Does the government create wealth?

 Hitler felt that Jews should be destroyed. Whites in South Africa felt that apartheid was right, that blacks shouldn’t be allowed to use white bathrooms or white restaurants or go to white businesses or live in white neighborhoods. Feelings cannot determine what is right.

If There Is No God: The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil

Does the government create wealth?

People are often told that only the private sector creates wealth and that government simply wastes taxpayers' money.

That claim is everywhere in modern political debate. It underpins austerity. It justifies privatisation. And it shapes how people think about the economy.

But it is wrong.

In this video, I explain what wealth really is and how it is actually created. Wealth is not just private profit. It includes infrastructure, education, health, security, and social stability.

Historically, public enterprise built much of modern Britain. Local government created the systems that allowed private enterprise to function: sewers, electricity networks, public transport, housing, and water systems.

I also explain the money myth that underpins many of these arguments. In a modern monetary economy, government spending creates money first, and taxation later helps manage inflation. Public spending can therefore increase national wealth rather than destroy it.

The real issue is not public versus private. The real issue is whether economic activity meets social need and maintains the capitalon which our society depends.

If we want a better economy, we need to rebuild public enterprise and reject the myth that only private companies create wealth

Defence begins at home

Politicians talk endlessly about defence spending, weapons, and armies. But the first line of defence in any country is not military hardware. It is the stability of the society itself.

Do people feel secure?

Do they trust their institutions?

Do they believe government works for them?

When living standards fall, housing becomes unaffordable, and public services collapse, a country becomes divided and fragile. And a fragile society cannot defend itself.

Disinformation on U.S.-Iran war takes over the internet

Mashable: “Before the dust had settled on the ruins of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school — a casualty of the recent U.S.-Israel military strikes against Iran, and one which resulted in the deaths of up to 168 adults and children — people were already engagement-farming online. Clips of digital flight simulators were passed off as real-time ops footage, while out-of-context images of battleships and old videos of aerial missile attacks were repurposed to sell users a tale of Iranian dominance. AI-edited content proliferated. According to experts, the posts had accumulated hundreds of millions of views in just a handful of days…”

Trump administration says it can’t process tariff refunds because of computer problems

CNBC: “U.S. Customs and Border Protectiontold a U.S. Court of International Trade judge on Friday that it is not currently able to comply with his order to begin refunding about $166 billion collected in reciprocal tariffs imposed last year by President Donald Trump. CBP, in a court filing, cited its existing technology, processes and manpower requirements as the reasons it could not immediately comply with the conditions of Judge Richard Eaton’s order on the so-called IEEPA tariffs. The Supreme Court recently ruled those duties are illegal. But CBP also suggested in the new filing that it could begin issuing refunds by late April after revamping its technology. Brandon Lord, executive director of the trade programs directorate at CBP’s Office of Trade, in the filing said that as of Wednesday, more than 330,000 importers have made a total of over 53 million entries “in which they have deposited or paid duties imposed pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.” Trump had invoked that act to slap reciprocal tariffs in various amounts on imported products from most of the world’s countries, without authorization from Congress…”

Jeffrey Epstein liked to run in powerful circles.

The trove of emails and documents released by the Justice Department in January show Epstein maintained connections to a wide swath of famous people — from Elon Musk and Bill Gates to Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

But Epstein’s own inner circle — unlike his social and professional ones — was kept small and relatively anonymous, while they facilitated his day-to-day operations as a mysteriously wealthy financier.

Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s inner circle — the aides, lawyers and confidantes who ran his world

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do!

Think Differently

 

Dare to Act Differently and Be Happier 

In financial circles, the investment strategy many people pursue during chaotic times is known as the “flight to safety.” That means dumping risky assets such as stocks and buying safer ones such as government bonds. This is not just a financial strategy, but a human one. When things get chaotic, eliminate your exposure to risk and hunker down. That’s the safe bet.

What seems the safe option is not necessarily the best one in challenging times.

Or is it? In 1932, when economic circumstances were far scarier than anything we face today—unemployment had soared to 23.6 percent and economic growth was negative 12.9 percent—Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for president that year, gave a speech at Oglethorpe University, in Atlanta, in which he proposedexperimenting and risk-taking as a response to trouble. “It is common sense to take a method and try it,” he told the students. “If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” He won, and he did try something—launching the New Deal, which permanently changed the role of the federal government in American life.

Just as the flight to safety has a human dimension beyond financial advice, Roosevelt’s exhortation to adopt an experimental mindset holds a daring bit of advice for all of us—one that applies not just to our economic choices but to our life more generally. Are you in a period of particular personal turbulence, feeling like a cork tossed about in currents beyond your control? Is your well-being showing red numbers as the American economy was in 1932? Consider what FDR famously went on to say at his inauguration in 1933: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Forget flying to safety in your old routines and familiar habits. Instead, go experiment with your happiness.

