The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Economist circa 1987

As told by Dr Don Stammer:

"The Economist recently did its survey on Australia and it was written by – it was published in late May. I thought it was quite an outstanding survey. It was written by a guy called Johnny Grimond, who also wrote the survey on Australia in the beginning of 1987, and in 1987 he – at the beginning of '87 he took quite an optimistic view on Australia, and you had to be pretty brave to take an optimistic view on Australia. It was within, what, seven months of the banana republic comment by Paul Keating. And he summarised his optimism in one sentence, which was: "If you look at history, Australia is one of the best managers of adversity in the world and the world's worst manager of prosperity."
at 2:40 PM