The AI boom is here. Once confined to the walls of academia, AI now has potential in virtually every sector of the economy. But its ever-increasing presence poses serious challenges for Australia’s energy transition.
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Have you noticed terms like “67”, “skibidi”, and “rizz” floating around your social media, or even in public? Has there been a large increase in overly-stimulating AI short form videos plaguing your feed lately? Well, you’re not alone.
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Every year, more than 1.4 billion units of clothing are imported into Australia, and over 880 million are sent to landfill (more than half the amount imported). The rate at which we’re buying new clothes isn’t changing, even in a cost of living crisis. In fact, Australians buy an average of 56 new items of clothing each year, and are the largest consumers of new clothing per capita in the world.
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For many, this year’s February marked a festive ramp-up towards the seventeenth: Lunar New Year and the commencement of the Year of the Horse. Across East and Southeast Asia, streets are awash in crimson and gold, night markets brim with the scent of sizzling delicacies, and laughter accompanies the exchange of red envelopes. As the seventh of the twelfth Chinese zodiac animal, the Horse represents freedom and breakthrough (Fargo, 2026). Accordingly, the Year of the horse emphasises a stage of life where people make bolder decisions, being in motion rather than standing still.
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Capitalism has been the foundation on which powerhouses such as America have built their economy. However, the newly elected mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, built his campaign on advocating for change which fundamentally opposes this ideology. Is this change confined to a single state? Or is it a more telling sign of the world’s turn on capitalism?
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Anyone who has studied first year economics will recall the basics of the production theory: when labour input rises, total output should follow. While this sounds simple in theory, Australia’s economic reality has thrown a real curveball into the equation. Despite the fact that we are working longer hours, aggregate output has barely seemed to budge. In the year to March 2025, labour productivity fell by 1%, while multifactor productivity crawled up just slightly by 0.1%.
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A key concept familiar to game theorists is bargaining: the study of how surplus should be shared among rational agents (Thomson, 1994). In simple terms, cooperative bargaining seeks for a fair way to split the gains from cooperation. When both sides are willing to work together, these solutions can lead to outcomes that make everyone better off. While terms like “Nash equilibrium”, “Pareto efficiency” and “mixed motive” may sound abstract, we likely encounter bargaining all the time. This essay aims to explore the everyday examples of bargaining, illustrating how fairness and strategy shape outcomes in all kinds of negotiations both within and beyond white-collar settings.
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On the 4th of June this year, the ABS published its quarterly report on Australia’s economic growth. The statistics were tepid—0.2% growth in the March quarter, or 1.3% for the year ending in the March quarter. Hidden behind the main drivers of this sluggish growth—global uncertainty, extreme weather, level government spending—was another factor that led a recent policy brief by the federal Parliamentary Library to conclude that Australia’s “long-term economic prosperity” is “under threat”.
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Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), formerly and popularly known as Counter-Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO), is a first-person shooter competitive video game developed and published by Valve. One of the key features that differentiates CS2 from the majority of other competitive video games is its skin marketplace. Similar in style to a real marketplace, the CS2 marketplace allows users to buy, sell, and trade virtual goods, primarily weapon skins that can be equipped in-game.
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Imagine that you’re a small business owner in the US, assembling gadgets using imported components from all over the world. Microchips from Taiwan, cables and electronics from China, batteries from Germany and finally, packaging materials from Vietnam. Everything is working out well, until suddenly, tariffs rise. Your investments are now pricier, your profit margin shrinks, and you're stuck asking yourself: "Am I being protected or punished?"
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