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A shift is afoot in the west's financial markets that represents the most important economic change since the emergence of the new financial instruments in the 1990s that ultimately led to the global financial crisis. It is likely to result in a new way of thinking about money, which will change the substructure of developed economies.
At the next global financial crisis, when questions about what we want our monetary system to do for us become a matter of survival, why not devise a transactional system that is not just geared towards the consumption of goods and services, but involves monetary exchanges for social goods, such as sustainable production, or civic benefit?
Recognising that financial systems are a human creation rather than natural systems governed by 'capital flows' would be an important step to conceiving a more robust and equitable system. To ask what kind of society we want and only then work out what we want money to do for us is to put the horse back in front of the cart.
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.
Like the flying saucer people documented in When Prophecy Fails, they don't change their minds based on new material. Rather, the discomfort fresh edvidence causes them results in a renewed proclamation of their denialism, as they double down on that identity. The rhetoric might change but the structure remains the same.
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.
They vastly outnumber journalists, their industry is far bigger than the shrinking media organisations, and the concentration of media ownership means that they can do deals with proprietors. Understanding that the trail with fake news leads to the spin doctors can be a useful way to detect what is, and is not, propaganda.
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.
The globe is being split into two, with Australia nervously sitting between the two sides: America and China. At least we have a trade deficit with America so are not an immediate target. But we might want to consider becoming more self-sufficient and broadening our industrial base.
The Australian economy rests on a decades-long property gamble that has disenfranchised younger generations. It is why the differing policies of the two major parties at the federal election take on an unusual significance. The voters' choice will go a long way towards determining if that generational split will get better or worse.
Here's a suggestion. In order to halt the seemingly inexorable destruction of the humanities in our secondary schools, we should immediately sack any senior Education Department bureaucrat who has an MBA. Or perhaps they can be forced to reapply, unsuccessfully, for their old jobs. They like that kind of thing.
It has been postulated that there are three types of war: kinetic, informational and economic. America has been losing its kinetic conflicts in the Middle East and recently has escalated its informational war. The favoured weapon with economic warfare is sanctions, and Trump has started to use them to an extreme degree.
85-96 out of 200 results.