The best reality TV show in Australia right now is the televised hearings of the Royal Commission into Australian banks. The formal public inquiry, led by a retired judge with broad coercive powers, has uncovered a litany of wrongdoing including bribery and fraud rings, poor lending practices, and pervasive lying to regulators. The most startling revelations relate to financial planning ...

As scientific terms go, ‘climate change’ is failing. Good terms are specific, descriptive and help people to understand complex concepts. Climate change is ambiguous, referring perhaps to the most pressing human-generated environmental problem of the century, or to other kinds of changes that happen through natural forces and have been going on since long before humans arose. Last week I ...

Banks have become too safe. That is a chief justification cited by lawmakers to roll back the Dodd-Frank banking regulations and loosen other financial rules. The Senate passed a bill in March, and Speaker Paul Ryan said earlier this week that he had a deal to push the measure through the House. But at least one layer of protection that ...