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Author: Colin Long

  • ECONOMICS

    What are banks for?

    • Colin Long
    • 18 January 2019
    6 Comments

    The opening of the finance sector to scrutiny provides an opportunity to examine its position in the structure of the Australian political-economy, and, most importantly, to make the changes necessary to place it at the service of the people, rather than allowing it to continue to prey on us.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Trump, masculinity and class

    • Colin Long
    • 10 February 2017
    15 Comments

    Much commentary on Trump's victory has veered between two explanations: either there is large proportion of the electorate with 'deplorable' attitudes to women and minorities; or economic dislocation has produced an angry white working class eager to punish political elites. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. The willingness to ignore or welcome Trump's misogyny is a symptom of the undermining of a deep sense of masculinity that, for some men, is their primary identity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The financial crisis the Government wants us to have

    • Colin Long
    • 09 February 2015
    19 Comments

    The Coalition Government falsely claims that Medicare co-payments and cuts to welfare and publicly funded institutions such as the CSIRO and the ABC are necessary to 'fix Labor's mess'. There are indeed structural problems with the economy, but essentially the plan is to strip the public sector by cutting universal access to a range of services that also includes tertiary education, to create a dominant free market that marginalises Australians on low incomes.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Communities cooperating to kick coal

    • Colin Long
    • 22 May 2012
    12 Comments

    Mick spent years working for the State Electricity Commission until privatisation saw him made reduntant, prompting years of forced idleness, low self-esteem, financial troubles and family stress. The experience has made him sceptical of politicians coming down to talk about opportunities from the transition to a low carbon economy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Utopianism could fix politics

    • Colin Long
    • 06 September 2010
    7 Comments

    On the most important issues facing the nation, indeed the world — climate change — we have had a Prime Minister who vaguely recognises the problem but resists doing anything about it, and an opposition leader who trivialises it to a question of tax.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Russia's Soviet nostalgia trip

    • Colin Long
    • 07 July 2009
    15 Comments

    It is strange to see so many symbols of the Soviet past alive and well in Russia. It is too simplistic to say this reflects nostalgia for Soviet times. Much of it is personal nostalgia. The intertwining of private and public memory is complex.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Imagination spent on global financial solutions

    • Colin Long
    • 27 November 2008
    20 Comments

    The outcomes of the G20 meeting this month demonstrate the limited vision of many of the world's politicians in confronting the global financial crisis. If our leaders can't imagine a different future, it is up to us to do so.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Waking up from the housing nightmare

    • Colin Long
    • 05 May 2008
    5 Comments

    It is not just Joe and Jo Suburbia that have a lot riding on real estate. Taking the heat out of house price inflation is extremely difficult, because the whole system is based on the expansion of credit and consumption that house price inflation allows.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The cultural heritage cost of Kakadu tourism

    • Colin Long
    • 05 February 2008
    2 Comments

    From Ubirr, the wetlands, verdant and abundant with birdlife, stretch to the fringing escarpment. In a place so full of the beauties of nature, one feels keenly the absence of its traditional owners. For Australian and overseas visitors to experience this view, they lost their land.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Muddy ovals under threat from climate change

    • Colin Long
    • 13 June 2007
    1 Comment

    Those of us who played school or local footy in our youth remember bitterly cold days, ankle-deep mud and finding it difficult to tell team mates from opposition through the layers of mud caked on jumpers. My twelve year old has already played for more than five years, but has not experienced one of those afternoons.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The master of talkback radio

    • Colin Long
    • 15 May 2007
    1 Comment

    Mr Howard is a master of talking over people he doesn’t want to hear from. By going on talkback, politicians can appear to be available in an open and unstructured forum, reaching out over the heads of the media to constituents.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The myth of belonging masks our insecurity

    • Colin Long
    • 02 April 2007
    2 Comments

    The Prime Minister has used myths surrounding Gallipoli and racial politics to tap into our felt, but barely understood, craving for belonging. The tenuous nature of our sense of community make us susceptible to the fear campaigns that have dominated Australian politics over the past decade.

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