Most people don’t own their houses mortgage free. Only about 28% of Australians are in that position. And this percentage has steadily fallen over the past three or four decades. Yet, anyone who watches the real estate market can see that someone is buying and the prices keep going up. Now, hardly anyone has a million dollars or more in the bank. Not many people are simply cutting cheques to buy a $1.5 million house. If most people were mortgage free or had a million dollars cash, there wouldn’t be as much concern about housing prices and mortgage rates. So, where is the money coming from? 

It’s possible that more has been written about tariffs in 2025 than in the previous few decades combined. In the press, the arguments are necessarily rather elementary. David Ricardo’s (1817) classical economics position that all countries are better off if they specialise and trade is the starting point, implicit or explicit, from which arguments on both sides are launched. Briefly, if your country is good at gold mining but relatively (though not necessarily absolutely) bad at making T-shirts, you should concentrate on mining gold and trade your gold with the country that’s better (relatively) at making T-shirts. It is quite simple to show, under certain assumptions, that there will be more gold and more T-shirts for everyone as a result.

It’s possible that more has been written about tariffs in 2025 than in the previous few decades combined. In the press, the arguments are necessarily rather elementary. David Ricardo’s (1817) classical economics position that all countries are better off if they specialise and trade is the starting point, implicit or explicit, from which arguments on both sides are launched. Briefly, if your country is good at gold mining but relatively (though not necessarily absolutely) bad at making T-shirts, you should concentrate on mining gold and trade your gold with the country that’s better (relatively) at making T-shirts. It is quite simple to show, under certain assumptions, that there will be more gold and more T-shirts for everyone as a result.