Blogotariat

Overwhelmingly, Australia’s top economists would rather the budget funds measures to cut carbon emissions than cuts income tax or company tax.

They are also dead against rumoured cuts to petrol tax and the tax on beer.

The West is arraying financial weapons never deployed before against a country of Russia’s size, forsaking some of the principles that have defined it.

Part of what has defined the West – and most of what has been the world’s engine of prosperity for the past century and a half – has been the free flow of goods across borders, a working banking system, and property rights.

Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

Australia’s leading economists have overwhelmingly endorsed a return to the highest immigration intake on record, saying Australia should aim for at least 190,000 migrants per year as it opens its borders, up from the target of 160,000 per year set ahead of COVID.

Sometimes the best things you can do are invisible.

Such as fighting cholera by ensuring drinking water wasn’t contaminated by sewage, as happened in London in the 1840s.

What’s the boldest thing the Morrison government could do in next month’s budget?

It would be to forecast an unemployment rate below 4% (a rate of three-point-something), then to pledge to go further, to two-point-something.