Linkage

Way back in the late 1990s, more than a quarter of a century ago, the consumer price index (CPI) used to actually reflect the cost of living. It included all of the big costs incurred by households, including – importantly – mortgage interest payments. At the time, mortgages accounted for an average of $5 of every $100 each wage earner spent.

Then in September 1998, in response to representations from the Reserve Bank and the Treasury, the bureau changed the way it calculated the index. It excluded mortgage and other interest payments, in a decision it acknowledged would make the index worse at measuring living costs.

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While the consumer price index (the one quoted by the treasurer) increased 5.4% in the year to September, the living cost index for households headed by wage earners climbed 9%.

For these working households, the price of food climbed 4.8% in the year to September, the price of electricity 14.5% and the price of mortgage interest charges 68%.

It’s the increases in mortgage rates that have made the increases in the other prices hurt so much.

The overall increase in prices faced by wage-earners – 9% – is way above the typical wage increase of 4%.

Bill Mitchell of the University of Newcastle points out that on this measure, the correct one, the buying power of wages has been falling for two and a half years. He says it puts the treasurer’s comments in a wholly different light.

I think this is interesting — certainly clever — and similar in its way to proposals by Bob Hockett and Saule Omarova where they try to squeeze their ideal US financial sector reforms into a shape that requires as little new legislation or disruption to existing agencies as possible. For my money, I think it's essential to establish the MMT Job Guarantee as a clear model for other public provision of essential goods and services, rather than trying to smuggle it in. I mean, neoliberals are not averse to imposing "shock therapy"; why shouldn't we implement our own bold "pleasant surprise therapy"?

The Minimum Wage Jobs (MWJ) Framework is the most operationally efficient version of a Job Guarantee for the United Kingdom. It achieves the dual objective of a modern stabilisation system: eliminating involuntary unemployment while providing a permanent anchor for inflation.

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The framework is a fully distributed policy that requires no new agencies, committees, or open-ended ministerial powers. It functions as a seamless extension of the existing tax and benefit architecture, operating automatically across every region and nation of the UK. The system is designed to be “light-touch,” integrating seamlessly with the distinct tax policies of devolved governments. By processing payments through the established PAYE and RTI frameworks, the policy scales to local needs rather than through central command.

Implementation is pragmatic and low-risk. One-off implementation costs are conservatively estimated at £100 million, with annual running costs under £50 million: less than the current cost of operating the Monetary Policy Committee and the Debt Management Office.

I don't usually follow the Federal Budget nonsense, as it's generally a lot of content-free platitudes and political horse race analysis, but my friend and colleague Kev seemed certain that the Albanese government (of all people) were taking a step in the right direction. So my cynicism led me to seek out business lobby press releases, half-expecting to find smoking guns all over the place. I was wrong. Of course the business lobby are not going to announce "This is fine!" They are professional whingers. To them, it's always the end of the world. However this one sunny exception stood out:

AFIA is also assessing announced changes to negative gearing, set to be limited to new residential property builds, and the decision to replace the 50 per cent CGT discount with cost base indexation and a minimum 30 per cent tax from July 2027, applying to all existing CGT assets.

“In terms of our housing markets, it is pleasing to see the government balance these major tax reforms with complementary supply-side measures – establishing a $2 billion local infrastructure fund and putting $227 million towards accelerating environment and planning approvals.”

"Supply side measures" means public subsidies (such as the 5% Deposit Scheme and the Help to Buy Scheme) to maintain the steady supply of borrowers that are the bread and butter of the finance industry, and critical to keeping property prices inflating at the pretty constant rate of the last quarter century.

Ouch. I am in this video (not literally).

We break down why highly analytical people often get stuck in therapy, especially when intellectualisation, cognitive reappraisal, and over-analysis keep replacing real emotional processing. We look at why thinking about an emotion is not the same as actually feeling it, why the body matters as much as the mind, and why interoception may be the missing link for people who are brilliant at analysis but disconnected from their internal emotional experience.

This is brilliant. Forward to that person (or those persons) in your life who think their lack of civility is a badge of integrity. (CW: this is a post on a sex blog, so there's suggestive advertising on the page. It's technically SFW, but not necessarily the sort of thing you might want people at work to see you scrolling through.)

