The former prime minister of the commonwealth of Australia just complained that somebody “dobbed on him.” What is he, like 12?
Richard Holden
12.2K posts
Richard Holden
@profholden
Vice-Chancellor's Professor + Chief Societal Economist @UNSW. Director Manos Institute for Cognitive Economics. Columnist @financialreview. Pres. Emeritus ASSA.
- 3 questions for @GregHuntMP. 1) Has the government been spending nearly $60K per day on McKinsey consultants to advise on our vaccine rollout? 2) Is that a flat rate or are there performance criteria? 3) Given that is has been an utter debacle, can we please have our money back?
- Sweden's death rate per capita 12x Norway, 7x Finland, 6x Denmark. Central bank forecast -4.5% GDP this year. Unemployment is 9% and rising. c.f. Denmark forecast GDP -4.1% and unemployment 5.6%. Anyone who thinks Sweden's strategy was a success needs to look at the data.
- PM on #insiders: "many are wise in hindsight". but plenty of folks were wise in foresight on vaccines and other COVID-related issues. He just didn't listen to them.
- Right on @TurnbullMalcolm: "The reason we are so far behind is because the government last year didn’t buy enough vaccines, they didn’t buy nearly enough Pfizer and they didn’t buy any Moderna...It is a comprehensive failure of administration...you can’t put a gloss on it.”
- .@GregHuntMP: "we are happy to receive any criticism for the things that we control." OK. Things you control. 1. Vaccine purchasing strategy: grade=F. 2. Vaccine rollout strategy: E. 3. Vaccine rollout execution: E. 4. Communications strategy: F. Overall:F. There's some criticism
- Markets aren’t perfect. But markets lifted a billion people out of extreme poverty over 4 decades.
GIF - Hey @ScottMorrisonMP. “The whole world” didn’t put most of their eggs in the AZ basket and then boast about it.
- So @GregHuntMP says there are no plans to require boosters as part of “being vaccinated”. Oh, Greg. Have you learnt nothing over the past year? And if you’re going to hide behind medical advice then get some better advice from some better advisers.
- I guess @ScottMorrisonMP has to say “it’s not a race. It’s not a competition.” Because if it was we would have been lapped multiple times and be battling it out for 75th place. Of course it’s a race—against the virus and outbreaks, and for economic recovery. Wake up PM.
- Actually, no.This is an example of a live-saving innovation generating a massive amount of social value, of which the innovator captures a relatively small amount.And which, if they didn't because some fool insisted on marginal-cost pricing, is an innovation that would not occur.Moderna is planning to charge $130 for its COVID vaccine, but the vaccine only costs $2.85 to make. Meanwhile, over the last two years, the company made over $19 billion in profits off the vaccine. Folks, this is what corporate greed looks like.
- I have had a gut-full of people running interference for the government about Australia's bungled vaccine strategy and rollout. Our lack of urgency and ambition is hugely costly in economic terms and means taking a massive public-health gamble. #insiders
- Brendan Murphy can’t answer the most basic questions. Like how many doses per week CSL is producing. Either he doesn’t know or refuses to tell us. Either way that’s completely unacceptable. #abc730
- Replying to @Adam_Creighton
