Publications

Abbott’s scheme, while meant to create a more family friendly society, will only enlarge the welfare state and increase taxes. But looking at Japan, Canada or Germany we can see that imposing bigger tax burdens and increasing the welfare state are not conducive to lifting either productivity or fertility.

The stakes for Britain could hardly be higher. A return to the pre-crisis times of ‘Cool Britannia’, let alone Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory is nowhere in sight. And instead of only printing Adam Smith’s portrait on their bank notes, British policy-makers should rather have read the great master.

IN his masterpiece, The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek considered the follies of mistaken policies to conclude: “We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.” If only Kevin Rudd heeded this advice, his much-televised apologies for the government’s insulation fiasco and other policy blunders would be more credible.

This week’s news held an unpleasant surprise for the world’s conservatives and religious. Luckily for them, they were probably too dumb to understand it.

Europe’s centre-right has instead embarked on the task of presenting themselves as the nicer social-democrats, purging themselves of any trace economic liberalism and any old-fashioned conservative instincts. Unfortunately, this unprincipled race for popularity will do nothing to restore Europe’s competitiveness.

With giant uranium reserves under our feet, Australia should seriously consider whether it wants to be part of the new nuclear age or content itself with just providing nuclear fuel to others.

There is something comical about current talk about a potential Greek bankruptcy. No, the state of Greece’s public finances is certainly no laughing matter. But it is funny how politicians and financial markets are getting excited about this as if it were news.

If at some stage in the future people should wonder when enviro-fundamentalism became mainstream, it was probably in the commercial break of the 2010 Super Bowl.