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It is easy to blame the financial sector — and the governments that were supposed to oversee the financial system but instead just washed their hands of it — for creating this global debt debauch. They certainly bear much of the responsibility. But in many ways the financial misbehaviour is as much symptom as cause.
One of the ironies of the intensifying tariff war between America and China is that that neither of the two giants seems to have a viable economic model. Both countries' systems are based on dodgy financial engineering and printing money, or just inventing new types of money out of thin air.
While the current economic climate is cause for concern, it is not the time to panic. A more sensible alternative to austerity is for governments, business, unions and charities to look for ways we can together soften the impact of any global downturn. This will require bipartisan agreement to sacrifice some or all of the budget surplus.
Five years ago I woke in the middle of the night and wrote a letter to myself about climate change. 'The world around you no longer exists. The conditions that created it have already changed and the society you know remains the same only due to inertia.' Now I know I'm not the only one who's lain shuddering with this awful premonition.
When discussing climate change, it's easy to depict the world's reliance on fossil fuels as primarily a technological problem, to be resolved by new methods for harnessing renewable energies. But that's only part of the story, as the example of Saudi Arabia shows.
A Green New Deal in Australia would mean a stronger commitment to a government-led rapid transition to renewable energy and cleaner transport, with clear programs to support transition to well-paid green jobs in places that previously relied on resource extractive industries. This isn't necessarily as expensive as it sounds.
While money can be transacted for things that are bad — air pollution, road deaths, cigarette ads — as long as more transactions occur, it creates the illusion the economy is growing, which, ipso facto, is good. Thus, Japan's GDP rose sharply after the tsunami disaster. New Zealand's initiative will track better what is really happening in the country.
This might be the Mediterranean were it not for the snow-lacquered mountains abutting the fjord we're sailing through. But no, it's the Arctic in summer — or, more precisely, the Arctic in the summer of 2019, when the climate emergency is at its zenith and the region is expected to record the lowest sea ice on record.
People are lacking inspiration and courage. So right now, what we need is a solution as big as the problem we're trying to solve, and the best idea on the table is a 'Green New Deal' that combines action on climate change with tackling inequality.
Had Labor flatly opposed Adani, it would have been better positioned to sell a different model for the creation of local jobs and security. Instead, the lack of clarity prevented the ALP from articulating a persuasive economic alternative to a mine it wouldn't say definitely was closing.
Kenneth Hayne's royal commission into the financial sector has named, shamed and excoriated banks, regulators, insurance companies and other financial services businesses to the extent that you would think they are now extremely vulnerable and universally unloved. That would be a mistake.
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.
73-84 out of 200 results.