Blogotariat

A decade ago, Australia was one of the worst nations for online piracy. The main driver of this piracy was a lack of affordable and timely content for Australians. As a result, Australians were compelled to resort to illegally downloading movies and television episodes via BitTorrent and other file-sharing programs. The landscape transformed when Netflix

The post Streaming wars drive Aussies back to piracy appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The purported “crackdown” on international student numbers has failed to dampen numbers, with new Department of Education data showing record enrolments and commencements in the year to November 2024. As the following chart illustrates, there were 1,081,300 international student enrolments as of November 2024, up 120,454 (12.5%) from the previous record set in 2023. International

More bad news for the private economy as the true state of weakness is now hitting capex intentions. The first estimate for 25/26FY is up only 1.8%. Much of that is mining at 3,6%. Everything else is stalled out at just 0.9%. These are much lower estimates versus year-ago levels. The lunatic RBA is expecting

The post Private capex intentions shoot down RBA bullhawks appeared first on MacroBusiness.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday said western allies are preparing “billions more in aid” and working on security guarantees for Ukraine following a talk with US President Donald Trump. Rutte’s comments came as Trump met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington. Follow our liveblog for all the latest developments. 

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AGL revives a wind project it put on hold in favour of a coal strategy more than a decade ago, and adds bigger turbines and a big battery.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) 0.25% interest rate cut and expectations of more easing have delivered a strong rebound in Australian home prices, driven by Sydney and Melbourne. After declining for three consecutive months, Australian dwelling values recorded a 0.3% increase in dwelling values across the five major capital cities in February, with each

The post Rate cuts deliver big house price rebound appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The Market Ear with more. Fear mania CNN’s greed/fear index entered extreme fear yesterday. This much fear has mostly been followed by the market bouncing. Source: MacroMicro Bulls in hibernation Massive downtick in AAII bulls. Source: Refinitiv Bear mania Huge move higher in bears according to the latest AAII sentiment survey. Source: Refinitiv Imminent upside

The post Fear reigns appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The Washington Post is revamping its opinion section to focus on American values, with an emphasis on “personal liberties” and “free markets,” the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, announced in an email to staff on Wednesday. The move has led to the resignation of opinion editor David Shipley and sparked debate among journalists and readers.

Bezos’ WaPo overhaul prompts key editor to quit

I read the definition of antisemitism adopted by Australian universities and my first thought was “we need a list”, not of what is considered antisemitic, but of what is not considered antisemetic. Now it would be helpful to have a prescriptive list of what one can say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite.

By defending the UK’s draconian anti-protest laws, Labour is laying the ground for an authoritarian government.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd February 2025

If the Trump project implodes, it might take with it the far-right European parties to which it is umbilically connected. Like all such parties, Reform UK poses as patriotic while grovelling to foreign interests, and this could be its undoing.

“We have decided to offer Ukraine NATO membership. But it is also clear that we must all agree on it if it is to happen,” said Denmark’s Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen following the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on February 13.

Big batteries are booming in Germany but their role in aadvancing the energy transition appears to have been impeded by their increasing use for profit.