Commerce
The Market was always Right
Choices that faced society could only be framed in economic terms. The profit motive was the sole driving force of all civilisation and GDP was its only metric. Any attempt by governments or citizens to meddle in the course of business could only be construed as a direct attack on growth.
Wealth creation was seldom could only be achieved by hard work and balancing of risk. All decisions were made by unfailingly rational agents. Riches were always nearly always seldom never acquired by inheritance, hypergamy, corruption, rent-seeking or asset-bubbles.
“Market Failure” was an oxymoron. Only monetarism, globalised free trade, deregulation, freedom of contract, small government, business tax-cuts, level playing-fields, nimble competition, resilient optimism, continuous privatisation, austerity, increasing foreign investment, intersectional micro-economic & structural reform and completely unfettered markets could never always determine the fair value of everything, and deliver increasing prosperity for the ruling-elite shareholders stakeholders all.

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Not a house of cards then: People's jobs depend on confidence and trust in the financial and banking system. And I can assure [everyone] that, despite the very disturbing and, indeed, shocking revelations we have seen in the Royal Commission, particularly of late, that these issues, while as abhorrent as they are, are completely separate from any question about the stability and strength of [our] banking and financial system.
(Morrison, 2018)


Pedestrian footbridge at Barangaroo (Apr 2016, 286kb)
Both feet on the ladder: We all became millionaires by flipping real estate to each other at ever increasing prices


Renovations in suburban Stanmore (Sep 2012, 207kb)
Ghosts of the CBD: Governments pleaded with voters to return to the cities to restart the economy


King Street pedestrians head home after work, Sydney CBD (Sep 2016, 248kb)
Everywhere the glint of gold: Vibrant cities crammed full of soaring casinos, buzzing with energy and excitement and industrial-scale money-laundering


Microflite City Helipad, Yarra River Melbourne (Apr 2019, 352kb)
Future growth model: A bustling economy filled with baristas, bloggers, unpaid interns and food delivery independent contractors


Lower Baldwin Street, Dunedin NZ (Nov 2017, 347kb)
Stake your claim: A lot of micro-businesses were created when the factories shut down, resulting in strong employment growth among non-employees


Small business badge window display, Wentworth Street Port Kembla (Sep 2014, 666kb)
Consumer karoshi: We needed to create a culture in which our customers were prepared to die


Market Street escalators at Centrepoint, Sydney (Jan 2016, 359kb)
Kriegsende 1989: Cheap goods turned out to be more effective than ICBMs


Stall on Tverskaya St, Moscow (Dec 1991, 347kb)
Financial kinesiology: Despite all the green-shoots, confidence, sound fundamentals and near-zero interest rates, it appeared we didn't survive the crash


Outside the Sydney branch of the Deutsche Bank in Hunter Street.
A bank security guard tried to prevent me from taking this photograph due to copyright reasons
. I hope he enjoyed my detailed and patient lecture on photography-rights (Jan 2012, 203kb)
Cargo Culte: We lounged about in ill-fitting uniforms, languidly pressing buttons on small screens… waiting patiently for the day He would return, bearing great gifts


Palm tree outside the abandoned St Mary & St Mina's Coptic Orthodox Church at Sydenham, near Sydney airport (Sep 2012, 338kb)
Fumbling the revolution: We threw off the shackles of a command economy to enjoy the benefits of privatisation


Street vendors 200m from the Kremlin on Tverskaya St, Moscow (Dec 1991, 303kb)
Driven by unceasing mobility: Remember the physical-distancing rule and only travel when essential


Waiting for the Cronulla Ferry at Bundeena Wharf (Aug 2020, 341kb)
Clip service: Legacy media could always look forward to a future brimming with promise


Testaroossa Sammy-Santino Mens Hairstylist, Double Bay (Jan 2019, 455kb)
Life in the Bunkercene: The Lockdown caused us to cocoon just that little bit extra


