SAVING MONEY ON AGE SPENDING – ESSENTIAL BUT DIFFICULT Who is going to need us, who is going to feed us, when we’re 74? Stone the crows! The Treasurer is softening us up for a higher age threshold for the pension. Labor has already increased it to 67 in 2023 and Mr Hockey says a [...]
ICAC, TRANSPARENCY & THE ESSENCE OF DEMOCRACY Stone the crows! We ought to export ICAC. Not as in ship the agency offshore, there would be rioting in the streets if that happened. ICAC only costs $25m a year, which makes its hearings Sydney’s best value entertainment now Rake is off air.[i] No. ICAC’s achievements should [...]
A HORROR BUDGET – FOR A FEW STONE the crows! We are being sold tough times. Opinion leaders are wallowing in warnings the budget deficit is a disaster: “There is no doubt that Treasurer Joe Hockey has inherited a budgetary mess of epic proportions, in terms of debt and unfunded spending commitments. Sorting it out [...]
GREAT TEACHERS KNOW HOW TO INSPIRE STUDENTS Stone the crows! What do we do to help the quarter of all kids who are settling on the scrap heap? Incoming Business Council of Australia chair, Catherine Livingstone, asked an important question on Friday, what are we to do with the 25 per cent of Australians aged [...]
The suburbs – where cars, not phones, are essential Stone the crows! People who sneer at those with cars would be honking their horns in delight, if they had them, at the news that Americans are eschewing automobiles. According to the New York Times, public transport use is at a 50 year high. At 10.65bn [...]
All of a sudden it’s the eighteenth century again Stone the crows! History has well and truly re-started with a second crisis in the Crimea over similar issues as the first. In 1852, Moscow attacked the Ottoman Empire in Moldavia ostensibly to assist oppressed Russian speakers. This annoyed the British and the French who invaded [...]
SHOCK HORROR – CHILD OBESITY ON THE DECLINE IN US Stone the crows! The obesity crisis isn’t getting worse. Last week the New York Times reported a decline in overweight infants. In fact, the “gold standard” US survey found the number of obese Americans aged 2 to 5 is down by 43 per cent.[i] That [...]
UNEMPLOYMENT, UNDER-EMPLOYMENT AND ROBOT EMPLOYMENT The employment average abyss. Stone the crows! Are we running out of things to do? In Bob Hawke’s 1979 Boyer lectures, he talked of the end of full employment and of accordingly funding people to live alternative lifestyles outside the conventional economy. In particular, he suggested many older people stayed [...]
Over-Diagnosing & Disease Mongering Down Under Stone the crows! It looks like we are spending more money on healthcare than we need or can afford. But don’t expect anybody to terminate the tests A large, long-term study of mammograms suggests they are not exactly value for money. A 20-year survey of 90,000 women in Canada [...]
Why negatively geared rental property is as safe as houses Want to ensure those tedious people never invite you again? Why, stone the crows, the answer is obvious – during dinner suggest negative gearing for property investment is a bad idea. (You can also advocate inheritance tax on the family home, but that will get [...]
