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How does climate change threaten your savings? And how do your savings threaten climate change? Can you do anything about it?One of the world’s fastest-growing social movements calls for citizens…
Sylvia Nasar’s megabestseller A Beautiful Mind was ‘perhaps the best economics-related book of the past quarter-century’, according to the New York Times.This master storyteller has a knack for…
Our fabulous double bills are back – bringing you three big nights of international writers, presented back-to-back.From genre-bending fiction bestsellers to young adult authors with cult…
Sylvia Nasar is best known as the author of A Beautiful Mind, which the New York Times called ‘perhaps the best economics-related book of the past quarter-century’. In her latest book, Grand…
India is booming: everyone says so. The economy is growing to match its massive population, and new industries like IT are creating a thriving middle class. Yet millions of Indians, especially…
2013 is an election year and we know that domestic issues will dominate the campaign and decide our next prime minister. But, at a time when the world is confronting major changes, our foreign…
Tonight, 20,000 Victorians are homeless. How do we get people off the streets and into shelter?Should we give money – and if so, to individuals or organisations? Is homelessness inevitable – or can w…
Once upon a time, older generations could berate young people for not realising their relative good fortune. But these days, it seems that opportunities for young people are dwindling … along with…
As the Communist Party of China’s 18th National Congress oversees the biggest leadership transition in decades, join host Sally Warhaft and China watcher and correspondent, John Garnaut, as they…
China is fast becoming the next world superpower, while India – with its vast young population, booming jobs market and burgeoning economy – is on the march. Meanwhile, Wall Street has plunged the…
China is fast becoming the next world superpower, while India – with its vast young population, booming jobs market and burgeoning economy – is on the march. Meanwhile, Wall Street has plunged the…
Michael H. Shuman argues that there are a number of initiatives communities must take to support local economies and small business – and that the knock-on effects of local investment are vast…
Michael H. Shuman has been working on local economy issues for 15 years. He’s an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur.Michael argues that there are a number of initiatives communities must t…
In this heated discussion about the benefit and sustainability of economic growth, host Sally Warhaft is joined by risk analyst and author Satyajit Das, and economist, author, and former senior…
The Fifth Estate is the Wheeler Centre’s new series of fortnightly forums: a more measured approach to news and current affairs. Provocative and studied, authoritative and unhurried, this is real…
From child soldiers in Sudan to gang violence in Papua New Guinea; tsunamis in the Pacific to earthquakes in New Zealand, we’re confronted with communities in need every day. Who should we help? How …
Leading political journalist Laura Tingle argues that something deep in our culture now amplifies antagonism and complaint. She’s joined in discussion by veteran ABC political correspondent Fran…
How does the relationship between Australia and Indonesia work? In the past week Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that three Indonesian nationals accused of people smuggling – who claimed to…
The Fifth Estate is the Wheeler Centre’s new series of fortnightly forums: a more measured approach to news and current affairs. Provocative and studied, authoritative and unhurried, this is real…
Bad for business, good for ‘struggle street’, sharing the resource boom, hampering overseas investment. This is just some of what’s being said about Labor’s 2012-13 budget.One week on from budget…
In light of Tony Abbott’s newly proposed policy aspiration to extend the childcare rebate to nannies, host Sally Warhaft discusses childcare and family/work life in Australia with Catherine Deveny…
Brilliant in a bust and selfish in a boom – that’s the assessment of ‘the Australian moment’ by one of our most authoritative and independent political commentators. George Megalogenis speaks on…
Brilliant in a bust and selfish in a boom – that’s the assessment of ‘the Australian moment’ by one of our most authoritative and independent political commentators. George Megalogenis speaks on…
As Italian pensioners prepare to cop the brunt of bank foolhardiness, one minister has found it all too much. Italy’s welfare minister, Elsa Fornero, was delivering news of cuts to pensions at a…
In a recent story on future business models for online publishing and journalism, we quoted Maria Popova, editor of the website Brain Pickings, who advocates a pay-as-you-feel model to keep online…
Is the world split between those who want to save the planet and those who want to save themselves? In Quarterly Essay 44, Andrew Charlton exposes the rift that will shape our future: progress…