Martin Place hoardings, Sydney (Mar 2019, 237kb)
Forget your past: Architectural awards counted for little when it came to prime development opportunities


Darling Harbour Conference Centre demolition, Sydney (Apr 2014, 279kb)
The weight of calorific delights: Just a spoon full of HFCS helped the processed food go down (Hyman, 2014)


Candle wax at a Kent Street wine-bar, near Town Hall (Jan 2014, 342kb)
A bull market in everything: This time it really was different


Charging bull statue, NYC (Oct 2017, 226kb)
Extremely well serviced: Only the wealthiest parts of our cities had regular bus, rail and ferry services


The F5 Neutral Bay ferry leaves Kirribilli wharf (Nov 2020, 305kb)
The engine of growth: Our generation reaffirmed the notion that markets could remain irrational for much longer than investors could stay solvent


The window-display for Central Autohaus in Alexandria (Jun 2015, 249kb)
The road to zero: A globalised market where all tastes were equal and we voted only with our dollars


William Street beverage hoarding (since rebuilt) at Kings Cross (Oct 2012, 332kb)
Thrusting for yield: The ubiquity of synchronised growth led to social and urban experiments imposed from above


Construction cranes at Australian Technology Park (Mar 2018, 263kb)
Uncomfortable at times: Events were still on, motels were still open, restaurants were still serving food and pubs were still pouring beer
(Ayers, 2020)


Tour group at the Sydney Opera House forecourt during the summer bushfires (Jan 2020, 373kb)
Futuregate: At the end of the day, everyone was talking about how to shape the narrative in a world full of user-generated content


Mainstream media at the Sydney Opera House (Jul 2014, 371kb)
Defenestrate your livelihood: We mortgaged the future and bet it all on there not being one


The Coal Loader wharf, Waverton (Jul 2017, 557kb)
Roses of Picardy: The marriage industry flourished despite the cynicism, malaise and lockdowns


Private wedding ceremony at St Marys Cathedral (Mar 2019, 295kb)
Pivoting to home delivery: HungryPanda, Foodora, Uber Eats, DoorDash, EASI, Menulog, Deliveroo, Hey You, GrubHub, goPuff, EatNow, Yelp… We imported an underclass of casual independent contractors to zip around delivering authentic pad thai, burrito bowls and bubble-tea (ABC News, 2020)


Online food delivery rider at Haymarket, near Chinatown (Apr 2020, 257kb)
Living in an asset society: We denounced the enemies of growth


Suburban Toorak, Melbourne (Apr 2019, 276kb)
In Goldman, Sachs We Trust: The financial sector was the bedrock of our entire social structure and enabled massive cultural progression — whereas the 1960s were squandered on aerospace and NASA, the 2000s had asset growth via cheap debt and the ISDA


The financial district in eastern Sydney, with the rocket-shaped 1 O'Connell Street in the middle background (Jul 2011, 213kb)
A licence to kill: There was nothing on your dinner table that wasn't put there by conscientious and highly skilled transport professionals


The “roo bar” of a prime-mover at Kings Langley, near Blacktown (Aug 2015, 361kb)
Empty Nesters: The price of an abandoned house increased by more each day than most people could earn in a week (REA Group, 2017)


Irelands Road in Blacktown, western Sydney (Dec 2012, 478kb)
Forging a new deal: The transition from manufacturing to a service-based economy was effortlessly seamless


Derelict Ford truck at The Grounds of Alexandria (Apr 2018, 631kb)
A pattern of abundance: Full automation was the next stage in our collaborative journey


NTP Forklifts (since relocated), at Woodville Road Granville (Apr 2017, 321kb)
Decades of irrational exuberance: No matter what disaster befell us, the market always soared to record new heights


Financial reporter at the Sydney ASX (Oct 2018, 281kb)
One country, two systems: Income versus Wealth Inequality — we argued interminably about the former while carefully ignoring the latter