‘Have I offended you?’ is usually meant sarcastically: like ‘oh no! I have offended you! What horror! Your poor sad feelings might have been hurt! Well, guess what, fuckface?! I don’t care about your feelings! The TRUTH is more important!’

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When someone says ‘that is offensive’ – that thing you do, or that statement you made – they aren’t usually saying ‘this thing is bad because it makes me feel upset/offended.‘ They’re not addressing your action purely because of the impact on them, but the impact on you. They’re saying: ‘doing/saying this makes you look like a bit of a prick.’

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Most of the time when I use the word ‘offence’ or ‘offensive’, I am not trying to imply – as the ‘are you offended’ commenters believe – that you should go to great pains to avoid offending me personally, because my feelings are paramount. I’m instead using it as a gentle nudge. It is a nicer thing to say than what I am actually thinking which is: ‘saying/doing this makes you look like a bit of a prick.’

My dear friend and colleague Susan knocks it out of the park here:

I do not invoke democratic “insolvency” as a metaphor. I mean it literally, seriously, structurally. As Kelton and Raworth insist, an economy’s purpose is to thoughtfully and justly provision the society it serves. The question for the rest of us is what must a democracy’s economy be minimally committed to provision if a democratic society is to remain resilient and sustainable?

Just asking that question exposes a quiet but consequential mistake embedded in much of modern economic and political thinking, one that Meadows would have immediately recognized. Ordinarily, we treat public policy as a menu of options, programs to be debated, adjusted, traded--off, replaced, or discarded, one-by-one, depending on the political moment. But it is extremely likely that, in a modern redesign, some public commitments will not be optional. They may be structural. They may be load-bearing. Moreover, they may only work interdependently, as a system. Remove one, and the whole apparatus may not just perform poorly; it may be doomed to fail.

Well, what a surprise!

Saul Eslake, an independent economist, said the scheme had likely been used by people who would have bought homes anyway while inflating their debt.

“The way it was expanded by Albanese goes to the heart of why we have the housing problems that we have,” Eslake said.

“Whenever governments do things that allow people to spend more on housing than they would have otherwise, they end up spending more on housing.”

A borrower with $50,000 in savings, if required to make a 20% deposit, would only have been able to borrow $200,000. Under the 5% deposit scheme, they would be able to borrow $1m

This is a really useful explainer for the cis people in your life who are perplexed and struggling:

Return to Self is a 5-part video and podcast series, exploring gender affirmation through the experiences and insights of three trans people.

Learn what this means for each of us as we create an environment where trans and gender diverse people can participate, contribute, and thrive.

With ADHD, I was often chastised for misunderstanding simple instructions, forgetting things, not finishing what we start, doing things the wrong way, not caring enough, being too emotional, not being emotional enough.

I soon ended up carrying so much baggage relating to how I’d been rejected, that it felt like everything I did would result in rejection.

After a time, we often learn to become people pleasers to try counter the rejection– by being more helpful, seeking approval, and saying yes to everything because we are trying to counter balance that teeter-totter of rejection/approval.

Of course, with executive function issues, we are often unable to finish what we start, or adhere to and honor our commitments to others easily for a multitude of reasons.

This can, in turn, lead to more heightened experiences of rejection when those same people question our dedication and for over- promising and under-delivering, yet again.

I became trapped in an insidious feedback loop where I’d take on more tasks to compensate for the ones I’d dropped, and I’d fail to achieve those as well, begetting more experiences of rejection. 

Glorious freedom and long, sunny days stretching out ahead. For most, the end of summer term used to signify nothing but a high point in the year, but for Amy Cocksedge, now 24, thinking back to the school holidays conjures up the beginning of an agonising emotional spiral. Something that later carried through to her university days, too.

If messages from friends grew quieter – something that tends to accompany the natural ebb and flow of a busy break – a sensation would wrap itself around Amy's body. Chest pains. Racing thoughts. Hot tears. Every day without a text "would feel like a direct, personal attack," she explains. For Amy, any ambiguity would see her leap to a devastating conclusion: that everyone secretly hates her. Tormenting thoughts of being disliked, or having failed in some way, would override everything.