Transparent Capitalism?

2021–06–11

There currently exists impediments to the dissemination of data in Australia, these hamper the transparency and accountability of the operation of government. In order to achieve a greater, transparent democracy, it is proposed that clearer information is available about representatives, their party, such as how they vote in every bill, whether they vote in line with their parties policies, the expenditure of each member, staff costs, consultants employed, to name a few. Ideally, the education and or experience of each member should be considered and a factor given to compensate for the perceived effectiveness where increased education or experience is demonstrated. Once each representative’s data is collected, tabulated, it can be compared to other representatives to illustrate the most efficient and consistent representatives. We can’t rely on the existing means of the media as they have demonstrated repeatedly to miss information or focus on whatever their editor believes is in the public interest. What if the facts were readily at your disposal?

Australia is considered a democracy, where a bicameral system of government exists, one house is called parliament and the other the senate. In the state of New South Wales (NSW), the equivalent is the legislative assembly and legislative council respectively. Democracy is a system of government where citizens, eligible to vote, elect a representative for an electorate that is normally a geographic region, that representative aims to govern for the issues raised by that electorate. The state and country are made up of electorates, the elected representatives of those electorates attend sittings for both houses where bills are proposed, debated and enacted into legislation for the state or nation. Transparency implies openness and accountability of the prescribed task. The greater the transparency in the task, the more accountable the representatives are as those who they represent can see their actions, thus the less the potential for corruption which results in increased trust of the organisation or process.

It is proposed that since the mainstream media cannot provide sufficient unbiased news of the political process, policy being implemented, the magnitude or egregiousness of the inefficiency of our representatives, that new methods be implemented to raise the profile of the failings. Whether mainstream media picks up on these “quick ratios” or not, is a matter for their own reflection. The purpose of this paper is merely to highlight that these “quick ratios” are not only possible, but should be made available at all times, to increase the understanding and transparency of government.

Technical Summary:

Member: an elected member of the house of representatives or senate, such that they are being paid by the commonwealth of Australia.

Party: a member is either independent of a political party, or a member of one. Generally a political party acts as a block when voting for a specific bill or policy in a sitting, they will only be allowed to vote against their party when the item is one of conscience, or they specifically stand and cross the floor to vote against the bill or policy.

Quick Ratio: an immediate test that demonstrates specific features, typically used in accounting or reporting of financial statements for corporations.

Background:

Many political and economic commentators have claimed that Capitalism has failed, much like 4 years ago when populist non left politicians gained control of some countries the term “democracy down” was used. Covid-19 has given us the perfect intermission to consider an economic break, we should avoid de-globalisation, however; de-globalisation could address some of the supply side issues that this pandemic has revealed. Suffice to say that I’m not anti capitalism nor anti west, or pro east or any type of ideology that is contrary to independence that leads to an increase of individual liberties. Trade wars or embargos do not work in the long run, and are contrary to the principles of liberty, if we take the Cuban embargo as an example, the people have survived it, but have missed many opportunities, thus with the arrival of a new President, seek the lifting of the embargo.

The last few decades has shown that some governments have been asleep at the economic wheel, this has led to the current predicament of precarious economics. We need a better solution, where we are not weak to attacks from opposers to our political or economic ideals, what those solutions are, are yet to be found. My first ever manager once said to me, on my first week, “Visibility drives Accountability”. Accountability is the forefront of many organisations today and builds up leaders within those organisations. My career, both academic and working in Financial services has shown that most corrections (professional/personal) occur because of a lack of information or information not being widely available at the time. To this aim, I propose an alternate solution to our economy, a Transparent Capitalism. Economics has the idea of efficient markets, where the more efficient the transfer of information, the more efficient the market. So why not in the broader economy, or politics?

Transparency of what?

Australia, like most countries, has strict regulations on the country of origin of goods. I’m still wondering why are we not black balling regimes that are contrary to the good order of society? Of course I believe that consumers would jump on their smartphones and google/research the company of the brand of good they wish to purchase, but this is time consuming. My last trip to KMart showed that people will pay $10 for a $20 product, regardless of where it is made. This is the reason that the country of origin labelling exists, but to my understanding, should be more prominent. The next question is: what should be on the label? In this 2020 world the consumer wants to know, on top of the existing information about the company, its approach to global issues and the quality of a good:

Where a good is made;

What is the origin of the main components;

Who owns the company, and essentially;

Where are the profits going?

It is a certainty that when consumers know that brand X or Y are made in Z, they will be capable of making better choices for them, their families, and the effect on them, their families and friends and even their country, because of that information.

We can apply the same principles from transparency of goods to that of services, and ask the questions:

Who are the main owners/shareholders?

Where is the entity based?

Where are the majority of the employees based?

In short, we want to have better transparency of all the factors that make individuals and entities in the global market, a good corporate citizen. We already have it when it comes to vegans, and other vocal parties, but they are the most vocal. Sometimes, it is the silent majority that we went to hear from.

While the above points can be used for the good of the economy, the same principles can be applied to politicians’ transparency. I’ve long pondered several issues that journalists should be tracking and ranking, or parliament and treasury could be doing where journalists have failed to do so:

listing all members of each house,

their attendance at sittings,

the number of staff they have,

the entitlements paid to them,

a cost to attendance ratio,

have they voted according to their political beliefs.

