Russia's Black Death
Russia's booming consumer spending will eventually crash back down to earth, following a historical pattern seen in times of war and disaster, including the 14th century's Black Death.
Topic
Population
A collection of 5 issues
Australia's demographic dilemma
Australia's migration slowdown will ease housing issues but exacerbate its ageing population and fiscal problems, requiring unpopular entitlement reform and improved fertility rates to sustainably fund old-age benefits.
How big is too big?
Dick Smith wants to cap Australia's population at 30 million over concerns about a lack of resources and housing costs. In doing so he falls for the 'lump of labour' fallacy, and fails Econ 101: it's poor planning, not immigrants, that erodes housing affordability in Australia.
Migration fearmongering helps no one
The numbers are in: in 2022-23, Australia’s population grew by 624,100 people, or around 2.4%. That’s a huge figure – a record, in fact – and it was driven by the net addition of 518,090 overseas migrants. As you might expect, the media jumped all over it:
More population misinformation
The merchants of fear were out to get their clicks again on the weekend, jumping on the inevitable post-pandemic surge in migration to crack a headline:
“Monthly long-term arrivals and departures data released by the ABS suggests that net overseas migration (NOM) has surged even higher, with around 500,000