Essay by Eric Worrall
You couldn’t ask for a better visual representation of what is wrong with our “let them eat cake” elites than the graph above.
One issue matters more to top economists than any other this election: climate change
Published: April 10, 2022 10.30am AEST
Peter Martin
Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityOffered a menu of issues to choose from as the most important in the May 21 election, Australia’s top economists have overwhelmingly zeroed in on one.
Three quarters of the 50 top economists surveyed by The Conversation and the Economic Society of Australia have nominated “climate and the environment” as the most important issue for the incoming government and the most important in the election.
The 74% who nominated climate and the environment is more than twice the proportion that nominated the four substantial runners up: housing availability and affordability, health, tax reform, and education.
…
None of the 50 surveyed nominated “lower taxes” as important for the election or the incoming government, and only 8% nominated support for business.
The economists chosen for the survey are recognised as leaders in fields including economic modelling and public policy. Among them are former IMF, Treasury and OECD officials, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board.
Many noted that their priorities were at odds with those of both major parties.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/one-issue-matters-more-to-top-economists-than-any-other-this-election-climate-change-180948
Australia is facing a federal election on May 21st. The main contenders are deep green high tax Labor, and the incumbent, slightly less deep green high tax Coalition. Labor are currently in the lead.
None of the economists who contributed to this remarkable downgrade of the concerns of ordinary people have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or whether they will make this week’s rent payment.
The only thing which might shake them out of their complacency is the one thing none of them voted for, a substantial tax cut – a threat to their government underwritten personal financial security.
But with both major Aussie parties committed to blindly throwing money at universities, and both major parties committed to maintaining a large, wasteful state which pours vast sums of our money into useless white elephants like the Snowy 2 pumped hydro project, the income of Australia’s academic elites is secure for now, regardless of how much ordinary people suffer in the coming energy price driven downturn.
Remove people from the work face of real life, supply all their needs without them having to lift a finger, give them the warm blanket of importance without doing anything to earn it and they become imbeciles.
The economists chosen for the survey are recognised as leaders in fields including economic modelling.
don’t need to add anything after modeling.
“… leaders in … and public policy.” You see where the politicians get and exchange advice.
That reminds me of the economist joke:
A physicist, a chemist and an economist are stranded on an island, with nothing to eat. A can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, “Lets smash the can open with a rock.” The chemist says, “Let’s build a fire and heat the can first.” The economist says, “Lets assume that we have a can-opener…” Models, models, models!!!
Yeah. Economists offering improbable assumptions to make their models work.
There are a lot of fools/dupes in this world. These economists (the 74%) are some good examples.
Western society is destroying itself with this CO2/Human-caused Climate Change mass delusion.
About 90+% of ‘professional’ economists are employed either somewhere within the banking system or by academia. As they are typically Keynesians and/or Monetarists by training and inclination, it’s no surprise they would preferably cite issues which they believe can only be ‘solved’ using the heavy hand of government.
I took a basic economics course (e-z A) & after they introduced the
basic supply/demand concept, they immediately presented the
different actions the Fed could take, never even thinking of
questioning whether or not there should even be a Fed in the first
place. It was the Fed’s & other central banks’ inability to control their
respective economies that led to the Great Depression in the first
place. First-rate propagandists in action!
When I studied economics (part of an accountancy course) in the early-80s, mention the Austrian school was reduced to one (dismissive) sentence in the text book.
It’s got a bit better since then, thanks to the efforts of Lew Rockwell et al.
No wonder it’s called the dismal science…
There is no money in Austrian economics…funding wars is expensive.
There is truth, however.
Way back in B-school they required one term each in micro and macro. The former was fairly intuitive, as it was mostly based on so-called ‘classical’ economics. As an engineer, the latter was always a series of ‘wtf’ moments for me due to the amount of crap the Keynesians had to bolt on to their models to make them fit historical events.
“they immediately presented the different actions the Fed could take”
My son is fortunate. His economics class (currently enrolled) is presenting a pretty straight classic (non-Keynsian) take on just about everything. It’s rather objective in looking at things like rent control, government intervention, taxation, etc., and very focused on how those affect the supply & demand curves.
Not sure how he got so lucky, but I’ll take it.
Wait… You think the Depression was an accident? You don’t think The Fed caused the Great Depression and the 2 recessions before that to collapse the independent banks and take control of the US banking system?
Have you stopped taking your scepticism meds? 😀
Tom said, “Western society is destroying itself with this CO2/Human-caused Climate Change mass delusion.”