Woodcroft housing estate versus Harris Street Ultimo (Jan 2013, 258kb)
Segregation now, tomorrow & forever: Few could afford the right to live in their own city


Distillery Drive cutting at Jacksons Landing, in Pyrmont (Jan 2013, 314kb)
Rust belt potential: Our suburbs were riddled with propagation and replacement


Lett Lane, Lithgow (Jun 2019, 506kb)
Look back in covfefe: Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that's more productive
(Trump, 1987)


Trump impersonator on Broadway, NYC (Oct 2017, 332kb)
All snakes, no ladders: We stuck to the plan, even though we kept changing it


Subterranean utilities footpath markings outside the QVB (Apr 2015, 444kb)
Knowledge-based service industries: The only way to counter economic headwinds was by being more nimble than the market


Finance workers at Australia Square (Dec 2004, 256kb)
Stroking the hidden hand: We were free to choose a comfortable but less remarkable life


Homeless tents at Wentworth Park, Sydney (Jul 2017, 481kb)
Just visiting: Full speed ahead for the fly-in fly-out money-laundering high-rollers in the sky (ABC News, 2020)


Crown casino construction, Barangaroo (Jan 2020, 249kb)
Zero sum game: The link between free trade and rising global prosperity was self-evident: designed in the USA → marketed from the UK → manufactured by Uyghur forced-labour → shipped via Panama → channelled through a Singaporean marketing-hub → transfer-priced through Luxembourg → laundered in a Melbourne casino → banked in the Cayman Islands → stashed away in a Geneva Freeport vault → splurged on trophy homes, super-yachts, racing cars, helicopters, private school fees, casinos, parties, mistresses, divorce lawyers, bribes and drugs… in New York, Beijing, Bucharest, Lagos, Monaco, Riga and Riyadh


Shipping container facility at Tempe, near Sydney Airport (Sep 2012, 313kb)
Tyburn revisited: Decades of infrastructure deals and back-room favours had to end sometime


Sydney Metro Project construction site, Martin Place (Jul 2019, 320kb)
Covid Safe: Restricted trading hours [✓] Patron number limits [✓] Temperature checks [✓] Sign-in attendance records [✓] Perspex table-shields [✓] 1.5m social distancing [ ]


The Celsius Cafe at Kirribilli Wharf adapts to business conditions under COVID-19 (Nov 2020, 394kb)
Bubble watch: Given the large increases in housing prices in some cities, and ongoing strength in lending to investors in housing assets, members also agreed that developments in the housing market would bear careful monitoring
(RBA, 2015)


Spectators on the steps of the former CBC Bank, Martin Place (Apr 2006, 302kb)
Taming animal spirits: There is something more systematic about the way people behave irrationally, especially during periods of economic stress
(Greenspan, 2013)


Lunchtime in a George Street amusement arcade, Sydney (Sep 2003, 260kb)
Only a tap away: With interest rates at five-thousand-year lows, affordable mortgages were flying out the door


Art Gallery of NSW window looking east, Sydney (Mar 2019, 353kb)
Flygskam: One cheap long-haul flight produced more CO2 per passenger than driving an SUV for four months


Runway approach lights, Sydney International Airport (May 2019, 151kb)
Scaffolding everywhere: We turned our lives into a series of transactions to better embrace the future


One Circular Quay construction site, Sydney (Jan 2018, 359kb)
Unearthing the past: The house is gone and the yard excavated so deep that every trace of your childhood was obliterated


What was once 12 Kensington Street in Kogarah (Apr 2011, 371kb)
Down from the mountain: … and into the markdowns


Leura antique store (Oct 2018, 291kb)
A million jobs Mr Speaker: Offshoring brought huge economic benefits which were shared equally


Shepherd Street factory yard, at Marrickville (Sep 2012, 352kb)
Alpha Omega: We poured every last atom of our faith into property


Birrell Street front yard, Bondi Junction (Oct 2018, 441kb)
The emporium struck back: Department stores battled heroically against irrelevance


