Are you the “lazy” or the “deliberate” thinker? Why can’t we have a hybrid?
Something has been bugging me for quite a while – how difficult it is to strike a balance between thinking fast, albeit impulsively…
Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 – amid the depths of the Great Depression – he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked…
When financial planning firm Storm Financial collapsed with $3 billion in investment losses, many of its investors were left destitute.
A parliamentary joint committee inquiry into the company’s demise…
Over the last few weeks, what was the juiciest development for those that cannot get enough of gossip about tech giant Apple? Was it “when will the iPad 3 debut and will it have a retina display?“ Or…
In a 2008 paper on neuroeconomics, Carnegie Mellon University economist George Loewenstein said: “Whereas psychologists tend to view humans as fallible and sometime even self-destructive, economists tend…
There has been growing debate as to whether Australia should make greater use of Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, to manage fluctuations in the federal budget balance due to commodity…
Australians love to travel the world. In 2011 more than 7.5 million Australians (or more than one third of all Australians) travelled outside the country. Of course, most Australian travellers abroad have…
As stranded Air Australia customers continued to scramble to get home over the weekend, many may well be asking themselves: who’d run an airline?
On Friday, just a day after Qantas announced 500 job cuts…
By Alice Payne, Queensland University of Technology
There’s a polyester mullet skirt gracing a derrière near you. It’s short at the front, long at the back, and it’s also known as the hi-lo skirt. Like fads that preceded it, the mullet skirt has a short…
Plans announced by Qantas to cut 500 jobs have been greeted with dismay by unions, who have warned they will hold chief executive Alan Joyce to his promise that maintenance jobs will not go overseas…
Few countries have been left unscathed by the global financial crisis and it seems that they are all situated in the southern hemisphere. Brazil and Australia are some of them. Recently, their economies…
The recent decision to means test the tax subsidy on private health insurance was made on the grounds that we provide more help to those who need it most and not subsidise those who can afford to take…
Financial Services Minister Bill Shorten has set up a Productivity Commission inquiry to define the criteria for selecting a default superannuation fund under “modern awards”. By October, commissioners…
By Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology
For major brands, the road to social media infamy is paved with what seemed like good ideas at the time.
Just this week, Qantas succeeded in having Twitter suspend the well-known spoof account, @QantasPR…
By Kevin Davis, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
Last week, the Reserve Bank defied market expectations to announce the 4.25% cash rate would remain unchanged. But the surprise decision by Australia’s Big Four banks to act independently of the Reserve…
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To what extent are we encouraged to think of ourselves as free and self-determining individuals, whilst in reality being restricted both overtly and insidiously by our institutional frameworks?
If this…
Why Australia's big banks are offshoring part of their financial operations to Asia.
AAP
Reports of more offshoring of jobs from Australia to other countries are, seemingly, a daily occurrence. Such reports include, for example, the manufacturing of cars and their components and aspects of…
Revelations of cruelty in Australian abattoirs cause outrage, but probably not boycotts.
ABC/AAP
Last year, revelations of cruelty to cows in Indonesian abattoirs led to outrage in Australia. The assumption was that these sorts of things could never happen here. Last week, a NSW abattoir was closed…
A slowdown in China's economy is not yet cause for concern in Australia.
AAP
These days, most economic commentators in Australia sing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to discussing our economic prospects: while the ongoing gloom in the US and the outright deterioration in…
Do we have enough capacity to increase the housing supply?
AAP
We often hear that Australia is facing a housing shortage that is driving up property prices, but what is the best way out of this predicament?
In the final days of last year, National Housing Supply…
Entrepreneur Dick Smith has been very vocal in the past few days about the prospect of his namesake retail business falling into “foreign hands”. Despite him selling the electronics chain to Woolworths…
As long as people see the gender wage gap as normal, society has a problem. This view is illustrated in a comment by Jeremy Sammut on a Centre for Independent Studies email newsletter: “Forget that the…
Qantas and its low cost carrier division Jetstar have announced they will increase domestic and international airfares in stages from February through to July 1. The justification is a combination of increasing…
How this increasing trend is leading to cancer drug shortages.
Flickr
It’s the pharmaceutical industry equivalent of the butterfly effect: a drug manufacturing plant in Ohio shuts down production after regulators on two continents uncover contamination problems. Suddenly…
The automotive industry is bearing the brunt of a strong Australian dollar.
AAP
Toyota’s announcement yesterday that it will shed 350 jobs at its plant in Altona has been blamed on the strength of the Australian dollar, which some commentators say is having a significant impact on…
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