We have all no doubt have seen the bad news that China’s exports to the EU have reduced, China’s exports to the US are declining rapidly and, as a result of it, we’re being told by Western media that China is on the verge of collapse. Well, here’s a statement that was released just a Continue reading »
politics
Australia’s superannuation system is based upon defined contributions, largely because that avoids the main weakness of many overseas systems based on defined benefits of rising costs for future generations. The tendency, however, is to focus on the wealth creation from the defined contributions, not on the delivery of secure retirement incomes that is the focus Continue reading »
Obviously no Australian, much less an MP, should ever sell out his country to any foreign power. However, in recent times, some actions taken by certain MPs arguably amount to doing just that. Mike Burgess, chief of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) appointed by the previous Scott Morrison government, gave an example of this Continue reading »
Economics has achieved much; there are large bodies of often nonobvious theoretical understandings and of careful and sometimes compelling empirical evidence. The profession knows and understands many things. Yet today we are in some disarray. We did not collectively predict the financial crisis and, worse still, we may have contributed to it through an overenthusiastic Continue reading »
Many Australians are aware of the assistance Papuan New Guinea locals and Timorese locals gave allied forces in World War II. But few know of the assistance Borneo locals provided to Australians during both the Japanese occupation of the island and in the Allied effort to retake it. This extract from the book, Forgotten Heroes: Continue reading »
What does it mean when good people do bad things? This has been an eternal question and one raised yet again as the world watches Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians and the cheering Israelis, most of them, calling for more and more blood, slaughter, and atrocities to be committed against civilians. Not only are they Continue reading »
I’m walking around the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. I’ve looked at the military aircraft in the front courtyard which looms large but doesn’t yet give too much away of what the Vietnam War was all about. It feels very American with each piece of used equipment stamped with U.S. Army Continue reading »
As we approach St Patrick’s Day, politically aware readers should know that in Brisbane on March 17 1948, Australia’s only Communist Party MP Fred Paterson was savagely smashed from behind by a Queensland policeman. Some time after it occurred, this attack on Paterson became known as The Great St Patrick’s Day Bash. Yet most Australians, Continue reading »
You would think that the suffering we are now seeing, including on and after October 7, would also compel international leaders to negotiate a peaceful future. There is no future in hate. In his vibrant State of the Union address the U.S. President, Joe Biden, referenced what he loves about America. This includes the way Continue reading »
History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led “liberal international order.” During the Cold War period after World War II, two “international orders” emerged in the world, namely the “socialist international order” Continue reading »