A Very Beautiful Laundromat

very student learns about Magna Carta, the ancient scroll that enshrined the rights of barons against the arbitrary authority of England’s monarchs. But most have never heard of its arguably more important twin, the Charter of the Forest, issued two years later in 1217. This short but powerful document guaranteed the rights of commoners to common lands, which they could use for farming, grazing, water and wood. It gave official recognition to a right that humans nearly everywhere had long just presupposed: that no one should be debarred from the resources necessary for livelihood.

The study of economics is dominated by men. There has been one woman winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics and in Australia one third of economics graduates are women and in the UK only one quarter of economics students are women. Why is it that women are not embracing economics? Could it be that the prevailing models of economics are in themselves sexist making the study of them less attractive to women. And who is homo economicus?

The first rule of Finance Capital is: You do not talk about Finance Capital. The second rule of Finance Capital is: You do not talk about Finance Capital. Third rule of Finance Capital: Someone yells stop, goes broke, is bailed out, the trade is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a trade. Fifth rule: one trade at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: neat shirts, neat shoes. Seventh rule: Trading will go on as long as it has to. And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first day at Finance Capital, you have to trade.

First They Jailed the Bankers, Now Every Icelander to Get Paid in Bank Sale

I've given up on fixing the economy. The economy is not broken. It's simply unjust. There's a difference.

We cannot go on running a deficit to finance current government spending, and therefore the government should raise taxes – a carbon tax, an inheritance tax, a tax on family trusts, and reform of capital gains and superannuation taxes as starters. Taxes with minor immediate impact but which slowly build up to collect more revenue would be ideal, in that they would not dampen our present need for fiscal stimulus while giving reassurance that we are serious about responsible financial management. At the same time, we could provide a strong fiscal stimulus with an ambitious capital works program. After decades of neglect of government capital investment there are plenty of opportunities for productive investment – proper broadband, urban public transport, interstate highways and railroads, protection against climate-change related storm damage to name a few. (Treasurer Morrison is right, we need investment, but he seems to be incapable of understanding that well-directed public investment can be even more productive than private investment.) That way money could be directed to real investment rather than being cycled through the real-estate market, strengthening our public balance sheet and, to borrow a slogan, providing “jobs and growth”.

The looming test case, alleging breaches of the Fair Work Act, will be the first in Australia to contest the legality of contracting arrangements in the so-called "sharing economy", where companies use self-employed workers rather than having them on the payroll.

"For instance, no-one seems to think it a problem that the chairman of the Sydney Theatre Company is Ian Narev, the CEO of a major bank," he says. "What does a banker know about theatre? "In a neo-liberal world, business know-how is transferable to any cultural endeavour. But would an actor ever be appointed chair of the Commonwealth Bank?" He says it is improbable that an artist or festival director would be asked by government to lead an inquiry into the banking sector.

What would we do with 100% clean energy? Exactly what we’re doing with fossil fuels Let’s imagine, just for argument’s sake, that we are able to get off fossil fuels and switch to 100% clean energy. There is no question this would be a vital step in the right direction, but even this best-case scenario wouldn’t be enough to avert climate catastrophe. Why? Well, first, the burning of fossil fuels only accounts for about 70% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The other 30% comes from a number of causes, including deforestation, and industrial livestock farming, which produces 90m tonnes of methane per year and most of the world’s anthropogenic nitrous oxide. Both of these gases are vastly more potent than CO2 when it comes to global warming. Livestock farming alone contributes more to global warming than all the cars, trains, planes and ships in the world. There are also a number of industrial processes that contribute significantly, and then there are our landfills, which pump out huge amounts of methane – 16% of the world’s total.