Read: The United States of fear

So what might a happiness experiment be? In effect, the academic literature that I cite almost every week in this column is loaded with examples. Such studies are behavioral interventions that, in their scientific methodology, are designed to mimic the sort of clinical trials used in testing new drugs; these tests are considered the gold standard for establishing causality.

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Take, for example, a 2022 experiment about gratitude that was published in the journal Affective Science. College students recruited to this psychological study were randomly given one of four assignments: write a letter expressing gratitude to someone (without sending it), text someone a gratitude message, share a post about gratitude on social media, or make a list of ordinary daily activities. (In this experiment, the last group is the control, meaning no gratitude intervention is involved.) All three of the gratitude-sharing methods led to higher feelings of life satisfaction for the assigned participants compared with those in the control group.

This finding offers information that should be extremely useful for ordinary life: If you want to get happier, simply adopt a protocol of regularly thinking about someone for whom you feel grateful and telling them so. Maybe so, but we need to bear in mind an important proviso: This is an excellent study, but there are no absolute guarantees that you will see the same effect in your life—because either you or your benefactor for whom you’re grateful might be an outlier or have some special circumstance that creates an exception. In fact, no experiment, however perfectly designed, can guarantee a constant result.

Still, that 2022 paper is good evidence that this approach to gratitude is worth trying in your own, private experiment. You might not think of it in these terms, but you probably already conduct experiments in many areas of your life. For example, if all of your friends are following a particular TV show and rave about it, you are unlikely to say to yourself, My tastes might be different, so I’m not going to bother watching it. You’ll probably try it yourself to see. After watching an episode, you’ll see how you feel—or, to put it in more formal language, you will gauge your well-being level to see if the intervention had a positive effect. If you think it has, you keep watching; if not, you don’t.

This isn’t a perfect method—there’s no control group, and you are a sample of one!—but if you reconceive this process as your own experimental practice, it can yield many new ideas and habits for your life. This mindset can be really productive, especially when times are rough and you need to get out of a rut.

Arthur C. Brooks: Measuring your happiness can help improve it

When measuring happiness, researchers have generally found the strongest positive results after focusing their experiments in a few specific areas. One 2023 literature review, in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, looked at 57 recent happiness studies and found that the most common happiness interventions were in the areas of gratitude, social interaction, mindfulness, exercise, and exposure to nature. (One job of such a systematic review is to assess the quality of available research; in this case, the study found that the gratitude experiment I cited above was among the most flawlessly executed.) An important common feature of the interventions involved in these studies is that they aim to disrupt the behavioral routines and habits that reduce people’s well-being. I mention this trait because it’s exactly why you might need the experimental mindset in your life.

If you feel you could do with a happiness boost, and are willing to do something different, try out these protocols for each of Nature Human Behaviour’s five buckets:

Week one: gratitude 
Each day for a week, start your morning by thinking for five minutes about someone who has improved your life. If that person is no longer alive, write them a note and keep it for yourself. If the individual is still living, send them a quick text or email.

Week two: social interaction 
Each day when you are in public, make a point of speaking in a friendly way with a stranger for just a few minutes. This could be the person sitting next to you on the bus or subway, or it might be someone walking their dog in your neighborhood.

Week three: mindfulness 
For 10 minutes first thing in the morning, put away your phone, sit quietly in a comfortable place, and simply pay attention to what is happening around you. Make a nonjudgmental note of what you see and what you happen to hear, and be aware of your other sensations, such as sunlight, temperature, and odors.

Week four: exercise 
Try to fit in a workout for at least half an hour each morning. If you haven’t done so in a long time—or ever—get up early every day and just walk outside for an hour, or run if you like. Whatever the activity, do it without a device so you are fully present in the experience.

Week five: nature 
Find a green space in your environment, and visit it each day for half an hour, weather permitting. If doing so is possible, sit on the grass and touch it with your hands.

To get the full benefit of making each activity your own personal experiment, write down the results. Every day, you should track a few metrics by rating variables such as positive and negative mood levels, overall life satisfaction, and your sense of connectedness with others. When each week’s experiment is complete, keep collecting your data to see whether the positive effects you recorded during the test endure or evaporate. If you follow this approach, I can virtually guarantee that you will end up with fewer negative habits and more positive ones. The ultimate success of your home-laboratory testing will be a measurable rise in your well-being.

Arthur C. Brooks: Are you dreaming too big?

