We don’t need to buy stuff? Peak Consumerism
Post-GFC, there are now arguments in places like The Economist and the New York Times that we’ve passed Peak Consumerism.
Rudd government to introduce an ETS based on consumption not production?
Writing in today’s Fin, Laura Tingle, who’s normally very well informed, reports on work being done in the Department of Climate Change on a new version of the ETS, this time based on consumption not production. The idea is that [...]
"Great new tax on everything"
The government has released modelling showing the effects of the CPRS on household incomes, demonstrating that many low income earners will, on average, be better off financially. Predictably, this disclosure has added fuel to the fire of complaints from the [...]
The Affluenza myth
Don Arthur wrote an excellent post at Troppo last week, which is an object lesson in how ideological positions collapse when confronted with careful empirical work: Australia is in the midst of a flat-screen TV crisis, says Clive Hamilton. Driven [...]
Weightless capitalism
For quite some time, it’s been becoming easier to conceive of the commodity as something immaterial – a social relation – and indeed of economic value as a social construct. Indicative of the accentuation of such trends – and this [...]
Gerry Harvey as leading indicator?
Anyone who’s worked in a large public sector organisation will know how “efficiency dividends” work. Or don’t work. Or work in unintended ways – by destroying the capacity to do what your actual main purpose is. There’s a bit of [...]
Spend, spend, spend! It's your patriotic duty… or something
The stock market has lost 51% of its value since its peak, a decline we’re told now exceeds the destruction of value seen in 1987. On the ABC News tonight, Alan Kohler grimly pointed to an index (tradeable, I think, [...]
Of gallstones and equality
No doubt I’m not the first to comment on the fact that Therese Rein had her gallbladder surgery at the Mater Private Hospital. I’m certainly not casting stones, as I had my gallbladder removed at St Andrew’s Hospital in 2004. [...]
Good riddance to bad rubbish
It’s reported today that China will ban the free distribution of plastic shopping bags at shops and supermarkets as of 1 June this year, and that the Australian government is considering phasing out plastic bags either through imposing a levy [...]
Ready to download?
Mel at Footpath Zeitgeist* has a post up about the ethics of fashion: There has been more and more mainstream media coverage lately about issues of ethics in fashion, which is giving consumers this kind of knowledge. Sue Thomas’s opinion [...]
Doing business online
As the election approaches, there’s bound to be another round of discussion about politics and politicians online – the role of You Tube, Facebook, newspaper blogs, online polls, political bloggers, etc. But as I was squashing a cockroach in my [...]
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