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John Robson: Whether from Carney or Trump, debt is collapsing civilization

Pay less attention to the floor crossers, and more to the decay

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G.K. Chesterton was a little too unkind that “When the real revolution happens, it won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.” It gets the occasional passing reference. But it is fair to claim a considerable gulf between what preoccupied the chattering classes at any given time and the subsequent lessons of history. Including today regarding the desperately overstretched welfare state.

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I’m not saying nobody in France in 1787 mentioned hunger in the countryside. Nor do I deny that The Australian just observed that “With its comfortable parliamentary majority and a federal opposition depleted and in disarray, the Albanese government’s 2026 budget baulked the critical challenges of budget repair, productivity revival and setting the foundations to grow the economy.” But I am saying the verbiage within and surrounding, say, the latest Canadian federal fiscal update is stunningly complacent and preoccupied with partisanship and hollow promises when the real story is Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

John Robson: Whether from Carney or Trump,........

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