Storm-troopers at the David Jones lift-well (Jan 2019, 149kb)
Reflating the economy: We proved that old debt could be effortlessly retired by taking on new debt


Tumbalong Park attractions, Darling Harbour (Jul 2014, 351kb)
Squad goals: We played in teams, gave 110% to find the back of the net, and were good sports with your money


Vitamin pill promotion at Martin Place in Sydney (Oct 2014, 1017kb)
The shadow state: Our top-down, monolithic, globalist system will endure forever


North from the Empire State Building (Oct 2017, 610kb)
Retail led recovery: Luxury brands rode out the pandemic rather well


Luxury goods store entrance, George Street Sydney (Nov 2020, 319kb)
Agile entrepreneurs: Surveillance cameras [✓] Motion-activated floodlights [✓] Canvas-covered windows [✓] 3m high fencing [✓] Steel chained front gates [✓] Threatening no-trespass signs [✓] Resourceful SMEs serving a niche-market [✓]


Domestic bliss on Neville Street in Marrickville (Sep 2012, 372kb)
Dog-boxes in the sky: Mate, phone-in punters bought them off the plan like it was Christmas


Spacious and exclusively appointed apartments at Broadway, near Central (Jul 2016, 332kb)
Franchisee nation: The nature of employment changed. We didn't know what the new jobs would be, but we knew they would surely come


Food cart on 37th Street, NYC (Oct 2017, 389kb)
Flags of convenience: Our vision was to create a better everyday life, by getting our customers to do all the work


The united nations of IKEA, at Tempe (Sep 2012, 209kb)
Frictionless intermediation: Because the Sharing Economy
sounded so much nicer than Government Regulation Evading Extractive Capitalism
(NYTimes, 2017)


Subterranean ingress and egress aperture cover at Watsons Bay (Dec 2014, 799kb)
The user-pays model: We recoiled from the idea that our generation should pay for infrastructure that we would never live to use


Government hoarding at Westpac Plaza, Barangaroo (Aug 2016, 318kb)
The best that money can buy: Of particular interest to ICAC has been the planning decisions along Canterbury Road and Charles Street, which saw some Liberal and Labor councillors voting together to approve developments which council's planning staff had previously rejected due to non compliance
(SMH, 2017)


Apartment construction at Charles Str, Canterbury (Oct 2015, 436kb)
Creating value: From warehouses to office blocks to short-term lease apartments


Motorways and the former Caltex building, Sydney (Sep 2016, 204kb)
Working with key stakeholders: We could either use General Relativity equations to derive the Schwarzschild metric in n-dimensions, or we could go shopping


Supermarket freezer aisle, Katoomba (Dec 2003, 265kb)
Living in a film-set: A world of shuttered restaurants, taped-off food-courts and disoriented diners


Deserted food court, Centrepoint Sydney (Apr 2020, 220kb)
From blue to fluoro collar: We spent up big on infrastructure to create a cornucopia of employment opportunities


Re-tiling the Sydney Opera House forecourt (Jul 2014, 303kb)
Dutch disease done right: Not to worry. If the economy works the way the textbook says, the gain to miners should flow through to the economy, causing higher wages and tax receipts
(Gittins, 2017)


Remnants of the 2000's resources boom at Lithgow (Aug 2012, 339kb)
Consumer kaizen: We needed to create a culture in which our customers were prepared to kill


High Street bus-stop, Penrith (Feb 2017, 528kb)
Keeping interest rates low: Whatever happened, cheap debt could not be blamed


Used car-yard at Parramatta Road Granville (Apr 2017, 352kb)
Spare capacity: Feel the love by shopping even more


St Collins Lane shopping arcade, Melbourne (Apr 2019, 332kb)
Practical streetwise living: Stretch out in hygge comfort to snuggle beneath an extra blanket


