Peter Swan

6 days 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.

1 week ago | firstlinks.com.au | James Gruber |John Abernethy |Peter Swan |Colin Mackay

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1 week 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.

2 weeks ago | austaxpolicy.com | Peter Swan

Many retired Australians are covered by defined benefit schemes funded by their superannuation savings. These schemes were supposed to be very beneficial to retirees as are the unfunded defined benefit schemes provided by all governments to groups such as politicians, public servants and the military. Were they? First, a little backgroundSuperannuation deductions from your wage or salary are compulsory; and these make a sizeable and growing share of your total employee receipts.

2 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?