From Morgan Begg | Thursday, 10 August 2017
Something is driving up the cost of living, and it’s not the private sector:
As the reported in The Australian this morning, since 2007-08 prices for private sector goods and services have increased 10%, whilst the cost of goods and services (like electricity and childcare) set or influenced by the public sector have increased by a whopping 60%.
Australia is spending more per prisoner than all but three other developed countries and has a rapidly growing prison population and police force – but we still feel less safe than most other countries. That’s from IPA Research Fellow Andrew Bushnell’s ground-breaking report on comparative criminal justice costs released on Tuesday:
You can read and watch all the media coverage Andrew’s report received at IPA Today here.
Here’s an inconvenient truth about Al Gore’s latest film: it’s bombing at the cinemas. And it’s no wonder when organisations that promote climate hysteria muck up the numbers – the IPA’s Jennifer Marohasy laid out the 4 steps the government needs to take to fix the Bureau of Meteorology’s handling of temperature data.
The software engineer that wrote the 10-page internal memo on “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” that divided America this week (the most interesting corporate memo I’ve ever seen!) got the result we’ve come to expect nowadays. Of course he was fired. I guess there was something to the idea that Google was a politically correct monoculture after all.
The spirit of Stalin-apologist Walter Duranty lives on at The New York Times. This love letter to Soviet Russia that appeared on Monday would have you believe the worst thing Stalin ever did was make land available for mining and exploration.
Last week, the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro used a sham election to consolidate power and by last Tuesday armed thugs were rounding up political opponents. The IPA’s Matthew Lesh last week in The Spectator Australia condemned the “British socialists living in a fairyland” defending this cruel failed state.
But I want to hear what these robots have to say about Venezuela! Two chatbot programmes in Red China were shut down last week for being critical of ruling Communist party.
Australia needs more politicians who believe good policy is good politics. Which is what then IPA Research Fellow Asher Judah said back in 2011 in this oped on the twentieth anniversary of Fightback!On the weekend Asher won preselection for the Liberal Party for next year’s Victorian election. If he wins the seat of Bentleigh Asher will be the third IPA alumnus in the Victorian parliament!
And make sure you catch The Young IPA Podcast tomorrow for our interview with the magnificent Mary Kissel from The WSJ on Donald Trump, the swamp and Australia. Last week’s episode is available on iTunes here, and SoundCloud here. Check out Mary’s interview on The Bolt Report yesterday.
Article of the week:
David French at the National Review on Tuesday explained that while freedom of speech has legally expanded in the United States, culturally it is on the decline as ordinary people are afraid to speak their mind.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Daniel Wild
You would all remember Dr Jordan Peterson from his various YouTube videos on post-modernism. Today, Dr Peterson spoke with James Damore (the software engineer fired from Google for his diversity memo) about what happened, ideological echo chambers, and political correctness in large companies.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Andrew Bushnell, The expensive problem with our prisons: why spending more doesn’t make us feel safer – ABC News
- Matthew Lesh, The Left’s exotic Venezuelan romance meets reality – The Spectator Australia
- Peter Gregory, Big government’s war on young Australians – The Spectator Australia
- Evan Mulholland, The Republican suicide squad – The Spectator Australia