In short, we need to know which politician is working hard or hardly working. Transparency of their work and their affiliations (political & social) is a necessity for voters to choose effectively and efficiently. While it is available partly for an individual member, it is not in an easy to read form across all members or candidates. I’d propose that political transparency could address the failings that have led us to bureaucratic interpretation of the legislation, grinding to a halt the progress of policy or creating more rules.

Post war(s) “golden age” the next economic solution?

It is incontrovertible that post WWII, the world had a “golden age” in economic recovery. The USA has traditionally been a war economy and only been at peace for just over 20 years since 1776. Noted economists have argued against war, as collective peace is more efficient to the global economy, and that war isn’t an effective mechanism to build global demand as it creates more issues than it resolves, even in recent years, post 11 September 2001, economists warned about armed conflicts creating more problems. So it is a safe assumption to make that war is not an economic solution to resolving aggregate demand, it is a cost and when considering the opportunity cost, war is the sub-optimal choice.

However, if we look at the last 120 years, we’ve had major conflicts in 1914–18 with WW1, 1939–45 with WW2, the Korean 1950–53, Vietnam wars 1955–75, Gulf war 1 & 2 in 1990–91 & 2003–11. Of course there have been many other conflicts, but these are front of mind given the USA’s direct involvement. The dot com bubble occurred in the early noughties with great ideas but insufficient profits, occurred just before Gulf war 2. Then we have the Global financial crisis of 2007–9 which was caused through the decadent spending through debt and its spread throughout the worlds financial markets, occurring at the tail end of Gulf war 2. The rise of ISIS/Daesh and the Syrian civil war saw the continuation of the Gulf war 2 and US involvement. One might easily be mistaken with the idea that the boom bust cycle has, is or continues to be war, debt and recovery then find a new war cycle. We may never eradicate the need for war, but can certainly as rational and logical voters, demand of our politicians better, transparent evidence for the need for certain endeavours or expenditures.

Capitalism vs Neoliberalism

Has capitalism failed or is it the component of neoliberalism as some have said? I doubt that it has, but others can argue that. As an economist in 2021, I’m befuddled by so many “liberals’’ who claim from a minority state that leftardism works (yes I said it, socialism doesn’t work). Even the Swedes can tell you they are not socialist. But don’t take my word, even the world press got it wrong. I know I’ve had a few ex’s will cringe, like when I said that baby brain was a fact, but facts are facts. Watching Bloomberg, they repeatedly argue that we’re at a brink, watching ABC in Australia, how misogyny has led to this economic cataclysm for failing to provide more fiscal stimulus for failed businesses. I’m at odds, how we can help businesses reliant on tourism, yet internal tourism is constrained by xenophobic premiers(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/coronavirus-queensland-covid-border-restrictions-nsw-lift/13095724), no one handed NSW how to handle it, but it’s clear in hindsight who is doing right by its citizens. Maybe the alp and green’s policy of ostracising other states, isn’t working, much like jacinta ardern across the “detch” [ditch] (https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/no-new-covid-19-cases-report-in-community-one-border-v1).

De fund, De globalise, De chinafy?

In countless statements I’ve proposed the possibility that we, as a society should, must, and if we are to proceed successfully, should de-chinafy our economy. Economics promulgates the possibility that a suboptimal path exists where we rely on a single provider. We should spread the risk where each nation, or organisation can produce products or services independently, thereby distracting the markets centralisation, promoting an optimal level market and conglomerating production. Opec already does this, where production or supply is decentralised. How the world bank has failed to raise this supply risk, makes this writer profoundly annoyed. It’s only been raised during the rona times. Regardless, I am but a drop in the ocean in this discourse. I’ve only been on national radio as an economic commentator for two decades and a half, arguing that a bubble in property exists in Australia, that Quantitative Easing with inflict on society inflationary pressures that over a decade have been predicted, and could actually arise, of which there are a growing number of commentators that are calling for action now. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I’ve been predicting 20–30% drops in property, when “the big one” hits, but governments and institutions keep protecting borrowers. I still remember my parents not being shielded in the late 80s by the near 20% interest rates that forced us to sell our recently built home. I say, it’s time we made those who are over-leveraged meet reality, sooner rather than later.

The issue at present is the flag waving of western “liberty” or “eastern” serfdom. Having grown in the west, but having trusted in the east (Russia), lived west, believed in northern (Nordic) ideals and in the certainty of southern consistency (Australia, the longest democracy in existence), that we would prevail. Sure, we’ve survived a few waves of the wuhan flu, but what next? Signing off June 2021, Charlie. p.s I started this in June 2020 and not much changed. Help, from the past. Give me more liberty.

At this stage, we have discovered that lockdowns to the economy and society don’t work. So if we are to be a society of facts, we should accept that vaccinations are not the golden bullet, masks — if they work — will remain, contact tracing will remain for the short term at least and we need to push people to understand that we will eventually have more pandemics. Unfortunately, for those currently living in Melbourne Victoria, they must feel like the Jews of old, stuck in Egypt, with plagues and devastation, and Moses being the two Liberal Democrat members, calling for liberty. Broke back dan and co, let the people go! Will governments follow suit? Let’s hope it’s soon.

Either way, I’m working towards a goal where we can make government accountable. If you have any suggestions, points or ideas, please feel free to suggest. More is coming soon.