Media treatment of industrial action

In A Different Strike Story Victoria Rollison compares how the media reported and framed a strike by Fairfax journalists and strikes by employees of other organisation.

When reporting on industrial action the media usually frames the unions as being the villains and the customers and employees the victims.

By contrast:

So, how are the journalists framed in the story? Are they villains for disrupting newspaper consumers? Nope. Are they framed as villains for disrupting the profit-making venture they work for and for hurting the company’s capacity to keep other staff employed, thereby threatening more job losses? Nope. They are framed as the victims. The victims of the job cuts. The victims of terrible business decisions. The victims of a workplace dispute which has led them, unhappily, to have to strike to have their (incidentally, already very powerful) voices heard. And better than that – they are also framed as the heroes, for standing up for their rights, for not letting the company get away with doing something wrong, for, yes, you guessed it, showing the brave, respected characteristic of solidarity.

The failure of asset recycling

In Asset recycling may look new and exciting. But it's the last gasp of a failed model John Quiggin explains why asset recycling is a dud.

Viewed from the other side of the planet, asset recycling may look new and exciting. In reality, however, it was the last gasp of a failed model. The government’s asset recycling fund, established in 2014, was shut down in 2016, with barely half of its budget allocation spent.

The core problem with the “recycling” idea is that income-generating assets were sold to finance new investments that did not generate income. Rather like selling your house to buy an expensive car, this is a trick that can only be done once, and leaves governments with increased net debt.

Kansas vs California: a tale of tax

In Donnie, We’re Not In Kansas Anymore David Cay Johnston compares the impact of tax cuts in Kansas and tax rises in California on their respective economies.

Since the tax changes, the California economy has grown 1.7 times faster than the Kansas economy. Perhaps even more significant, California grew its share of the national economy from 13.8 % of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product to 14.2%. Kansas stayed flat at 0.8% of national GDP.

...

Further west, in tax-raising California, jobs increased much faster. While jobs grew in Kansas by 3.8%, in California the lift was 11.8%.

Nikon Lens Simulator

This is a useful tool to compare different lens sizes: NIKKOR Lens Simulator