Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
China, America, and the Danger to World Order
Consider two outlying statistical extrapolations: the 2010 estimate by Nobel laureate economist Robert Fogel that, by 2040, China’s GDP will total a staggering $123 trillion and its share of gross global output 40 per cent, or twice the combined output of the USA and the EU; and projections by the US Congressional Budget Office in 2009 that public debt in America will rise from 44 per cent of GDP in 2008 to somewhere between 280 per cent and 716 per cent by 2080.
As Mark Steyn acidly observes in his feisty, apocalyptic polemic After America: “It doesn’t matter which of these figures is correct and it was a complete waste of time running the numbers … If either number is right, there isn’t going to be a 2080, not for America.” Such are the parameters of current debate. Let me make three basic points and enlarge on each of them.
First point: we should avoid getting too carried away by dramatic scenarios like this. We should concentrate chiefly on the immediate challenges we face,…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
