John Menadue

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Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading and listening:

"Vital Signs: the spooky mortgage risk signs our bankers are ignoring" – Richard Holden (The Conversation) "Changes to lure young people into private health insurance won't slow increase in premiums" – Stephen Duckett (The Conversation) Private health insurance is just another way to rip off millennials Naaman Zhou (The Guardian)

Voluntary euthanasia is a threshold moment for Australia and one we should not cross - Paul Keating (Canberra Times)

Colliding stars revealed by gravitational waves and light - Genelle Weule (ABC News) Challenging thoughts on our love of wars - Henry Reynolds gives the Brisbane Peace Lecture (ABC radio) - AUDIO Tony Abbott wins with new energy policy – Ben Eltham (New Matilda) The “no deal” fallout for the UK and EU – (Deutsche Welle) The endless struggle between capital and labour – Michael Hudson (Naked Capitalism)

“There is growing evidence that investments are being deferred due to uncertainty about the future cost of addressing climate change. Without a clear signal on future carbon costs, these investments will not be optimised.”  This is one of many quotes from Malcolm Turnbull’s speeches in 2010, drawn together in an article by Jessica Irvine.

Australia has high corporate taxes, right?  The ABC’s Ian Verrender has some revealing tables on where Australia’s corporate taxes stand in relation to other companies. We’re down around the middle, or even near the bottom by some estimates. And corporate tax cuts don’t boost the economy.

“The government needs to take urgent measures to lift workers’ pay before record low wages growth starts damaging the economy.” That’s the view not of a left-wing firebrand, but of Michael Blythe, chief economist of the Commonwealth Bank, in an interview on ABC’s Radio National.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.

John Menadue

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