Re: PKT debate

[Steve.Keen@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Dear Paul,
A quick note re your q on Accord 11 (or was it VII?) 1993. Basically,
I am in complete agreement i with Bill's previous post--the Accord has
turned into a real wage constraint mechanism, which in the late 80s
directed most of the increase in income to profit, with speculative
rather than investment outcomes. The aftermath of the collapse was
that unemployment simply had to be addressed. Hence the content you
refer to in the Accord 1993 document. But we have begun a faltering
recovery here--n one which leaves unemployment at over 10%, as O I
noted earlier--and even that has been sufficient to have the clamour
for erduced budget defit deficits outweigh that for increased
labor market programs.

On that note, Bill commented that the US expeience with training
the unemployed was that "the ghettos filled up with PhDs". Today
a local newspaper observed that even manufactureres and small businesses
have a similar opinion of the recent shift from infrsatructural programs
(which were part of the plan when unemployment was high and the economy
stagnant) to "training the unemployed", which is the government focus
now that unemployment is high and the economy is not so stagnant.

In other words, rhetorix and reality are as far apart in Oz as they
often are in parts Nofrth. The Accord document probably (I haven't read
it, only reports of it; Bill is ubdoubtedly better informed here than
me) expresses what the union movement would prefer was overall government
policy, more so than what policy often is.
Cheers,
steve Keen