Now is the time for the Nation State to reassert its control over multinational entities. Multinationals advance an agenda that is self-serving. These agendas may be separate from, and at times, above, a nation’s law. Financial gain is at its heart. Arthur Andersen, a former large international consultancy that collapsed in 2002, “struggled to balance Continue reading »
Economy
Mary Davenport (centre right), a former apprentice forced to drop out due to financial struggles, is speaking up about rock-bottom pay
Today the global trade system faces three systemic challenges. None are new, but strategic competition between China and the United States has brought a dangerous edge to each of them. The first is the dramatic shift in the composition of international economic interaction. When the Bretton Woods system was first set up, global trade was Continue reading »
Even without Chat-bot assistance, it is fun to look up quotations and their origins online and then discover, for example, this quote reportedly from Winston Churchill: “The only statistics you can trust are the ones you have falsified yourself.” And an earlier British prime minister from the 19th century, Benjamin Disraeli, allegedly said there were Continue reading »
“This nation, after three thousand years of grandeur and decay… exhibits today all the physical and mental vitality that we find in its most creative periods… Very probably such wealth will be produced in China by 2030 as even America has never known and once again, as so often in the past, China will lead Continue reading »
The latest Audit Office report documenting mismanagement by the Morrison government of a grants program – in this case the Community Health and Hospitals Program – has generated outrage. At a time when the health system is under great pressure, over a billion dollars in grants were allocated on the basis of a dodgy process. Continue reading »
Kate Devlin dispels the sudden Science Fiction panic around superintelligence, and looks at the real threats to employment and the environment from AI and machine learning
I am in complete sympathy with Jennifer Bush Pearls and Irritations 5, June 2023 in resigning from the Labor Party because of Prime Minister Albanese’s congratulations to Israel despite its government’s disgraceful treatment of Palestinian people. Brand Loyalty. That indescribable loyalty, we feel towards our own country, our own football team, our own political party. Continue reading »
The evidence is now in – Chinese tourists are largely boycotting Australia. See the chart below which compares annual visitations from different countries in the year to March 2023 with those from the same countries in the year to March 2019 (well before the pandemic). Tourism is picking up from most countries, especially India which Continue reading »
Don’t believe anyone – not even a governor of the Reserve Bank – trying to tell you the Fair Work Commission’s decision to increase minimum award wages by 5.75 per cent is anything other than good news for the lowest-paid quarter of wage earners. Because they are so low-paid, and mainly part-time, these people account Continue reading »