Especially when chaos strikes, pursuing this experimental philosophy will feel neither comfortable nor natural at first. This is what Roosevelt told his young audience about that challenge in his 1932 commencement address:

Probably few will disagree that the goal is desirable. Yet many, of faint heart, fearful of change, sitting tightly on the roof-tops in the flood, will sternly resist striking out for it, lest they fail to attain it. Even among those who are ready to attempt the journey there will be violent differences of opinion as to how it should be made.

Experimenting will get easier as you experience greater success and have fun doing it. Furthermore, your experiments will spark curiosity and imitation in others, as they see you changing yourself for the better, even in a difficult outside world. They might even try it themselves—in which case your own progress will be a gift to others. As FDR concluded, “May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in 

The weekly ritual that will make your home feel instantly more luxurious

 The weekly ritual that will make your home feel instantly more luxurious

Two female creatives have filled their home with eclectic finds and artefacts from their travels.

Nicole Williams (left) and Reinette Roux in their lounge room. The glass and lucite coffee table was purchased from a friend.ARMELLE HABIB

The home
A top-floor apartment in Melbourne’s inner east in a 1923 building designed by architect Howard Lawson.

Who lives here
Lifestyle photographer Nicole Williams and Reinette Roux, founder of creative agency Studio Roux.

What we did
“Our combined decorating style is very much inspired by European apartment living,” says Williams. “We share a love of eclectic, small spaces.” Their flat is home to “a collection of found objects and artefacts we’ve come across on our travels and in local expeditions”.

Our favourite room
“The living room is a space where our collective favourite things reside,” says Williams. “It’s a place for art, books, a weekly selection of flowers and whatever is speaking to us at that moment.”

The ’hood
“We love it for the leafy streets, the architecture, the beautiful walk along the river into the city and dining at France-Soir,” says Williams.

Future plans
“We both have creative careers so we’re planning a shared studio in the sunroom,” says Roux.

Best advice
“Don’t rush the process and don’t follow trends,” says Roux. “Rather, instinctively collect objects that draw you in.”

“We love our small kitchen,” says Williams. “It makes hosting more intimate and feels quite Parisian. The Atomic cappuccino maker was a gift from a dear friend.”ARMELLE HABIB

“We’re lucky our styles blend seamlessly,” says Williams. “In a way, it’s what sparked our friendship.” The “Femme Brutale” sculptural light is by Helen Claire Davies.ARMELLE HABIB

Williams and Roux have hung their combined art collection gallery-style in the lounge room. “We’re drawn to pieces that speak to our creative sides and the way we approach our respective practices,” says Roux. Adds Williams, “The blue velvet sofa was bought at IKEA years ago.”ARMELLE HABIB

“I’m inspired by life’s everyday moments and creating small vignettes in every corner of the home,” says Williams. ARMELLE HABIB

“Hosting, cooking and sharing meals is one of my favourite pastimes – it’s a hook to hang your day on,” says Roux. “We both love entertaining, so combining forces has been a treat.”ARMELLE HABIB

“My wardrobe, which I found second-hand, is such a special piece,” says Williams. “The dress is by Melbourne designer Ruby Farley-Steere of Kateri.”ARMELLE HABIB

The 1920s fireplace now acts as Williams’ bedhead, and the artwork, titled xxxoxooxxoxox, is by Melbourne artist Hannah Atherton. The replica “Wassily” chair is a second-hand find.ARMELLE HABIB

“The garden’s magic lies in its ability to make you feel like you’re elsewhere, belying its proximity to the city and a bustling road,” says Williams. “It has seen its fair share of parties.”ARMELLE HABIB

 

NACDL Launches National ‘Criminal Case Tracker’ as Federal Grand Juries, Trial Juries Rebel Against Prosecutorial Overreach

“Amid growing concerns about federal charging practices, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has launched its new Criminal Case Tracker. This new digital resource, available at www.nacdl.org/casetracker, provides defense counsel and the public with a structured, continually updated view of select federal prosecutions that reflect emerging enforcement theories, novel legal applications, and departures from historic charging practices. 

For decades, the legal adage held that a prosecutor could “indict a ham sandwich.” However, data curated by NACDL reveals that since early 2025, federal grand juries—traditionally a “rubber stamp” for the government—are increasingly issuing “no bills,” or refusals to indict. Simultaneously, trial juries are returning not guilty verdicts at a remarkable pace, signaling a deep-seated public exhaustion with federal overreach.

 “The Bill of Rights wasn’t written to be a polite suggestion; it was written to be a shield against tyranny,” said NACDL President Andrew Birrell of Minneapolis. “What we are seeing in courtrooms from the Midwest to the coasts is a fundamental, righteous rejection of the idea that criminal law can be used as a tool for political retribution. 

Jurors are seeing through these ‘novel’ and transparently thin theories. They are reminding this government that the people—not the prosecutors—hold the ultimate power in our justice system.”