Sticky
The RBA Funded Right Wing Think Tanks For Decades

By:
On:
In: economics, featured, Government, latest post, media, politics, power

We hear a lot about the independence of our central bank, but not so much of their political bias. The RBA funded right wing think tanks for decades. These are the intellectual influencers dedicated to promulgating neoliberalism and anti-unionism downunder. If you want to know why the gap between rich and poor has widened so immensely in Australia look no further than  these institutions and their influence upon the Aussie economy over the last 30 years.Continue Reading

Sticky
Economics Is Anti-Community

By:
On:
In: democracy, economics, featured, Government, latest post, morality, politics, power

Have you noticed that we have all become economists over the last 30 odd years? That economic-speak has become the lingua-franca of our modern world? We talk about the supply and demand of things, the dollar value of everything, and make all our decisions based upon economic principles to a large degree. This has not always been so. Prior to the American conversion to all things economic, which began with the Rand Corporation in the 1960s, governments and ordinary people did not bang on about economics. Economics is founded upon certain assumptions about individual behaviours driven by self-interest. Indeed, economics is anti-community.Continue Reading

Supermarket png clipart illustration, transparent

By:
On:
In: economics, featured, Government, latest post, morality, politics

During a cost of living crisis, which many in the world are now experiencing, it is easier to get in touch with the essentials necessary for living. Food, shelter, and energy are the essential ingredients for survival in our modern worlds. The financialization of essentials by capitalism is proving to be at cross purposes for those trying to survive in a cost of living crisis. What do I mean by this? The march toward a consumer society has meant that all these basic requirements of life are things you have to buy. Few of us go out and dig up or hunt for our food these days. Putting a roof over our head is an expensive purchase in the 21C. Plus, all of our devices and vehicles run on forms of energy which we have to buy. Neoliberalism promised to make things easier and cheaper for all in this regard but has manifestly failed to do so. We were told that if governments got out of the way and let private enterprise do what it’s best at we would all be much better off. Thirty years of this, ‘the market knows best’ ethos, has placed at least a third of working Australians in dire straits when it comes to affording the basics of life. Neoliberal economic policies have failed us in every essential market.Continue Reading

woman looking at a receipt and making a surprised face

By:
On:
In: economics, featured, Government, latest post

America and Australia share similar symptoms in their economies right now with high inflation sticking around. The central banks have been raising interest rates in a traditional monetary policy approach to combatting high inflation. However, it isn’t working that great. Supply side inflation not solved by raising interest rates. Both nations are suffering with housing shortages pushing up rents and this is contributing to the high inflation. Putting up interest rates is not going to help with this; indeed, it is making the situation worse. Making building houses more expensive via higher costs of doing business is not going to increase the supply of housing.Continue Reading

banknotes on white surface

By:
On:
In: economics, featured, Government, history, latest post

It may seem strange to talk about the secret life of money when a lot of people devote their lives to it. It’s not really when you consider the same thing has been happening around God for many millennia. Human beings have a propensity for this sort of thing, it seems. Money has a secret life because most of us do not understand what it is and how it actually works. Modern economies on the national scale are very large and complex things. Macro economics does not operate in the same manner as our own individual financial set up functions. This is why most people struggle to grasp how money and the economy as a whole really work.Continue Reading

tail of an airplane

By:
On:
In: economics, Government, latest post

Globally, we all went through a pandemic, which cost some their lives and most of us economically. Here in Australia we copped a big whack of inflation and a steeply rising cost of living on essentials. You and I paid the price and continue to pay the price. Corporate Australia is screwing us, however, big business in this country didn’t pay the price of the pandemic. If they did they have made sure they have recouped that money and then some. Qantas got a couple of billion dollars from the Australian government and have just declared a $2.6 billion record profit for the year. Are they paying that money back? No way, according to Alan Joyce the departing CEO.Continue Reading