IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID

A different take on the coming trade war: China’s trade surplus with the United States is a problem for it, not for the US. Meanwhile China’s vast economic expansion in Malaysia is likely to face a more difficult future under the country’s new government.

Poor wage growth isn’t just a problem here; The Economist explains why we need high wage growth across the developed world, but is a job guarantee the answer? Lawrence Summers says not (and shows how poorly performing the apparently barnstorming US employment market really is). Plus, how did Gross Domestic Product become a meaningful measure of human achievement? 

REGIME CHANGE AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Mexico has a new president, so who is he and what does he represent? The country has notably followed the path of so many others in rejecting politics-as-usual.

And here’s a conservative take on John Bolton’s (and Donald Trump’s) plans for regime change in Iran: “Having set much of the rest of the region ablaze, the US would be trying to burn down one of the few structures in the neighborhood that hasn’t yet caught on fire.”

STAT OF THE WEEK

Something odd is happening in construction in Australia. In two large sub-sectors of construction — home/commercial building and heavy construction (roads, infrastructure etc) —  employment has surged over the last couple of quarters to their highest ever level despite the apparent end of the housing construction boom. But in “construction services” — that’s the tradies who provided bricklaying, plumbing, concreting etc — employment fell in the most recent quarter (albeit to the second highest level ever).

The two facts are difficult to reconcile, but with total construction employment still hovering near an historic high of 1.2 million and building and heavy construction employment surging, it’s hard to see how the construction boom that many fear has come to an end is quite over.

THE DYSTOPIA’S ARRIVED

You may not be aware, but merely visiting a website provides the website provider with considerable information about you: your computer or device and operating system, your browser, and our IP address (if you’re silly enough to not use a VPN). And even relatively limited amounts of information, in bulk, can provide a guide to the probability of you acting a certain way — like whether you’re a credit risk.

And if you’re thinking of bussing around the United States, careful of your constitutional rights — they’re liable to go missing. There’s also a correlation between Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets and hate crimes against Muslims. Correlation — but is it causation? Maybe not.

HEALTH MANAGERS, HEALTH THYSELVES

Occasional Crikey contributor Asher Wolf has given an horrific account of her nightmarish trip through the hospital system after reluctantly attending Emergency. Australia has a high-quality health system and we’re one of the healthiest nations in the world, but this raises serious questions about hospital management in Victoria.

HOME BEFORE DARKO

Howard Hampton is my favourite film critic and probably my second favourite writer full stop. His essay collection Born in Flames is the greatest collection of pop culture criticism ever assembled, and it’s always a delight to introduce people to this remarkably original author.

A Film Comment and Criterion Collection regular, in recent years he’s also been writing for Art Forum. If you don’t like his dissection of The Death of Stalin, you might enjoy his celebration of that ultimate cult film, Donnie Darko.

IS THE TRUTH STILL OUT THERE?

There’s been a significant fall in the number of UFOs sighted in recent years, but no one knows why. Is it because the kind of people who used to report UFOs are now investigating internet conspiracy theories and claiming Hillary Clinton ran a pizza shop pedophile ring?