Pitt Street Mall food-court entrance, Sydney (Jan 2019, 366kb)
Wealth always trickled down: Our system endured for so long because enough of the electorate believed they still had some chance to get rich (Citigroup, 2005)


Begging for loose change near Sydney Town Hall (Sep 2016, 405kb)
Quality by design: Exclusively appointed apartments riddled with gross structural defects


Nevada Apartments remediation at Darling Point (Dec 2018, 277kb)
Ponzimonium: We ran a Koretz immigration scheme to prop up the Madoff property market to keep the Mavrodi banks flush


Wedding Cake rock, RNP (Jul 2019, 283kb)
Boom without end: There was no disconnect between the prosperity we enjoyed and the systematic initiatives we undertook to achieve them


Philip Lodge Motel demolition at Haberfield (Jun 2016, 487kb)
Borderline conundrum: Self-service was self-defeating when there was no service to serve


Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, unused self-service check-in and baggage drop facilities at Sydney Airport's T1 International Terminal, Friday afternoon 12:30 pm (Oct 2020, 240kb)
Twilight's last gleaming: We slid down the Phillips Curve until we reached the Minsky Moment


Construction hoarding at Barangaroo, Sydney (Sep 2016, 263kb)
Exuberant expectations: Great success and performance created its own reality (Pfeffer, 2015)


Church Street car dealership, Parramatta (Apr 2017, 227kb)
Espresso Kultur: The al fresco revolution gave tantalising significance to our busy lives


Outdoor cafe seating at Little Everleigh street, Redfern (Sep 2020, 362kb)
The golden hoard: We built stacks of empty apartments for short-term yield-desperate investors


The construction boom at Wentworth Point (Sep 2016, 407kb)
Potemkin Prosperity: The central irony of the financial crisis was that while it was caused by too much confidence, too much borrowing & lending and too much spending — it could only be resolved with more confidence, more borrowing & lending, and more spending
(Summers, 2011)


Green shoots at the Westpac plaza in Sydney (Jan 2014, 580kb)
Strength Through Joy: The market faithfully rewarded those with a long-term view


Luna Park Hair Raiser ride, in the rain (Jan 2019, 240kb)
In the circle of FIRE: We made so much money from fees & rents & short-term leases & collateralised debt & margin-accounts & franked dividends & big-dog meetings & asset management & asset concealment & asset stripping & short-selling & bear-raids & gambling wagering & grey-rhinos & black-swans & shiny tech unicorns & fantastical profit projections & 300-year visions & liar loans & money-laundering & cash-for-visas patronage & child-pornography & terrorism financing & tax-planning & tax-evasion & hugely successful bets & insider knowledge & insurance fraud & lying to corporate regulators & rewriting independent reports & unenforced enforceable-undertakings & Glass-Steagall repeal & political donations & influence peddling & door-opening & hiring ex-ministers & rezoning & grey gifts & privatisation & exceptionalism & impunity spells & bailouts & deregulation & strategic litigation & Wagyu-beef-washed-down-with-finest-shiraz judgements & swaps & options & swaptions & binary options & CDOs & COMOs & CDFs & FOREX & FICCs & REITs & FAANGs & BATs & ETFs & PGUC & FOMO & FONGO & BNPL & Bitcoin mining & NFTs & conjuring ever more abstruse financial instruments to ensure money kept raining in torrents from the sky, that there was little point in doing anything else


The Elizabeth street facade of the Commonwealth Bank Building (Oct 2020, 431kb)
Have a go to get a go: We lived modestly and well within our means. We worked hard, spent wisely and made prudent investments. So we deserved to keep more of what we earned


Hopetoun Road Toorak, Melbourne (Apr 2019, 288kb)
The retail ziggurat: The ideological apex of our commercial sector was the domestic-consumption economic model


Shopping trolleys huddle beneath the mobile-phone towers on top of Marketplace Leichhardt (Sep 2010, 385kb)
Creative Destruction: The only way to neutralise dissent was by levelling the playing-field


