How to address vaccine hesitancy — It is 9:25 am on November 23rd and I am sitting in Brisbane’s Convention Centre Vaccine Clinic, where, for the second time in three weeks, I am absolutely sure that I am about to die from myocarditis. Palpitations, ectopic beats, pains above, below and around this vital organ: post-vaccination, my…

Originally written for RealTimeCEO — The Australian government’s lockdowns and COVID-Zero policies have saved many lives, yet they cost our economy tens of millions of dollars a day. With all the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic’s future, can our current approach continue? This article looks at the health and economic implications of Australia’s policies. I The Cost of COVID-Zero It is…

A Review (That Sort of Became an Essay on Why You Should Respect This Man) — I Political Symphonies As Vintage’s resident ‘erratic Marxist’, Yanis Varoufakis recently had the opportunity to pen an introduction to their new reprint of the Communist Manifesto. There, he expounds on the nature of great manifestos. To succeed, a manifesto ‘must speak to our hearts like a poem while infecting the mind with images…

Written for RealTimeCEO Today, finance and economics have nothing to do with one another. I deliberately open with this ridiculous statement, because financial markets in the last 12 months have behaved in ridiculous ways. In 2020, the real economy in the USA shrank significantly; yet, financial markets boomed. Some commentators…

The Politics of Technological Change, Pt. I — ‘Technological inevitability is the mantra on which we are trained, but it is an existential narcotic prescribe to induce resignation: a snuff dream of the spirit.’ - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, p. 516. Of the many threads that comprise Shoshana Zuboff’s excellent book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, we…

Written for RealTimeCEO — As our leaders look to repair our economies after the COVID-19 crash, a wild new way of economic thinking has surged to prominence: modern monetary theory, or MMT for short. MMT’s supposedly radical ideas for money creation and government spending have caused fear and confusion. ‘It’s dangerous,’ we hear. ‘We’ll…

“Nobody ever goes broke overestimating the rage and misogyny of the average American male” — David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster. I Iso-Sex The most depressing moment¹ of the COVID-19 economic crash so far occurred on Thursday 09/10/20 at approx. 2130h on the homepage of the USA’s eight-most popular website,² PornHub.com, where…

There’s a scene in Armando Iannucci’s Death of Stalin where Krushchev et al. lament the loss of their leader. ‘A great reformer,’ they say. Despite their praise, all of them are terrified. Deviating from the party line means death, after all. For those who don’t get it, this scene relies…

(1) R U OK? DAY, 2019 I have this memory. The sun burns, a golden glow clambering slantwise through the room. We all stand, waiting to hear her words. It was September 11th, 2019. There were little trays of relatively edible hors d’oeuvres decaying on round, high tables. Compassionate black and gold posters hung just above…