The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) presents the world with fundamental challenges. Modern history has shown that in times of acute challenge existing socio-political and financial systems often require fundamental reform and/or adaptation. For example Russia in 1917 as on course to adapt, but did not, thereby allowing a strident minority to impose its [...]

Japan has had a tumultuous year (2011) with regard to natural disasters. However, Japan will (and is) recovering from these disasters due to the resilience of its people. The Japanese generally have an orientation toward supporting each other to ensure national survival. This approach accords with the Gestalt philosophy in which the [...]

Australia is a nation that has maintained its high standard of living by avoiding the fatal danger of “rent seeking”. The current threat that the proposed carbon tax poses in facilitating a transition to “rent seeking” is outlined as is an argument why there should be a plebiscite on a carbon tax in this [...]

If politics is not an exact science then, from a social democratic viewpoint, economics should similarly not be prescriptive.  This is because Marxist and free market inspired approaches tend to integrate economic theory with ideological outcomes concerning how society should be arranged, regardless of the actual impact on people’s every day lives.  However, the importance [...]