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1 week ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
‘Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the debt,’ quipped America’s 31st president, Herbert Hoover. In Australia’s case, the inheritance is far more generous, though not in a good way. Alongside eye-watering public debt, the next generation will receive a tax system so convoluted it could double as a punishment, a regulatory maze seemingly designed to asphyxiate productivity in red and green tape, and an education system where mediocrity isn’t the exception but the goal.
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2 weeks ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
In Mary Shelley’s seminal novel Frankenstein, the ambitious scientist Dr Victor Frankenstein, in a quest to push the boundaries of human achievement, creates a living being from lifeless matter.
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3 weeks ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
Australia’s economic stagnation has become so widespread and persistent that it must be asked whether it is simply the product of bad luck or poor decisions, or is it the result of something more deliberate. Could the collapse in Australia’s productivity be the result of a calculated effort by parts of the political and bureaucratic elite, an elaborate exercise in quiet economic dismantling, carried out in plain sight?
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
Australians have an unusual habit of celebrating public policies that the rest of the world politely declines to imitate. It is regularly claimed, for example, that Australia’s compulsory superannuation system is the envy of the world. Yet despite the fanfare, no other country seems eager to replicate this innovation. Another proudly touted but globally unadopted Australian practice is the peculiar pairing of compulsory voting and compulsory preferential voting.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Peter Swan |Dimitri Burshtein
Australia’s political and economic direction is beginning to travel a well-trodden and dangerous path. A path that increasingly looks Argentinian. For decades, successive Australian governments have expanded the personal and corporate welfare state.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
If the 2025 Australian federal election proved anything, it’s that the era of major party dominance is approaching its end. It is true that Labor secured more seats than in the previous election, but the combined first preference flow to the major parties continues its downward trajectory. The voters have spoken.
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1 month ago | 
firstlinks.com.au | Noel Whittaker |James Gruber |Peter Swan |Dimitri Burshtein
Reader: "Carry on as you are - well done. The average investor/SMSF trustee needs all the help they can get."Professor Robert Deutsch: "This has got to be the best set of articles on economic and financial matters. Always something worthwhile reading in Firstlinks.
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1 month ago | 
firstlinks.com.au | Noel Whittaker |James Gruber |Peter Swan |Dimitri Burshtein
Reader: "Carry on as you are - well done. The average investor/SMSF trustee needs all the help they can get."Professor Robert Deutsch: "This has got to be the best set of articles on economic and financial matters. Always something worthwhile reading in Firstlinks.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
In the world of politics, governments are often imagined as benevolent, armed with perfect information and hearts of pure gold, ready to deliver us to the promised land. Australians, however, might be feeling a little less starry-eyed these days, having lived through years of pandemic-era central planning, ballooning government interventions and bureaucrats who believe they understand Australians’ lives better than they do themselves.
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1 month ago | 
firstlinks.com.au | Peter Swan |Dimitri Burshtein |James Gruber |Noel Whittaker
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