Keywords: Consumer Confidence
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INTERNATIONAL
- Max Jeganathan
- 15 August 2022
3 Comments
Despite a post-pandemic bull-run, both the national and international economy are now stalling. Interest rates are going up. Markets are going down. Inflation seems unstoppable. While many factors are to blame for the rising cost of living, a catalysing force continues to be our response to the war in Ukraine.
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ECONOMICS
- Binoy Kampmark
- 13 September 2018
2 Comments
It has been a decade since the banking aristocracy Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in what would be the chant of doom that became the Global Financial Crisis. Today, the legacy of Lehman Brothers and the crisis it helped precipitate supply warnings of the next shock.
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ECONOMICS
- Rachel Kurzyp
- 16 December 2016
8 Comments
Studies have found that in Australia, groups with the poorest financial awareness and skills are those under 25, those with no formal post-secondary education, those on low incomes and working 'blue collar occupations', and women. While it makes sense to provide these groups with financial information on home loans and super, this wouldn't have helped my mother when she had to decide between, say, buying groceries for the week or getting the car serviced.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 23 October 2015
4 Comments
Francis knows there are all sorts of issues inside and outside the Church where for too long people with power have tried to keep the lid on, in the hope that the problems and complexities will go away, often by parodying those who see the problems or complexities as small 'l' liberals or cafeteria Catholics. He delights in being joyful and troubled while contemplating big problems, calling people of good will to the table of deliberation reminding them of the kernel of the Christian gospels. He has the faith and hope needed to lift the lid without fear and without knowing the answers prior to the dialogue occurring.
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AUSTRALIA
- Zac Alstin
- 16 December 2014
25 Comments
The siege at the Lindt chocolate shop in Sydney's Martin Place is frightening for all Australians. It also obscures the progress of relations between Muslims and other Australians, as such events have such an unfortunate polarising 'us and them' effect.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 10 December 2014
12 Comments
One of the fascinating aspects of Australia's political pantomime is the manner in which the Federal Treasurer is forced to metamorphose into a used car salesman who is spruiking the Australian economy. One reason for the relative impotence of the Treasurer is that the Federal government only has control over fiscal policy. Monetary policy, the interest rate, is set by the Reserve Bank, not the government.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 26 May 2014
9 Comments
The Australian Government needs to be less cavalier and reticent to subsidise local manufacturers, who are obliged to be transparent about their work practices and bear the costs of this. When our politicians praise workplace efficiency in other countries, they are promoting manufacturing processes that often exploit workers.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
The Double proffers a nightmare vision in which the human spirit is no match for the corrupt and corrupting power of a society obsessed with productivity and material achievement. In a week where we have seen an Australian Budget that gives favour to economic rationalism and the wellbeing of the wealthy, over that of some of our society's most needy citizens, such cynicism resonates powerfully. That is a tragedy.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 10 December 2013
15 Comments
It is hard not to smile over Woolworths' and Coles' 'voluntary' adoption of a code of conduct. Now that the duopoly has decided to mend its ways, it seems it can occupy the moral high ground and preach to everyone else. The Western world has been subject to a quarter of a century of propaganda about the virtues of deregulation. A closer consideration of the supermarket giants' promise to do the right thing offers little reason for confidence.
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AUSTRALIA
- Neil Ormerod
- 01 August 2011
36 Comments
In the 1980s computer journalists used to refer to the 'FUD factor' and its impact on computer purchases. FUD — Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Tony Abbott has become the master of the FUD factor in the debate over climate change and the carbon tax.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Ellena Savage
- 22 January 2010
7 Comments
When we think of pin-up girls from the '40s and
'50s, we might assume they were desperate women who unwittingly participated in an industry that exploited them. In her new book, Madeleine Hamilton argues they were in fact 'trailblazers of the sexual revolution'.
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ECONOMICS
- Robin Bowerman
- 19 September 2008
The problems
besetting Wall Street investment banks seem a long way from life
in downtown Australia. The need to know the context of the economic crisis, and to keep a clear head, has never been more important.
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