Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Economist

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Brazil's long night of the soul

    • Antonio Castillo
    • 30 October 2018
    8 Comments

    Bolsonaro's election is the product of Brazil's disenchantment with democracy and hatred against a political system corrupted to its core. It is corruption — a malaise that infiltrates just about every slice of Brazilian society — that has pushed the country to what Vladimir Safatle, a Brazilian philosopher, has described as 'night without end'.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Trump's thuggery is changing world finance

    • David James
    • 05 October 2018
    5 Comments

    That Trump is a narcissistic braggart was never in doubt. The more intriguing question was always how a businessman would behave once he became president. His administration sees business-style standover tactics as a thoroughly good option. The system-wide shifts that are resulting may have a lasting impact.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A love letter to libraries

    • Sheila Ngoc Pham
    • 10 August 2018
    12 Comments

    We had some books at home so I wasn't wholly deprived but I did have to discover reading without any real parental guidance; English wasn't even our home language. But when I started working at my local public library, it became clear that while I might have been the child of refugees, for many, libraries themselves were a refuge.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Burning down the house of inequality

    • John Falzon
    • 28 June 2018
    7 Comments

    If you accept the tenets of individualism, you are going to struggle to see why we should have anything but the most minimal level of taxation, and you wouldn't hold that taxation should be progressive to be fair. But the reality is that inequality is a political failure; not a personal one.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Is it too hard to have a career in the arts?

    • Amelia Paxman
    • 15 June 2018
    17 Comments

    The slow, heartbreaking realisation that unfolded over a year or more was that none of this — the heavy glass trophy, breathing the same air as popular TV hosts, sitting at those fancy tables — would change anything. It was an elaborate farce, and I was still a nobody in a struggling ecosystem.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Devils in budget detail

    • Gabriela D'Souza
    • 17 May 2018
    2 Comments

    There were the stories that didn't get much of a mention in the mainstream press but will net large gains for young people and new entrants to the labour market. Under the budget measure, inactive super accounts with balances of less than $6000 will have a three per cent cap on fees charged. But is this policy quite what it seems?

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Ireland's 'hard border' irony has a bitter taste

    • Brian Matthews
    • 08 May 2018
    11 Comments

    The word 'irony' is sometimes preceded by 'delicious'. But it is sour and wounding in Ireland, where British withdrawal from the EU, Brexit, and the Irish Republic's firm intention to remain, raises the possibility of what pundits call a 'hard' border between the Republic and Northern Ireland.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Policy solutions to bonkers housing costs

    • Gabriela D'Souza
    • 06 April 2018
    5 Comments

    I was in Sydney recently, and within less than an hour of my arrival of the airport, I was thrust into a conversation about how completely unaffordable the city was becoming. 'Bonkers' was the general consensus. But how did it get this bad and what can be done to repair the current state of affairs?

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Dispelling lazy thinking on trade deals

    • David James
    • 20 March 2018
    6 Comments

    The recent furore about Donald Trump's imposing of tariffs on steel, from which Australian companies have been exempted, raises an interesting question about the economics discipline. Which is better, an oxymoron or a tautology?

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    No economy of exclusion and inequality

    • Joe Zabar
    • 27 February 2018

    'Francis' statement is not one merely for theological or academic contemplation. It is in effect Francis' call to establish a new benchmark for our economy, one where exclusion and inequality are no longer a natural and accepted consequence of its operation.' Director of Economic Policy for Catholic Social Services Australia addresses the CSSA annual conference in Melbourne, February 2018.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Address to future doctors

    • Frank Brennan
    • 31 January 2018

    'The place of religious and comprehensive world views in legislating, ethical decision making, and good medical practice informed by prudential resource allocation' — Remarks by Fr Frank Brennan to first year medical students at the University of Notre Dame Australia, 30 January 2018.

    READ MORE
  • ENVIRONMENT

    Bitcoin has a massive energy problem

    • Greg Foyster
    • 19 January 2018
    1 Comment

    The digital currency Bitcoin consumes more electricity per year than New Zealand. Yes, the entire country. Escalating energy intensity is actually a security feature of the currency. With the related carbon dioxide emissions from this escalating electricity consumption, Bitcoin is a formula for climate change catastrophe.

    READ MORE