That’s been the UN’s goal all along. As Margaret Thatcher wrote (back in 2002) in Statecraft about a global response to global warming, “Third, since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.”
Regards,
Bob
Isn’t the IPCC itself run by economists, not scientists, whose goal
was to find solutions to CAGW rather than finding out if it was a
problem? It was the “marvelous excuse” they were looking for!!!
The IPCC’s mission was to redistribute wealth to make the poor countries dependent on the largesse of the elite which would rule the new world order.
Just like Roosevelt’s New Deal, Johnson’s War on Poverty, and the proposed Green New Deal.
Trickle up poverty except for the “chosen”.
Unfortunately she was mistaken. She assumed that politicians are rational and would not advocate local action in the name of climate when only global action could be effective.
But we see local Net Zero in both the US and the UK being advocated and implemented because climate, when such local efforts can obviously have no effect on climate.
The problem is much deeper than it looks. Its the political and media class claiming that disaster is imminent, and then using this supposed disaster to justify doing massive expensive programs which, on their own theories of the nature and causes of the disaster, can have no effect on it.
Let those moneyed Western 1% destroy themselves, but hands off from the 80% not so well off outside of the two US seaboards and the European coastline.
Africa, most of South East Asia and most of South America should be left out of this Eurocentric guilt trip.
‘The main contenders are deep green high tax Labor, and the incumbent, slightly less deep green high tax Coalition. Labor are currently in the lead.’
Here in the US, we’ve traditionally had a similar problem with the ‘get your free stuff here’ Democrats versus the ‘we’re all for that, too, just a little less’ Republicans. We’ll have to see if the Republicans can make some serious hay given pushback against the COVID lockdowns and mandates, inflation, illegal immigration and woke teachers, or, if they again find a way to blow it.
You can add Defund the Police and Soros backed Prosecutors Give Violent Criminals a get out of jail free card to that. Plus, let the Homeless infiltrate neighborhoods and take over parks so children and families can no longer use them nor, feel safe in their own neighborhoods to the list, unless the neighborhoods are walled-in and gated as those of the wealthy are, like Pelosi’s.
But…but…but Pelosi must be for the common people, the downtrodden and the poor – after all she is a Socialist! /sarc
Pelosi – A Socialist Capitalist who gamed the system to make millions of dollars (tfiglobalnews.com)
They don’t have to “find” anything. They are politicians. All they need to do is what come naturally.
Just like the US, here in Australia we have the party of no ideas and the party of bad ideas. I’d rather vote for those who will do very little than vote for those who will actively destroy the economy and the country.
We have a great choice of parties in Ireland: fifty shades of left.
Like down under we have to contend with politicians with no ideas or bad ideas. In their schemes we are unlikely to find any cost benefit analysis. We have a severe and worsening housing shortage. However, the government is talking about admitting 200 000 Ukraine refugees – the US government has spoken of admitting 100 000. Our housing mininster has said a cap on the number of refugees is “off the table.”
Our energy and transport minister is from the Green Party which is part of the coalition government. He is the tail wagging the dog. He seems to have no grasp of basic Math or does but is deliberately deceiving us for ideological/political reasons. I bet you he probably would not even look at the excellent paper, “Achieving Net Zero Economy for Ireland in 2050” by Prof Michael Kelly. If the media were responsible journalists they would use this paper as a basis for asking the minister and government the hard economic questions and demand straight answers.
Ukrainian refugees could be a boon to the economy. Brian certainly benefited from immigration of other groups, such as Pakistanis. These are people who come to work, not to suck on the teat of the welfare state. There is nothing wrong with letting in foreigners. It’s giving them free money that’s the problem. (Also a problem for the natives.)
You’re lucky in Australia that it’s just bad ideas versus no ideas. Unfortunately, in the US the welfare and warfare parties engage in ‘log rolling’ to pass their respective agendas, so we get nothing but bad ideas.
This looks like straight out BS, the article includes comments by the respondents, and none of the ones I read were whacko greenie extinction rebellion types pushing climate change as number 1. (Note: I couldn’t read them all without falling asleep, remember they are economists so they actually never say anything interesting)
Yaeh. No comments elsewhere. It is outside comment free.
Russia colluuuusion;)
How can these people be so out of touch?
Yes.
I’m drafting an “Open Letter To All Ordinary Folk”.
The working title is –
Your World Is Not Their World.
