Scroll down to #10 for my favourite piece in this collection. The first 12 items (from 1945 to 1984) are by respected South Australian farmer Bert Kelly; the others are by adman John Singleton, farming columnist for The Bulletin and The Australian Financial Review Ken Baxter and farmers John Hyde, Viv Forbes and Hans Tholstrup. (Oh, and a Paddy McGuinness piece is smuggled in near the end, in case being a farmer is not a precondition to understanding economics.)

  1. Perhaps being smart and insured isn’t all luck — Bert Kelly, “The Droolings of Dave,” The Adelaide Stock and Station Journal, March 21, 1945, p. 7.
  2. How much should government decrease incentive for independence from government? — Bert Kelly, “Governments love to be popular!,” Adelaide Stock & Station Journal, August 24, 1966, p. 83.
  3. Bert Kelly on ApathyStock Journal, February 22, 1967, p. 35.
  4. Bert Kelly, “Will help for farmers get votes?,” The Australian Financial Review, May 14, 1971, p. 3. “He admits we sound well and often we mean well. The only trouble is that we don’t do well. His golden rule is, ‘Keep any government as far as possible from farming.'”
  5. Bert Kelly, “Helping the farmers help themselves,” The Australian Financial Review, February 25, 1972, p. 3. Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982), pp. 18-19, as “Droughts.” Excerpt: “If the Government comes in it will, in both fire and drought, help the wrong person in the wrong way in a great many cases. And it will certainly destroy the incentive of the farmer to help himself.”
  6. Moss Cass: “Flood plains are for floods” — Robert Haupt, “Dr Cass: ‘Flood plains are for floods’,” The Australian Financial Review, January 21, 1974, pp. 1, 10; and Bert Kelly, “Dr Cass sets a dam(ned) precedent,” The Australian Financial Review, February 1, 1974, p. 3.
  7. Bert Kelly, “‘Calamity Jane’ role for Mavis,” The Australian Financial Review, February 22, 1974, p. 3. Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982), pp. 19-21, as “Disaster Relief.”
  8. Bert Kelly, “‘He whom the gods would destroy …’,” The Australian Financial Review, May 23, 1975, p. 3.
  9. Bert Kelly, “Looking after yourself is silly,” Country Life, June 16-22, 1976, p. 32.
  10. This one is a masterpiece: Bert Kelly, “Insure one, insure the lot,” Country Life, June 23-29, 1976, p. 40.
  11. WEATHER IS USUALLY UNUSUAL — Bert Kelly, “The mixture as before — in capitals …,” The Australian Financial Review, January 28, 1977, p. 3.
  12. Bert Kelly, “Generosity creates problems,” The Bulletin, May 1, 1984, p. 128. Excerpt: “One day during the drought I complained to Fred that Australia had a lousy climate. I expected that this statesmanlike utterance would be received with respect and admiration but Fred put me in my place by saying, ‘Yes, Bert, we do indeed have a lousy climate. And if we didn’t, the place would be lousy with farmers.'”
  13. John Singleton with Bob Howard, Rip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), p. 3, “AAA Tow Truck Co,” which they considered important enough to be the opening entry of their encyclopedia.
  14. Singo and Howard on Profits, Super Profits and Natural Disasters — John Singleton with Bob Howard, Rip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 204-08, under the heading “Profits.”
  15. Kenneth Graham [Ken Baxter], “The economics of survival through a drought,” The Bulletin, May 6, 1980, p. 131. Excerpt: “Some of the old hands in the wheat industry argue that many primary producers have invited trouble. The ‘Goyder Line’, which skirted the South Australian inland around the ‘safe’ rainfall mark, was for a long time considered the boundary of the grain-growing areas. Similar imaginary lines existed in other States. Wheat production has extended well beyond the lines, and in some places in all States well into the pastoral zone.”
  16. First, do no farm — John Hyde, “The four simple rules for an astute farmer,” The Australian Financial Review, September 16, 1983, p. 13. Wow!
  17. Viv Forbes, “Magnifying National Disasters,” in Stuck on Red & Other Essays (First Published by “Business Queensland” and “Common Sense” in 1991), pp. 68-70. See also: Viv Forbes, “The Economics of Flood Risk,” Economics.org.au, February 1, 2011.
  18. Padraic P. McGuinness, “Farm support: remember the lie of the land,” The Sydney Morning Herald, October 8, 2002. Excerpt: “[M]any of our farmers are obsessed with their family history on the land but have never had a serious conversation with a financial adviser who understands the environment. Or they are like shearers on a spree when the weather is good — they live high and throw their money around, rather than investing profits to build up their capacity to survive the next drought. They work hard but stupid.”
  19. Hans Tholstrup, “The Flood of Claims,” Economics.org.au, February 23, 2011. Australian legend Hans Tholstrup was eligible for government handouts because some of his farms were flood-affected, but he refused it. But as he said later: “Sadly, the fact that I did not take the 1000 dollar flood money means that I have to pay the extra 1.5% tax. So you can be punished for not taking government money.”
Bert Kelly image

AFR, 12/3/1964, p. 3.