Hubris and Arrogance.

No. No. No.

I am tired of hearing the clap trap that Labor lost the 2019 election because it had a BIG target strategy. WRONG. Labor lost the 2019 election because it had a STUPID target strategy.

It was a platform for a massive increase in taxes to finance a massive increase in the size of the state.

And although perhaps Labor lost the election in 2019, it won the debate because Australia’s government has never been larger and never collected as much in tax and never spent as much.

So when clowns like Melinda Cilento and Stephen Smith write in the AFR that:

But aside from Labor’s notable, though ultimately unsuccessful, exception in 2019, elections have become an exercise in small target strategy

They need to go back to the drawing board.

And for some more no no no. Can certain “economists” stop claiming they speak for all economists.

Again Cilento and Smith:

Any credible ordering of economic reform priorities for Australia would place tax reform near the top. Indeed, for people passionate about public policy and the prosperity of Australia, there are few topics like tax. It is an issue in Australia that seems to embody all four of the classical genres: epic, irony, tragedy, and a particularly dark form of comedy.

Yours truely is an economist and tax reform is not near the top of my list and not near the top of the list of many other economists to whom I speak.

Top of my list is spending reform followed by regulatory reform followed by political governance reform.

In as much as structure follows strategy, in government, taxing follows spending.

The arrogance and hubris of these two clowns is why Australia is in its current economic hole.

Frederick Hayek wrote on epistemic humility emphasising the importance of recognising the limits of individual and collective knowledge in social and economic systems.

Perhaps these 2 clowns spent too much time reading Marx and Keynes to have bother with Hayek, Sowell and Friedman.

It is fools like these who bestride the corridors of Canberra and consult to government and advocate for even more central planning. And more is the pity and more is the loss to Australia.