[Peetwo]

Sandy in reply to Money Morning - 

Via the AP email chains: Link - https://www.moneymorning.com.au/

11/01/2023, 10:22 am

Subject: Kiryll’s Australia European comparisons

Hello Money Morning,

May I respectfully suggest that a better comparison would be with the more free enterprise model of the USA which has a similar geographic spread and is far less bound by the stultifying rigidities of government imposed land use controls which are so prevalent in Europe and Australia. Around twenty years ago the London Economist characterised our land use “planning” law as about the strictest in the world. Australia’s suburban detached house and backyard model is nowadays very much the product of the system that’s been distorted well away from that which would pertain in a free market. 

It’s the political landscape that is the most telling factor today in determining the degree of the Australian ‘tyranny of distance.’ 

For example we are embarking on a colossal expense by government to build a new rail link that has no prospect of commercial success according to all of several studies. It’s perfectly obvious that investment in roads would be far more advantageous to allow goods to go directly to the places of need as dictated by the market. Overbearing bureaucratic control in the field of Australia’s General Aviation, due to our corporatisation of the administration (loss of Ministerial control), has proven disastrous. A quite extraordinary decline in one very important area of communication considering our vast and sparsely populated continent. 

Having followed in my lifetime the spectacular post WW2 free market growth then witnessed our lapse into the bureaucratic morass of land zoning, which denies all of the opportunities and efficiencies of market forces, causes me to follow the fortunes of zoning free Houston Texas. I suggest that here is an excellent example, perhaps unique, of the efficiency of a free market in the most crucial of all ‘commodities’ that of the land itself. 

Houston has strong population growth, people voting with their feet, they have one great advantage compared to Europe or Australia, much lower residential costs and land valuation and therefore a much lower mortgage burden. 

In regard to Germany’s success in ‘renewables’ where it is now reopening lignite mines, and a world where there are millions fearing for their lives and millions who would like to be on breadlines, this is even more political with confounding complexities and makes news about some hydrogen fuel project hopeful but hardly helpful. 

Regards,     Sandy Reith 

MTF...P2