Monday Message Board
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
Articles from John Quiggin
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Coles’ shameless ‘Down Down’ promotions have been exposed. So why aren’t they even trying to rebuild trust?
My latest in The Guardian
Sleepless in Suburbia
I spoke last week at a meeting organised by the Brisbane Flight Paths Community Association to demand a curfew on planes flying over Brisbane. These are mostly either international flights (subsidised by the state government) to promote tourism) or overnight freight, for which there is a fairly modest convenience benefit
The US state has proved itself dispensable
Not long after Trump took office, I observed that the status of the US as the “indispensable nation” could not be sustained. A year later, the US, considered strictly as a state actor, is already dispensable and has, in fact, been largely dispensed with, by Europe in particular.
Monday Message Board
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
Monday Message Board
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
Liberals polling in single digits: as the right splinters, it’s a real possibility
One of the strangest features of the Australian political system over the last 80 years or so has been the permanent coalition between the Liberal and National (formerly Country) parties. It sometimes puzzles foreigners – I remember an American observer saying that the prevalence of coalition governments here was an indicator or political instability. And it takes different forms in different places.
False Alarm
Back in March 2023, the Nine Papers ran a series of articles, entitled Red Alert, based on the claim of an “expert panel” that we should be ready to fight a war with China, within three years. With only a few weeks to go before the third anniversary of the series, the prediction is not looking good.
Monday Message Board
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
A New Hope
Ever since it became evident that Trump was likely to be re-elected, I’ve been among the most pessimistic of commentators on the likely course of US politics (most recently here for example). I’ve also been nowhere near pessimistic enough. I assumed that Trump would follow the course of dictators like Putin and Orban, gradually eroding freedom and making his own power permanent. Instead, he’s gone most of the way inside a year.