Muggers gonna mug

Dylan Nicholson writes: Re. “How the government got mugged by commodity prices and hubris” (yesterday). I have to say I’ve been struggling to come to terms with this concept recently. While it seems pretty much logically airtight, if it really is completely true in practice, then it means a complete rethink of the whole way we approach taxation, and a whole new need of ways to sell the necessity of it to taxpayers. On the plus side, ideas and proposals that previously seemed unaffordable suddenly become interesting again, accepting of course it’s certainly not the case that the government can just spend however much it likes on whatever it likes without potential ill economic effects.

Privacy v security

Tom Beem writes: Re. “‘It’s a horse trade’: UN privacy rapporteur on privacy v security myth” (yesterday). Government collection of huge amounts of digital data, including the Five Eyes globally collecting most phone calls, undermining the faith the population ought to have in government.We will all rue allowing government to take away civil rights and privacy. As anger grows fringe politicians come to the center. Consider Trump capturing the Republican Party.