Issue 108: 29 Sep – 5 Oct 2022

# Trickle down runs out

Liz Truss’ spectacular tax backflip gives Albanese a chance to do the same
Richard Denniss | SMH/Age 
Once upon a time, it would have been conservatives raging against such reckless spending, but once upon a time conservatives took things like cabinet government seriously as well.

Thanks to Liz Truss, the British pension system nearly collapsed
Glenn Dyer, Bernard Keane | Crikey
If you’re stupid enough to cause a big spike in the cost of borrowing by your government, you end up inflicting all sorts of damage.

Time overdue for conversation about welfare state
Paul Bongiorno | The New Daily
The penny is dropping even in the citadels of western capitalism that trickle-down economics is no longer fit for purpose – if it ever was.

# Autre 

Creative destruction: Even pandemics have their upsides
Ross Gittins | SMH/Age
One consequence of our greater understanding of what to do may be that this pandemic won’t alter the course of world economic history the way the Black Death did.

Labor’s national arts policy:  who decides what’s culture? 
Guy Rundle | Crikey
Federal Labor has broken up with progressives, as I may have noted once or twice. But there’s one area where the government may still keep the grand alliance together: arts and culture.

Ending mandatory isolation is peak COVID mismanagement
Jennifer Wilson | Independent Australia
It came as no surprise, but it is immensely disturbing. 

# Protests

‘We are not your waste dump!’ 
Jasmine Duff | Red Flag

Australia: Amid rising discontent, a one-day stoppage at University of Newcastle 
John Harris | World Socialist Web Site

In 1946, Aboriginal Workers in Western Australia Struck Against Racist Hyperexploitation
Grace Brooks | Jacobin 

How Iran’s Hijab Protest Movement Became So Powerful
Isaac Chotiner | The New Yorker