Author: Benjamin Studebaker

Australia’s Poor Wage Growth is Destroying its Prime Ministers

Australia has swapped Prime Ministers again–this time the Liberal Party replaced Malcolm Turnbull with Scott Morrison. Morrison will be Australia’s sixth Prime Minister in the last then years. This level of turnover at the top is remarkable. The UK has only had three Prime Ministers during the same period. Canada has only had two. Why are Australian politics so volatile? I couldn’t find any explanation online which satisfied me, so I’m writing my own. I think it has to do with a combination of wages and the way Australia’s political parties choose their leaders.
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The Problem With Fact Checkers is that They’re Journalists, Not Academics

The row between the fact checking websites and Medicare-for-all supporters has continued over the past couple weeks. I briefly weighed in to point out that, studies aside, it’s difficult to estimate the cost because it’s impossible for us to know what level of healthcare spending will, in the long-run, be politically acceptable. The attempts to get an estimate all involve assuming particular levels of spending ex ante. The Republicans can claim that we would need to continue spending 18% of GDP, but they don’t know. Bernie Sanders can claim that we would be able to impose Medicare’s level of compensation, but he doesn’t know. Just like in other countries with systems like this, the level of expenditure would constantly be up for political renegotiation. Britain spends 7% of its GDP on its National Health Service. Will we spend 7% or 18% or somewhere in between? Anyone who tells you that they know for sure is lying.

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The Slow Corruption of Public Discourse Since Watergate

In the 44 years since Richard Nixon resigned the presidency of the United States, political discourse has deteriorated. There are many reasons for the decline in the discourse, but today I want to focus on two forces which have come together in America–one sociological, the other technological–to impose a spontaneous order which greatly reduces the scope for authentic expression, both in public and in private. This new social order is not planned by anyone–it has no author, it requires no institutionalised hard coercion. It arises spontaneously from the interaction of the two forces.

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