Jim Chalmers’ essay tries to make sense of our economic mess, not save the world

Margaret Ludowyk writes: Guy Rundle is sounding like just another grumpy old white man (“Chalmers’ plan isn’t radical. Labor needs an alternative to the rule of capital”). He’s either got a vivid imagination or he’s just looking for attention with his exaggerated critique of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ essay.

Chalmers’ piece didn’t read like a plan to me, just a high-level summary of how we got to the economic mess we’re now in and a few general ideas about how we need to come up with novel solutions. I’m not sure how Rundle read so much between the lines.

Erik Kulakauskas writes: Chalmers’ essay in and of itself is a step in the right direction, and Rundle sets it right and addresses some of the important detail. I would add the following, which is only a brief grab at what would help us all.

Public/private partnerships are not the answer. In practice, the taxpayer takes all the risk and the private sector takes all the profit. I fail to see how this benefits the rest of us which surely is the intention of ”values-based capitalism”. Capitalism, and thereby profit-seeking, has no place in key social areas such as education, health, aged care, the NDIS and public transport. The critical end-user suffers badly from substandard service delivery to satisfy the profit motive in these sensitive service areas. I have the sense these service areas do not require more money thrown at them — importantly they need to be restructured.

Even if they do require significant additional funding there are plenty of funds for the taking for a government with vision and courage. The bucket includes, for example, the stage three tax cuts, taxing the mining and energy companies and the wealthy appropriately and fairly, desisting the naive and silly expenditure on fanciful defence projects, and targeting the rent-seekers and the leaners. Back of the envelope — about $100 billion a year.

We are not short of money, but we are well short of good and effective governance and management.

Peter Best writes: Guy Rundle writes well and was for some time the main reason for my subscribing to Crikey, but I’m getting tired of him always knowing more than anyone else, always being better at anything than the people whose job it is. His certainty is becoming off-putting. He should read some of his long-ago pieces, see what he’s lost, and see if he can find it again. 

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