I expand on the absurdities embraced by academics, media, politicians, bureaucrats, activists as compared to the realities of life as experienced by ordinary folk.
And let’s not forget that 7 million persons survey by the UN that resulted in climate being rated last of the 16 concerns they faced in life.
They live in inner cities with their inner city large company ,education or government jobs.For social time they meet for latte or a meal with others like themselves. There only travel is on eco-tours again with others of their kind. They actually think they are in the majority and it comes as a complete shock that their type makes up only a few percent of the population.
The economists hand-chosen for this survey (by an academic publication) were all academics. They would be cancelled if they said anything non-woke.
A survey of real-world economists would produce a very different result.
In Canada, our national broadcaster, the government-subsidized uber-woke CBC, has a list of leftist academics that are their regular go-to-guys for pithy quotes that slavishly support the socialist government line. These university clowns have been so wrong on major topics for so long that they can be automatically dismissed as professional propagandists and fraudsters – they have overwhelming negative credibility and no one should believe them – about anything.
The same is true of the national broadcasters in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and
much of the mainstream media in the USA. There is more honest reporting in Al Jazeera and Pravda.
To summarize, and cut through all the warmist false propaganda, I published circa 2020:
“VIRTUALLY EVERY SCARY PREDICTION BY GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS IS FALSE.”
2022 Update – eliminate the word “VIRTUALLY”.
Agreed.
For my economic model, I used the guy that runs the local plumbing supply store as my “real-world” economist.
My model produced much different economic priorities!
I’ve done more to benefit Canada and the USA by revitalizing the Alberta oil sands and the Canadian economy than ALL the economists in Canada, notwithstanding the gross mismanagement of our energy industry in recent years. Canada became the strongest economy in the G8 for more than a decade. Alberta became the ~only debt-free government in the world. Canada is still the 4th largest oil producer in the world and the largest foreign supplier of energy to the USA, and most of that oil is from the oil sands.
Regarding the economists in the above poll, these guys are not at all scientifically competent – Catastrophic Human-Made Global Warming (“CAGW”) aka “Climate Change” is NOT a serious problem. In fact, global cooling, which appears to be happening now, is a much greater threat to humanity and the environment than alleged global warming.
Told you so 20 years ago.
I don’t think these economists are clueless or out of touch. I think they are elitists who wont be “elite” if capitalism abounds and everyone in the world can live in the kind of luxury the wealthiest people from 200 years ago would not recognize. Therefore, the best things in life (like food, reliable electricity, transportation) have to be denied to the masses so the elite can engage in their conspicuous consumption.
RE: “I don’t think these economists are clueless…
I know one or two who are OK – Ross McKitrick at Guelph has common sense.
Many are highly theoretical and don’t add much practical value.
Question:
How many of them have made accurate economic predictions?
How many of them have proposed economic policy changes that actually added value to society?
Please provide names, times and details.
I won’t hold my breath…..
Albo proved yesterday that the economy is unimportant with his not knowing the current cash rate nor the unemployment rate.
Does this indicate that the economy is unimportant when saving the environment (from CAGW)?
We will save the World, whatever it costs, seems to be the prime consideration for both major parties so the economists are merely keeping their jobs by agreeing with them.
Politicians are fond of telling us how many jobs they will create with their green schemes and knowing the unemployment rate should be a prime consideration to that aim.
John, maybe the economists know their green schemes will lose, not create, jobs so, that’s why the don’t care about/mention the unemployment rate?
On local radio this morning a caller referred to Anthony Stumbleasy.
Is it any wonder the young dependents parrot the mantra of their elder dependents-
Students claim moral win on climate harm (msn.com)
A small stay of execution for the age of reason but a great pity there are no successors to the Beatles to more productively focus and assuage the vapours of adolescent schoolgirls.
The “question” asked is misleading, because it involves two very different questions. The first asks the respondent to pick the issue that WILL be the most important for the incoming government. One could decide, based on one’s knowledge of the government, that it will be climate change while disagreeing strongly. The second asks what SHOULD be the most important in the election, which does reveal the correspondents’ views, but I wouldn’t have much faith in the results of the survey if this how badly the questions are framed.
I have often wondered if it is the most stupid, math illiterate, gullible people who take law & economic courses, or if causes such as global warming & environment if these areas offer better income streams. I am leaning towards the latter.
Are they all students of the WEF?
