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Search Results: imf

  • AUSTRALIA

    On housing bubbles

    • David Halliday
    • 01 September 2023

    Australia's housing market trembles as homeowners confront rising interest rates and mortgage defaults surge. Predicted by some a decade ago, this  shift stems from years of speculative investing and homes transforming into commodities. The challenge now: can policymakers balance housing affordability without destabilising the market's value?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'They think we're rubbish': Life on welfare in Australia

    • John Falzon
    • 06 July 2023
    9 Comments

    Dr. Eve Vincent's book, 'Who Cares? Life on Welfare in Australia', provides an in-depth exploration of the intricate dance between power, control, and social policy, unearthing unsettling truths about our society's inherent power structures. This discourse further underscores the urgent need for a radical reimagining of our socio-economic systems.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Taking care of business

    • David James
    • 06 July 2023
    2 Comments

    Why does society often overlook the passion, creativity, and dedication that underpin smaller businesses? As the public's perception leans towards the unfavourable side, is there a need to shift our focus and truly acknowledge the value and contributions these businesses make in our daily lives?

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The failure of an idea: The Russian sanctions regime

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 22 March 2023
    3 Comments

    Any sanctions regime produces uneven effects. Economic sanctions imposed on Russia are not only unlikely to end the conflict in Ukraine, but they are having unintended consequences, encouraging Moscow to be more resourceful and leading to a shift in global energy markets. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Australian housing crisis: A Roundtable

    • David Halliday, Peter Mares, John Falzon, Nicola Nemaric, Rae Dufty-Jones
    • 18 November 2022
    1 Comment

    Despite rising interest rates and the recent dip in property values, Australia’s housing situation places it among the least affordable property market in the world. With a rise in homelessness and younger Australians locked out of an inflated housing market, what is the way forward for Australia? 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Nicaragua’s Catholic Church: A nuanced conflict

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 01 September 2022
    2 Comments

    In Nicaragua, Catholic priests and institutions are under siege. In the last five months, the Ortega regime has increased its persecution of the Church, accusing them of being ‘terrorists.’ The conflict has been further exacerbated by the detention of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, the most outspoken critic of Ortega. In less than four years, the Church has suffered 190 attacks, including a fire in the Cathedral of Managua. However, the crisis in Nicaragua is not as clear-cut as it might seem.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Why debt forgiveness may be inevitable

    • David James
    • 25 July 2022
    3 Comments

    Monetary authorities are caught in an impossible situation. Inflation is rising: it is over 5 per cent in Australia and over 9 per cent in the United States. Inflation is often seen as a way out of excessive debt because it erodes the real value of money and therefore the real value of the debt. But what is increasingly being discussed are ways to cancel the debt.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Finance needs common sense, not cleverness

    • David James
    • 10 December 2020
    1 Comment

    The world’s financial markets are afflicted by a deep irrationality that imperils their very existence. On the surface, finance looks logical enough with its numbers, charts, mathematics, forecasts, ‘modelling’ and so on. But this only masks the fact that the system itself has been working on underlying assumptions that are either contradictory — such as that you can ‘deregulate’ finance when finance consists of rules — narrow minded or absurd.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Politics of shame

    • John Falzon
    • 16 May 2019
    8 Comments

    I do not believe that most people do accept these violations of dignity, these instigations of shame. But the fact that we as a nation have tolerated these settings for so long makes it look like neoliberalism has crept into our souls, that we accept the institutionalisation of fear and shame.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Compound interest is the root of banks' evil

    • David James
    • 04 December 2018
    7 Comments

    The problem goes much deeper than a few crooked operatives and it will not be fixed by changing the corporate 'culture'. The fundamental evil is the arithmetic of compound interest. Interest on debt rises exponentially, while economic activity is linear. That means that sooner or later those in a weaker position are unable to pay.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Trump, turtles and the new nuclear threat

    • Justin Glyn
    • 24 October 2018
    5 Comments

    While nuclear weapon stockpiles have reduced massively since the 1980s, the major arms controls treaties have been gradually eroded. At the same time, and even more dangerously, the world has seen a repudiation of the diplomacy which limited the numbers of nuclear weapons and which has prevented their accidental use.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Japan could lead the way in forgiving debt

    • David James
    • 14 May 2018
    4 Comments

    As the world economy groans under soaring levels of debt, the place to look is Japan, whose current government debt-to-GDP ratio is an eye watering 253 per cent. It is Japan, which led the developed world into this mess, that is likely to lead the world out of it by cancelling debt. The consequences of such a move would be far reaching.

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