SANCTIONS: SMARTER THAN SHOOTING STONE the crows! Could sanctions be superior to sabre rattling? Sanctions got a bad name in the 1990s when Saddam Hussein managed to convince public opinion in the West that the US was to blame for the damage they did to Iraq. But it seems they have, finally, worked on Iran, [...]
VAPING THE GREEN POLICE Stone the crows! Turn that cigarette off! Smokers of all sorts are finding new ways to defy the people who know what’s good for us by taking up e-cigarettes. The Australian Association of Smoking Cessation Professionals defines these faux fags as “battery operated devices that create a mist for inhalation which [...]
TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT – NO THREATS TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS SCHEME Stone the crows! Free trade treaties are always bitter pills for critics of capitalism. Maybe they hate the idea of business not needing state sanction to trade across borders but enemies of enterprise always warn of dire fates from free trade. In 2004, [...]
PREDICTING THE FUTURE ABOUT THE AGEING POPULATION IS SUCH A HARD WORK Stone the crows! There’s a reason why old Australians don’t work. Not a lot of them like it, which is good because bosses aren’t keen to employ them. Among the pandora of predictions about the ageing population, the need for older workers to [...]
A COMMAND ECONOMY IN EDUCATION IS BACK ON THE AGENDA Stone the crows! The Brezhnevites are back, and re-regulating education is the issue they are using. Friends of the smaller state are less on the back foot than their bums as the idea of privatising public services takes a political pounding. The unpopularity of the [...]
THE CASE FOR KEEPING TAX MORALE HIGH Stone the crows! Convincing not convictions gets people to pay tax. Back in the early 1980s Australia was headed down the Athenian road, with tax evasion rife and avoidance endemic. The obvious cause was because a less than efficient tax system made it possible but the underlying reason [...]
THE GREEKS KEEN TO RESURRECT A FAILED STATE STONE the crows! It looks like the Greeks have got another bailout, with four months more loans to cover yet more talks on what the country can pay back. [i] Which will not be much – the economy is 25 per cent smaller than it was in [...]
SUBMARINES SHOULD BE FIT-FOR-PURPOSE AND SAFE Stone the crows! David Johnston was dead wrong to say he would not trust the Australian Submarine Corporation to build a canoe. [i] What the former defence minister should have said was that he was confident that the ASC could assemble and maintain a first rate canoe, if given [...]
“SET & FORGET” SUPERANNUATION- YOU PAY THE MONEY BUT OTHERS MAKE THE CHOICE Stone the crows! Superannuation is not salvation but financial planners don’t know the way to investment heaven. Australia’s retirement savings are the wonder of the world, with $1.87 trillion stashed away for our collective old age. We rate behind the Danes and [...]
MUCH DENIAL ABOUT THE COST OF THE NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME Stone the crows! The political establishment is in denial over paying for the NDIS. There was a small summer storm over the holidays when new welfare minister Scott Morrison’s suggested paying for the National Disability Support Scheme will require getting able-bodied people off welfare [...]
