Without Kate McClymont & Hedley Thomas - Democracy in trouble Stone the crows! The unthinkable is on the agenda – Sydney without the Sydney Morning Herald. A table accompanying a story in the weekend Fin set out Fairfax finances, without the metropolitan papers.[i] And if you think it’s impossible that is what they said in [...]
Australia’s economically literate electorate STONE the crows! When wonks aren’t whingeing they are complaining that the rest of us are. Last month, George Megalogenis got stuck into Australians for whining about the economy.[i] And on Friday Reserve Bank Governor Glen Stevens, said the same: An objective observer coming from outside would, I think it must [...]
Obesity: Food for the social engineers STONE the crows! The obese are the new oppressed. Not to mention a new source of self-righteousness among social engineers who seek too save us from ourselves. Or, in this case, mayors with a motza. Last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg banned big serve soft drinks in the [...]
Productivity – Any Solutions? STONE the crows! Productivity is the economic equivalent of exercise - everybody approves of it but we all want somebody else to do it for us. Except of course those who argue that things are okay and that worrying about productivity is all too boring to bother with. Like Jessica Irvine [...]
STONE the crows, Hobart has become the Athens of the south. But it’s economics not architecture that unites them. On Thursday Lara Giddings (oh come on, of course you have heard of her, she’s the premier) brought down a deficit budget of $283 million.[i] In the great scheme of things this is no big deal. [...]
Collins Class Mark II? Subs yes, but why Adelaide? STONE the Crows, we’re in strife if Chinese Intel read the budget papers, particularly the bit announcing the mothballing of “some” Abrams armour. [i] Whatever will we do if a PLA armoured corps appears overnight on the Darling Downs? Surrender. Because if they ever arrived, without [...]
Why Australians love Keynes’ General Theory of Magic Puddings STONE the crows! What whingers we are. The Crows listened to part of Linda Mottram’s ABC Radio 702 program on Friday morning. She is certainly an improvement on her predecessor, what with her not imposing her opinions on the audience absolutely all the time.[i] But, other [...]
Policy obfuscation – and the need for explanation STONE the crows! If there is a public service plot to stop us understanding what they are up to it’s working. This time last week, anybody contemplating domiciles for the decrepit was wondering what the new aged care package meant. Or, in the case of the Crows, [...]
There is no need for Anzac Day mythology Stone the crows! It’s not all quiet on the culture war front as Anzac Day approaches. On the one hand, the old orthodoxies are still slugging it out. On the academic flank, historians suggest the first AIF was racist, sexist and so forth and so on and [...]
When it comes infrastructure we are own worst enemies STONE the crows! How is that NSW has doubled infrastructure spending in the last five years, but Sydney still suffers from utterly inadequate roads and railways?[i] There are all sorts of obvious answers, as well as the one that everybody in government avoids because it is [...]
