It shouldn’t be this hard. For most of this century, standards of living for ordinary people have been going backwards. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be .
Loss of vision. Australia’s leaders forgot how to lead. When Paul Keating moved out of the Prime Ministerial Lodge in Canberra on 21 March 1996 after showing John Howard around, a period of reform and vision ended and a new era of Australian political history began.
How to lose a war. History has many lessons about wars and how to lose them. Trump’s latest dismal escapade shows how completely he has failed to learn.
One damn theory after another (1) Those big economic theories all seemed like good ideas at the time. Only later did we realise the economists had wrecked the joint.
Prosperity versus the planet: can we have both? Humanity needs economic growth – but we also need a habitable planet. We can have both, but not if we go on doing the same things.
For China, is this as good as it gets? The ‘middle-income trap’ that ended the rise of so many former tiger economies now ensnares China. The prognosis isn’t good.
How the west mishandles terrorism (and makes it worse) In the rich world, terrorism is one of the least significant of all threats to life and security. But our panicked over-reaction and rushed, repressive laws do what the terrorists could not achieve by themselves.
Does Trump really matter? He thought the world was simple and that he had the formula for changing everything. But the world is more complicated than he ever imagined. His impact will vanish with him.