Is the world split between those who want to save the planet and those who want to save themselves? In Quarterly Essay 44, Andrew Charlton exposes the rift that will shape our future: progress…
(Click to watch video.) “This year two thirds of all world growth has come out of the developing economies. And we think we can have a debate about the…
All the wealth in the world adds up to just under $200 trillion dollars (the world economy is worth $60 trillion a year, as we mentioned in a recent story), most of which was created in the last two …
It was the prime ministerial event we had to have. On this special Sunday evening presentation, Paul Keating joined Robert Manne for a conversational marathon, coinciding with the publication of his …
Countries whose governments are powerless to some degree or another are called failed states. But even in countries that don’t qualify as failed states, the ability of governments to provide basic…
More than a statistic, “one per cent” has become the slogan of a diffuse but determined worldwide movement that, many believe, has already changed political discourse, regardless of its ultimate…
Jane Gleeson-White talks about her third book, Double Entry: How the merchants of Venice shaped the modern world – and how their invention could make or break the planet. She describes the birth of t…
Today is the day the United Nations Population Fund has deemed the day most likely the world’s population hits the seven billion mark. We’ve just uploaded the video/podcast of our recent event…
New Scientist magazine has reported on the results of a study into who runs the global economy. The study was conducted by three complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of…
Why should we worry about poverty? The answer might seem obvious, so let’s try it another way: is the justification for worrying about poverty based solely on compassionate grounds or is there an…
Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and author. Since the age of 20, he’s dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the…
“We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world.” Hundreds of writers have lent their names to the website Occupy Writers
It’s Anti-Poverty Week and, coincidentally, the Occupy Wall Street movement, having mushroomed across North America, has now jumped the Pacific and is set to reach Melbourne this Saturday. Having…
This blog post by Catherine Deveny was originally published on her own blog under the title, ‘Unhappy? Because We Are Not Spending? Bullshit.’You’ll see them in shopping centres every weekend…
Today’s edition of Crikey features a link to a YouTube video of a BBC interview with London-based independent trader Alessio Rastani speaking with unusual forthrightness, if not downright nihilism…
Detail of an image of Kalgoorlie’s super-pit gold mine (the biggest man-made hole in the world) courtesy Kate Raynes-Goldie/Flickr Journalist Paul Cleary has warned that…
No longer is alarmism about modern-day psychiatry the preserve of conspiracy theorists and Scientologists. That a forthcoming appearance at the Wheeler Centre by Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath…
It’s a debate with a decidedly apocalyptic ring: stand by while the dynamics of life on earth change irrevocably, or try to take action that may slow or halt the process – and in so doing possibly…
In this Lunchbox/Soapbox, highly respected Australian journalist Paul Cleary expands on his polemic on the insidious effects of Australia’s mining boom. He takes on our dependence on digging stuff…
Illiteracy and poverty go hand in hand. There are almost 800 million adults and children alive today who can’t read, and most of them live in the developing world. Closer to home, only 15% of…
“Prison is a place where one can meet the most extraordinary people,” according to Russian tycoon and billionaire jailbird Mikhail Khodorkovsky. According to an Agence France Presse report published …
By George Friedman, Stratfor Global Intelligence“Classical political economists like Adam Smith or David Ricardo never used the term ‘economy’ by itself. They always used the term ‘political…
Image courtesy Robert Scarth/Flickr Click on the ‘What’s New’ page on the website of the Project for the New American Century and you’ll notice that the Washington…
On September 11, 2001, we were told the world had changed forever. Ten years on, one of America’s finest journalists comes to Australia to reflect on the nature of that change.In partnership with…
Federal Minister for Small Business Nick Sherry predicted this morning that online shopping will wipe out bookstores within the next five years. Senator Sherry made the comments at the launch of a…
In his six-part documentary series, The Ascent of Money (currently available entirely online), Niall Ferguson narrates, “Banks financed the Renaissance, while the bond market decided wars. Stock…
Image of a model of a heart via WikiCommons Three years ago, a man fainted at the international airport of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. When authorities went to his…