Regarding:
“Responses of 50 leading economists to the question:”
Happy to fix the headline for them. Send my fee to …
Responses of 50 following economists to the question:
Notice that their numbers are proportional to their expected percentage of government expenditure on those items…
If the emergency was real, and a matter of continuing to exist or going extinct almost immediately, it would be a choice of “On the Beach” if, as some say, it is already too late, or if it were still possible to prevent that ending, do everything possible to abort it. Fortunately those are not the choices. The actual choices are join the hive and give up self, root out the hive creators, or maybe just watch them self destruct.
The ESA poll results listed on the website all seem to be overwhelming in support or overwhelming against the propositions being put suggesting those propositions are selected and worded to elicit that result and/or the respondents are a self-selected group of like-minded tax-funded academics who regard increased government interference in the economy as the solution to everything.
The results are then distributed to the acquiescent media as a form of push-polling.
This is a good one from November 2016:
‘Proposition:
Hillary Clinton is likely to be the superior US presidential candidate for the Australian economy and for Australia.
Thirty-six (75%) of our panellists responded and an overwhelming majority (83%) agreed or strongly agreed with this statement’.
If the people behind Biden are Hillary leftovers we can see what would likely to have happened during a Clinton presidency for the US and the world.
US inflation rate under Trump ~2% now under Biden 8% and rising fast.
Alexander Downer, the Aussie ambassador to the UK, was a Hillary ally who
tried to set up Papadopolous (failed) in 2016 & also got the Aussie gubmint
to make a dishonest $25M contribution to the Clinton Fraudsters, I mean
Foundation. The liberal rats’ network is global.
A masterclass on how to formulate questions in an opinion poll by Sir Humphrey Appleby: Leading Questions – Yes Prime Minister – YouTube
First appeared for the 2019 Federal Election in Australia were candidates masquerading as Independent but backed and supported by high wealth individuals with investments in climate hoax related business ventures: renewable energy so called, electric vehicles, carbon credits and so on. In 2019 only one “Independent” succeeded in gaining a seat and the former Liberal Coalition MP Abbott lost that seat. His female opponent campaigned as being from “the sensible right” but has never voted Liberal according to her answer to that question.
The group of “Independents” are from privileged backgrounds, all women, and only contesting seats held by Coalition MPs, no Labor seats, so the objective is clear. Their backers want influence in the Federal Parliament hoping for a balance of power position even if that requires minor parties including Greens support. The Coalition before 2015 and after 2018 has been led by centre right conservative Prime Ministers who do not toe the IPCC line on climate hoax.
At COP26 Glasgow Prime Minister Morrison refused demands to ban coal mining and exports, to increase Paris Agreement emissions target (Australia was one of few signatory nations that achieved and exceeded Kyoto Agreement targets and is now on track to at least achieve Paris Agreement targets by 2030). Also, refusing to sign an agreement for net zero emissions by 2050 Australia has a compromise position: “an aspirational goal” based on development of new technology and without damaging the economy and economic prosperity.
During the present Federal Election campaign the Labor Opposition and Greens are criticising the Government for not cooperating at COP26 and hinting that a Labor Federal Government would cooperate. And would invite the IPCC to hold COP27 in Australia. In other words pay a substantial cost for the Conference expenses and accept economic vandalism based on renewed demands to close coal mines and fossil fuelled power stations, etc.
I agree with the description “deep green” for Labor, and noting their Union controllers also donate to the Greens Party. But the Coalition has a left leaning LINO (Liberal In Name Only) faction pulling hard left and supporting climate hoax politics, but led by a former merchant banker and lawyer who was a Goldman Sachs senior executive before entering politics as a Liberal MP. One of the “crony capitalists” behind the “Independents” standing for election in 2019 and now in 2022.
The centre right Liberals and Nationals are not even pale green and have told the WEF that Australia will not adopt the WEF economic model, we will continue to support free enterprise (capitalism the left call it) and private sector businesses aiming for economic prosperity for all Australians. And accordingly, and noting that State Governments are responsible for electricity supply and planning approval for power stations and solar or wind installations and much more, continue to push for new gas and coal fired power stations and nuclear modular generators.
The climate change lobby are not happy with the Coalition Federal Government because they have amended company laws to force greater competition between electricity suppliers and to end renewables RET target and subsidies by 2030, and other initiatives.
I can’t agree that the present Australia Federal Government has been high taxing and submit this explanation about their latest Budget for 2022/23.
