Policy

The proponents of currently fashionable planning doctrines favouring density maintain, among other factors, that high-density planning is more environmentally sustainable. Policies based on these doctrines are being applied in Australian capital cities--- Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and to some extent Darwin and Hobart.

The assumption that high-density is environmentally superior seems to be based on intuition as no proof is provided to support this claim. Rather, considerable evidence is emerging that this is not the case.  read more »

Given the likely defeat of President Donald Trump, a functionally headless Republican Party is destined for a period of reflection. Trump himself, for all his rudeness and often unnecessary, divisive rhetoric, has transformed the Republican Party from being a bastion of the establishment to a voice for America’s working and middle class.  read more »

Progressive ideologues often like to evoke the idea that they speak “truth to power,” but this year it’s their leaders who are consolidating their clout.  read more »

Most of the world’s population is already living without the products and fuels from petroleum, while the healthier and wealthier countries are focusing efforts to reduce their emissions from the use of fossil fuels  read more »

California Governor Newsom has convinced himself that green EV’s made from “fairy dust” must replace those dirty gas-powered vehicles. Sharing a few realities of the darker side of his fairy dust beliefs may burst his bubble.  read more »

Discussions about policies to help the multiracial American working class majority as a whole typically take a detour into the completely unrelated subject of how to help individuals escape from the working class.

Helping as many individuals escape from working-class occupations as possible is the goal of both the conventional center-left and the conventional center-right.  But the proposed escape routes differ.  read more »

Sometimes Donald Trump does the right thing, even if it may be for the wrong reasons. His Justice Department’s late-term assault on Google for its monopolistic tyranny over search and digital advertising is precisely what is needed.  read more »

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated economics in the West, but the harshest impacts may yet be felt in the developing world. After decades of improvement in poorer countries, a regression threatens that could usher in, both economically and politically, a neo-feudal future, leaving billions stranded permanently in poverty. If this threat is not addressed, these conditions could threaten not just the world economy, but prospects for democracy worldwide.  read more »

In his recently released book, The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, Fred Siegel leverages New York City to uncover the key political conflicts and social contradictions in American liberalism over the last century.  read more »

It’s an article of faith among many conservatives, and some liberals, that we’re being swept by a Maoist cultural revolution destined to transform American society into a woke collective. Yet before surrendering basics like equality of opportunity, social order, and free speech to leftist authoritarians, we should consider whether they’re the ones who will wind up getting canceled.  read more »