The abandoned White Bay Power Station at Rozelle (Jan 2013, 241kb)
The customer was king: Everything you could ever possibly want, at your fingertips


Supermarket checkout, Nepean Village Penrith (Apr 2003, 382kb)
Luxury was a fundamental human right: Stand on principle on the way up and you'll miss the stampede; stand on principle on the way down and you'll be run over


Even the pigeons lived in style at Hogben Street in Kogarah (Apr 2011, 176kb)
The rising tide lifted all super-yachts: No matter how bad things looked, income inequality did not get worse (Morrison, 2017)


Darling Harbour Marina (Jan 2017, 249kb)
The cranes were flying: At one stage there were more apartment construction cranes on the Australian eastern seaboard than in all the major cities in the USA (ABC News, 2016)


Apartment construction cranes at Lewisham (Sep 2015, 236kb)
Practising our future: We poured resources into whatever appealed to our sense of adventure


Abandoned front yard yacht, Kirribilli (Jan 2020, 588kb)
What this little black rock could do: We have to make sure this economy works. We have to export dollars. We have to realise we have a moral responsibility to other people in other nations to keep their lights on
(Joyce, 2017)


The Steelworks and Coal Loader at Port Kembla harbour (Sep 2014, 138kb)
Curate an educational passport: The uncapping of university places achieved exactly what it set out to do


University of Sydney main quadrangle (Oct 2017, 533kb)
Too big to fail: It took a long time to establish a perfectly balanced equilibrium of collateralised debt and rising property values


Barangaroo office construction, Millers Point (Aug 2016, 512kb)
Play the Tradie's Game: Pay for a knock-down-rebuild and then wade through months of excuses as to why it took so unbelievably long to construct a simple suburban house


House demolition and removal at Warrimoo
The original house was demolished in April 2020 and the replacement was still incomplete seven months later… (Apr 2020, 484kb)
Jobs & Growth: Social cohesion was a frivolous luxury we could no longer afford


Wall markings behind Parramatta Road, Strathfield (Jul 2014, 381kb)
City of forgotten men: There's class warfare all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war and we're winning
(Buffet, 2006)


Homeless opposite the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney (Aug 2014, 395kb)
Spare capacity: We solved mass unemployment by simply redefining what it meant to be “employed”


Red flags at the Circular Quay promenade (Jul 1992, 452kb)
Surrogate activities: The illusion of economic activity was sustained by creating archipelagos of empty construction sites


Green Square hoardings at Zetland (Nov 2018, 350kb)
Exit strategy: With a strong economy and well-paying jobs that we could easily change; with free education, fully resourced public hospitals and affordable housing; with strong social cohesion and connectedness and an innate sense of purpose and belonging — how could we have been anything other than healthy, prosperous and optimistic?


Fig Street tunnel, Ultimo (Jul 2017, 573kb)
This Land Is Our Land: Keep doubling the population every 35 years → increased aggregate demand → greater aggregate GDP → stronger budget outcomes → potentially higher rates of workforce participation → boosted supply-side potential → likely productivity benefits → projected greater aggregate income → accelerating property values → windfall capital gains & property taxes → wealthier property-investors → bustling streets → more toll-roads, apartment blocks & shopping malls → more bathhouses & shisha lounges → more construction & business services → more mortgages → more stamp-duties → more negative gearing on property investments → more prosperous banks → more tourism & international students → more university & private college enrolments → more cash-in-hand pizza workers → more online food delivery independent contractors → more waiters, maids, nannies, concierges & au pairs → increasing remittances to family & sponsors overseas → more money in everyone's hip pocket


Front-yard garden gnomes in Summer Hill, Sydney (Oct 2016, 620kb)
Back-to-back meetings: When cities went into COVID-19 lockdown, CBDs became filled with empty commercial properties with few tenants to pay the inflated rents


Queen Street office building at night, Melbourne (Apr 2019, 222kb)