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/election-2022/election-2022-tax-policy-breakdown/
Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro is a waste of taxpayer’s monies however consider the total estimated cost and include the buyback of shares in the Snowy Mountains Hydro business from the States by the Federal Government, about $6 billion, as part of the negotiations to get the development application passed by the States.
The project was part of the original Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme but was abandoned at that time for not being cost effective, and I understand including concern about the supplies of water available for the hydro power stations including during periods of drought. In recent times they could not deliver electricity enough to support Victoria and VicGov installed many diesel generators in areas, Gippsland, Mornington Peninsula. That crisis was after closure of a coal fired power station that had generated over 20 per cent of the State’s electricity.
Snowy 2.0 was established by the “Turnbull Party” as the then LINO left PM called it.
All this demonstrates is how out of touch with the average Australian these economists really are
Doesn’t The Conversation censor/ vett inputs? It is more than likely non grenies in the survey were dismissed completely, making the result hightly biased and thus, tainted.
Think back when you have put in a climate denier type response to The Converstation or Skeptical Science? You were thrown out and censored, weren’t you.
Thus, this “survey” is yet another pievce of fake news
Is this one of those surveys where people have to choose their top 3, climate comes in third, the first and second choices are spread within the other 9 options, so climate change “wins”?
If only economists knew something about the weather
Eco chamber. They are merely responding to what they expect the answer is due to the amount of media noise and past events.
If you ask them what their fears are, they will have a very different list.
Dont forget, this is a questionnaire about what someone thinks someone else is thinking of.
Whatever happened to the results of the online UN poll which found that globally, the climate came 16th of 16 life affecting criteria like health, education, food cost etc. In at 15th was Internet access……..
It would be interesting to ask what personal sacrifice each is making to stop ClimateChange. Cold showers? No internet? Walk to work? 10% salary donation to tree planting? Lots of ways they could show they really believe.
Climate change has been clearly observed on Neptune:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220411101321.htm
So policy will have to be extended to reducing temperature change on Neptune also to 1.5 degrees C.
Mr. Salmon: That’s crazy talk, here on Neptune it’s worse than we thought and the time for change is now.
Yes well we all know about the leftist front ‘the conversation’. As well those surveyed seemed to be mostly from government organisations, more lefties. The number one concern of economists in the real world is inflation, basic food and energy availability, and tax cuts. These lefties will always make a point that somehow their imaginary fan base doesn’t want tax cuts. It’s because tax cuts reduce the possible size of government and tax cuts give ordinary people freedom of choice on how they spend THEIR money that THEY have earned. The left always know how better to spend your money than you do, and they are not going to spend it on reliable power generation. Electricity scarcity and electricity rationing coming soon.
As an economist and a climate change denier i am surprised. I don’t think many of my economist friends would agree with the academics surveyed. I do a lot of work with economic models – like climate models they involve time series of multi-correlated variables. They have their uses but they need to be used with extreme caution. I work with engineers, and I would say they are more likely to believe in global warming.
Well said David, obviously you work in the real world where your decisions matter and if you get it wrong, you get demoted. These academic economists know they have to toe the CAGW climate party line or they will be censored or cancelled by the green majority in the public service and universities.
However, the tide is slowly turning away from the catastrophists in the UN and EU as they have no idea how to sensibly achieve their global goals without completely wrecking Western economies and their populations aspirational life styles. Given that industrial emissions have been scientifically proven NOT to cause any kind of measurable climate change and the IPCC GCM’s are unrealistic and cannot be used in any predictive capacity, the whole CAGW scare campaign is nearly over.
We have experienced cooler weather over the last 6 years since the 2016 El Nino temperature peak, so in effect we are back down to the 2000-2015 temperature pause levels that could allow us scientists to dismiss the immediate threat of any unlikely runaway global warming over the next decade or two. Therefore we have plenty of time to look at possible mitigation measures if warming resumes or indeed cooling continues as predicted by the Russians and Chinese. Chill out people this episode of global politically inspired madness is nearly over.
So these so called “economists”, want to send the country broke, based on an unproven theory?
It would be rather interesting to contrast the general public’s responses to that same list. I suspect it would show just how out of touch these “economists” really are.
And that para tells us all we need to know. Whether it’s their new supercar or yacht, climatge change is where the bribery is at.
“the 50 top economists surveyed by The Conversation and the Economic Society of Australia have nominated “climate and the environment” as the most important issue” !!
What sort of idiots make up this moribund profession of economists?
They are completely mad. They probably won’t stop even when every city is in flames.