There’s something darkly amusing about watching Nintendo—a company that built its empire on plumbers jumping on turtles—gearing up to legally demolish the U.S. government over tariffs. But before we get too caught up in the spectacle, let’s be clear about what’s actually happening here: we’re all still getting screwed.

I’ve been following this tariff debacle since it kicked off, and honestly, the sheer incompetence of it all has been staggering. The plan was supposedly to protect American interests, but what we got instead was a masterclass in how to transfer wealth from regular people to corporations while making everyone feel like they’re “winning.”

Right, so there I was this week, watching over a trillion dollars evaporate from Big Tech stocks like water down a drain, and I had one of those moments where you’re simultaneously vindicated and absolutely terrified. You know the feeling? When you’ve been quietly skeptical about something everyone else was losing their minds over, and then reality catches up?

The AI bubble is showing some serious cracks. Not popping yet—let’s be clear about that—but definitely making some ominous creaking sounds. A trillion dollars wiped off Big Tech valuations is apparently just “a bit of volatility” these days. Which tells you everything you need to know about how detached from reality this whole situation has become.

Reading through recent discussions about Australia’s “lost decade” of wage growth has stirred up some deeply troubling thoughts. The latest research from Per Capita think-tank paints a stark picture of how the 2012-2022 period of wage stagnation has fundamentally altered the Australian dream of home ownership.

The numbers tell a devastating story, but they barely scratch the surface of what this means for real people. My daughter, now in her teens, often talks about her future, and I find myself struggling to give her honest answers about housing affordability without crushing her spirits entirely.

The phrase “organisational restructure” has become an all-too-familiar part of our corporate vocabulary lately. While scrolling through various online discussions today, I noticed a disturbing pattern emerging in conversations about workplace stability - or rather, the growing lack of it.

Looking back to my early career days in the late 90s, redundancies were relatively rare events that made headlines. They were treated as serious corporate decisions that could damage a company’s reputation. These days, it seems like they’ve become just another routine business strategy, as casual as updating the office coffee machine.

As I sipped my coffee at a busy Melbourne café the other day, I noticed a familiar sight: a sign on the counter warning customers of a debit card surcharge. It’s a small but annoying fee that many of us have become accustomed to, but it’s about to become a thing of the past. Under a new plan announced by the Albanese government, shoppers will no longer pay fees when using debit cards from 2026.