Home > Economics - General > Bankruptcy   July 24th, 2006  My
article in Thursday’s Fin (copy over the fold) was about the
role of credit and bankruptcy in adaption to growing inequality
and variability in income.  Add to CV: Bankruptcy  Although the
consequences of the recent IR reforms and broader changes in the
labour market remain to be worked out, international experience
suggests that an inevitable consequence of such changes is an
increase in wage variability and inequality. Both the United
Kingdom and New Zealand experienced large increases in wage
inequality as they moved from regulated and unionised wage-
setting systems. to largely deregulated systems based on
individual contracts, and the same will no doubt happen here. A
more surprising, but very likely consequence is the emergence of
bankruptcy as a normal life experience for Australians.  The
experience of the United States illustrates this. Although there
was never much formal regulation of US labour markets, an
implicit social contract emerged