Labor’s Expensive Manufacturing Fetish

I have an op-ed in today’s SMH critical of the federal government’s ‘new’ car industry plan:

Labor’s manufacturing fetish is long-standing and deeply held. Kevin Rudd’s observation, made as opposition leader in 2006, that he wanted Australia to be “more than a mine for China and a beach for the Japanese” suggests this fetish is based on a caricature of the Australian economy…

The billions of dollars in help provided by successive Australian governments to the local car industry has come at the expense of consumers and taxpayers, destroying jobs and income in other industries. This is the real, but largely unseen, cost of industry assistance.

posted on 11 November 2008 by skirchner in Economics

(0) Comments | Permalink | Main

Next entry: When Bubble Poppers Attack

Previous entry: A Libertarian Defence of Alan Greenspan