Jim's Personal Newsletter June 2026
Birth rate Crisis: test readers wanted
Birth rate Crisis: test readers wanted
We are looking for test readers for the book, due for release in October.
This is an account of falling birth rates across the world, why it is happening, and what can be done about it.
A solution that no one else is suggesting, based on fundamental neuroscience, and also a guide to better and happier living.
If you'd like to volunteer to be a test reader, email Andrea at ap@andreapearsonbooks.com, and she'll send you a link to download a free copy of the ebook.
House prices starting to fall?
Over the past six months, house prices have gone down in Victoria, New South Wales and the A.C.T., while continuing to rise elsewhere.
Reading the financial press, you’d think it was a disaster.
Main problem: not nearly enough. Get rid of our strangling bureaucracies and zoning regulations, and prices would likely settle to half what they are now.
Affordable prices for young people wanting to buy, and affordable rents.
A bit less wealth for multi-millionaires. What’s not to like?
The Budget
The government wants to get rid of negative gearing.
No problem, IF you also relax zoning and other laws that push up the price of housing.
Fail to do that and rents will become unaffordable.
What we really need to do is reduce spending, especially on the areas that do nothing to help those in need.
Do that and there is no need to keep on raising taxes.
What we CANNOT do is continue to borrow and go deeper and deeper into debt.
No political party seems to have a proper policy relating to debt.
One Nation would be no better, though they could scarcely be worse than Labor.
The Crushing weight of bureaucracy
On this subject. Among OECD countries, we have more civil servants per capita than Italy, Canada, the U.K., America, Spain, and Germany.
This includes 25% more than the U.K., and close to 50% more than Germany.
The only OECD countries that do worse than us are New Zealand and France.[i]
And many of these are actively working to impoverish ordinary Australians.
· Zoning bureaucrats who double the cost of housing and rents.
· Green bureaucrats who double the cost of electricity (compared with America)
· Regulation bureaucrats who strangle business and force up the cost of everything
These people cannot be sacked and have no incentives to be efficient. Even for the jobs they need to do, any competent company could cut their workforce in half.
Why go to Uni?
To earn more money? But look at the stats on average income:
No post-school qualifications
$55-75k
Many university graduates
$75k-$110k
Qualified electricians
$90k-$110k
Qualified plumbers
$90k-$110k
Other construction tradies
$$75k-$110k
Self-employed successful tradies
$120k-$250k
High-earning professionals: doctors, engineers, dentists, etc
$120k-$300k
In other words, unless you intend to be a doctor or engineer, you’re likely better off in a trade.
Extra bonus: instead of a massive HECS debt, four years of earnings – more than enough to buy a Jim’s Plumbing or Electrical franchise and join the self-employed successful tradies!
Actually, according to ChatGPT, owning your own business is often a better determinant of income than your qualifications.
After all, I did a PhD, but the actual skill that made me successful was how to mow lawns for a living.
Alexander the not so Great, by Edmond Richardson
This is a vivid, fascinating book about a quite repulsive man. Best history book I’ve seen in a long time!
The Warren Buffet CEO, Robert Miles
This is an updated version of one of the best books written about Berkshire Hathaway, focusing on the managers of the wholly owned companies.
People with the same values and attitudes as Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, dedicated to the long-term success of their businesses and without the ego-boosting needs of so many CEO’s.
The reverence and affection they have for Buffet, and his similar attitudes to them, is heartwarming.
This is how businesses ought to be run.
[i] OECD, Government at a Glance 2023 and 2025.
World Bank, Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators.
Dahlström, Carl, Victor Lapuente, and Jan Teorell. The Merit of Meritocratization: Politics, Bureaucracy, and the Institutional Deterrents of Corruption. Political Research Quarterly 65, no. 3 (2012): 656–668.
National civil service reports from the Australian Public Service Commission, UK Civil Service Statistics, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, and China’s State Administration of Civil Service.