What does the Labor government think its purpose is? Since 1996 the question keeps recurring. Apparently it is not to address global warming with the urgency required, nor to demand the US stop enabling genocide in Palestine, nor to reduce disastrous inequality and house prices, nor to restore some security to employment, nor to stop… Read More Labor’s purpose: corruption and subversion?
Are we just selfish brutes who need to be civilised into social, moral behaviour? If not, where do our decency and altruism come from? Can we resist the tides of fear and control rolling over us and cultivate more compassionate and peaceable societies? [Published by Pearls & Irritations 10 July 2025] Elon Musk reckons ‘the… Read More Empathy, morality, civilisation, and resisting tyrants
Almost the entire Australian political class has government spending exactly backwards.… Read More Budget Fudget
The US Democrats failed, again, because they don’t understand that it is what they have been doing that feeds Trump support.… Read More Trump is the reaction; the Democrats are the problem
Deregulation basically allowed the financial system to break out of its relatively small, useful role and become a huge parasite, sucking wealth to the already-wealthy and depriving the poor and middle class.… Read More How Ronald Reagan Started the Ruination of the USA
GDP counts exchanges that involve money (adjusted to avoid double counting). Somebody is paid, and somebody pays. GDP doesn’t tell you who paid, just that somebody did.… Read More No Minister, high immigration will cost us $320 billion
Thousands of blinded people stumbled out of the inferno with long strips of skin peeling off, wailing for help, for water, for their mothers.… Read More Blinded by the light
I can criticise Israel and not be anti-semitic. I know this because I have Jewish friends and acquaintances who I feel no need to criticise or condemn in any way. No-one else’s necessarily ignorant claims about my thoughts and feelings can change this. The following historical statements are easily verified. Israel was founded on terrorism.… Read More Israel was founded on terrorism
We are assured our alleged alliance with our great and powerful friend, the United States, is based on shared values. Really? I went to the pictures the other day, to see a doco about Aussie football. It featured a focus on winning, certainly, but by means of teamwork, having fun, having a healthy family life… Read More Shared values?
The hand-wringing by political ‘centre-left moderates’ about the rise of fascism and the likelihood of another Trump presidency overlooks a key fact: they are a big part of the problem. There is widespread lamentation about the popularity of Donald Trump and the likelihood of another Trump presidency, from Hillary Clinton’s notorious 2016 reference to the… Read More The ‘centre-left’ feeds fascism
Thrival Economics 