eg Samuelson) or Monetarist (eg Friedman) economics and the intellectual climate changed. 

Free trade and free market arguments prevailed, in both major political parties, and the progressive withdrawal of protection followed, along with the disposal of government owned businesses and local buying requirements.

In 1967 the first minerals boom and a large increase in foreign investment lead to the dollar’s decoupling (un-pegging) from the pound sterling. Its strong upward revaluation followed.  Together with the Federal Government’s determination to dismantle protection, this contributed to rapid economic restructuring.

 

 

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Travel

Bolivia

 

 

In October 2011 our little group: Sonia, Craig, Wendy and Richard visited Bolivia. We left Puno in Peru by bus to Cococabana in Bolivia. After the usual border form-filling and stamps, and a guided visit to the church in which the ‘Black Madonna’ resides, we boarded a cruise boat, a large catamaran, to Sun Island on the Bolivian side of the lake.

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Fiction, Recollections & News

My Mother's Family

 

 

All my ancestors are now dead.  I'm an orphan. So for this history I've had to rely on my recollections a small pile of documents left by my mother. These include short biographies of several of her relatives. Following the female line; these recollections briefly span the two world wars; to the present.

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Opinions and Philosophy

The race for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine

 

 

 

 

As we all now know (unless we've been living under a rock) the only way of defeating a pandemic is to achieve 'herd immunity' for the community at large; while strictly quarantining the most vulnerable.

Herd immunity can be achieved by most people in a community catching a virus and suffering the consequences or by vaccination.

It's over two centuries since Edward Jenner used cowpox to 'vaccinate' (from 'vacca' - Latin for cow) against smallpox. Since then medical science has been developing ways to pre-warn our immune systems of potentially harmful viruses using 'vaccines'.

In the last fifty years herd immunity has successfully been achieved against many viruses using vaccination and the race is on to achieve the same against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19).

Developing; manufacturing; and distributing a vaccine is at the leading edge of our scientific capabilities and knowledge and is a highly skilled; technologically advanced; and expensive undertaking. Yet the rewards are potentially great, when the economic and societal consequences of the current pandemic are dire and governments around the world are desperate for a solution. 

So elite researchers on every continent have joined the race with 51 vaccines now in clinical trials on humans and at least 75 in preclinical trials on animals.

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