Government
How Sunk Cost Fallacy Drives Authoritarian Policies
Sunk cost fallacy is the tendency of people to stick with a decision or course of action that isn’t having a positive result because the person has invested time, money and/or resources that cannot be recovered and do not want to feel that they have wasted them. In many cases, sunk cost fallacy can even drive people to double...
GST is Better than Income Tax
In my last article I argued that a flat and broad-based income tax is much the same as a broad-based GST, so we have little reason to hate the concept of income tax more than the concept of GST. I argued this by setting out an imaginary scenario with five citizens, one business, and no government. But there is an...
Resisting centralist power – Part 3
In a speech entitled, Rebuilding the Federation, Richard Court, then Premier of Western Australia, described the tide of centralism as follows: “All the things that the States do best are under attack from the empire builders in Canberra. The bureaucracy running the Federal education system, as you know, is large but it doesn’t teach any students. There is an equally...
Too Much Government
Expectations of the role of the government have been rising steadily over the last decade. They rose substantially during the eastern states’ bushfires in late 2019 and early 2020, and again in response to the floods that followed in NSW and Queensland. And they reached stratospheric levels during the Covid panic. Judged by the number of lives lost, those bushfires...
Slaying the dragon of censorship.
Is there no wild beast more savage than man when his passions are armed with power? This is the question the ancient Greek historian, Plutarch, asked in relation to the actions of the newly formed triumvirate of Octavian (soon to be Rome’s first emperor, Augustus), Antony, and Lepidus as they turned on their Roman countrymen in their quest for power...
The Case for Wisdom, Temperance, and Common Sense.
With all the chaos occurring within western democracies right now, I thought it timely to focus on solutions rather than the troubles we face. In the primer to this publication, it states that Liberty Itch will present ideas that will champion your rights as an individual, challenge concepts that threaten those freedoms, and warn you of impending coercion. My contribution, as...
The New Coalition?
While falling well short on some key issues, it’s been heartening at least to see the Federal Coalition leading the discourse and taking some risks on genuine reform. Left in ruins after being swept from office in 2022, many commentators questioned the viability of the Liberal party. But within two years they have surged back into relevance, and with a...
Childcare – Why should you pay for it?
Starting before they are born, our governments spend a lot of money on children. The Commonwealth budget for education alone is $67 billion, and in NSW $24 billion. Add the other states and territories, plus health care, and as the saying goes, pretty soon you’re talking real money. While our society obviously values children highly, it is rare that anyone questions...
Why You Should Oppose the Government’s Attempt to Censor the Sydney Church Stabbing Video
If you have been following the issue of freedom of expression in Australia, you will be aware of the efforts of the government to censor the Sydney church stabbing video on X (but not mainstream media websites) via a court order. The court order has since been overturned although what will happen next is still uncertain. It is not unusual...
The Art of the Deal
US Libertarians met for their National Convention in Washington DC late last month, where they heard from a range of speakers and selected their presidential candidate. However, this was unlike any other Libertarian National Convention – in fact, it was unlike any prior political party convention in US history. MAKE AMERICA LIBERTARIAN AGAIN The headline speaker for the Libertarian National Convention...
