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3 days 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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2 weeks 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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3 weeks 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
Reader: " Finding a truly independent and interesting read has been magical for me. Please keep it up and don't change!"Eleanor Dartnall, AFA Adviser of the Year, 2014: "Our clients love your newsletter. Your articles are avidly read by advisers and they learn a great deal."Reader: "Is one of very few places an investor can go and not have product rammed down their throat.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
President Donald Trump’s trade policies, launched under the slogan ‘Making America Great Again’ have instead sparked economic disruption, geopolitical instability, and strategic confusion. Far from securing America’s economic and national interests, these policies are actively undermining both.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
In 1980, then Singapore prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, warned that if Australia failed to reform, it risked becoming ‘the poor white trash of Asia’. At the time, Australia was inward-looking, heavily protected by tariffs, and structurally complacent. Under prime minister Malcolm Fraser and his treasurer John Howard, Australia was grappling with a period of stagflation, economic stagnation combined with high inflation.
