Brownstone » Articles for Gigi Foster

Gigi Foster

Gigi Foster, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her research covers diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioral economics, and Australian policy. She is co-author of The Great Covid Panic.

gordian knot

How to Cut Through the New Gordian Knots

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We can forget about seemingly simple fixes, like giving politicians the right to fire civil servants on the spot. Besides, giving clueless and corrupted politicians yet more power is not going to make matters better. Real reform will have to be dramatic, and it will come about only in dramatic circumstances.


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political economy pandemic response

The Political Economy of the US Pandemic Response

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In this essay, written from a broad economics perspective that incorporates an understanding of incentives, institutions, information, and power, we address the following three broad questions: (1) What were the roles and responsibilities of our institutions when faced with a threat like Covid? (2) What were the costs and benefits of the response that transpired? (3) What is the need and potential for institutional and social reform?


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progress

Are We at the End of Progress?

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All those dreaming of control like to believe that they should rule the world in order to save it from some great danger. At the end of the day, this is simply a selfish fascist fantasy. The West is now encumbered by huge layers of parasites whose living is made out of exaggerating fears and stealing from people under the guise of saving them. The EU Commission is a particularly glaring example of such a group, but they are everywhere today: people just trying to make a buck, but costing their society dearly.


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mass formation psychosis totalitarianism

New Thinking on ‘Mass Formation’ (Psychosis)

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While the inner world of the Truth Speaker might be our last refuge, even if we feel we have nothing else and are completely overpowered by fanatical totalitarians who deny us all other space and companionship, we need to think and act much bigger. We are not that small or downtrodden, nor as isolated. We can win, and we will.


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Media by the People

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Newspapers, television, internet sites and social media have become merely instruments of manipulation at the service of elite interests. We have seen Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and other commercial information companies which started out a mere decade or two ago with promises of independence and open media, end up as our censors in the past two years, enthusiastically adding their contributions to the long and bleak history of totalitarian deletions.


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Government by the People: Is It Possible?

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You can bet that this real transfer of power to the people will be strongly resisted by most elite individuals and institutions. They will loudly proclaim every single reason they can think of for why it is a crazy, impossible idea, and get “experts” from their networks to loudly profess the silliness of even proposing the notion. This vitriolic denigration is exactly the measure of how badly we need to loosen their grip on power and change the system they have entrenched for their own benefit.


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Elon Musk

The Long Knives Are Out for Elon 

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The hounds have been released on Elon and that they won’t be called back because overt rebellion must be seen to be punished, lest he try again or others are encouraged by his example. But Elon has successfully powered through a lot of threats already, and seems to have locked in many new political alliances that can help tide him over during threats like those he presently faces. If he now lays low enough, he will eventually be forgiven.


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WHO Wants To Run the World?

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This is the first clear instance of a globalist coup attempt. It would subvert national sovereignty worldwide by putting real power into the hands of an international group of bureaucrats. It has long been suspected that the authoritarian elites arisen during covid times would try to strengthen their positions by undermining nation states, and this 75th jamboree is the first solid evidence of this being true. 


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We Can All Be Evil and the Germans Were Nothing Special

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For young Germans, the covid period has a bittersweet silver lining.  It has become clear, again, that the Nazis of the 1930s were entirely normal people, and that everyone else in the world can be a Nazi too. The Germans can release themselves from the belief that there is anything abnormally evil about being German. There is a potential Nazi in all of us. 


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Is the WEF the Headquarters of Evil?

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The total disconnect between what Schwab’s pandemic conference said should be done and what actually happened during covid times is once again proof that Klaus is not led by his principles.  If he were, he would have been loudly protesting what has gone on over the past two years. Instead, he is merely riding his “good luck” that the leaders who came to drink champagne at his events have now embraced him as their supposed figurehead. 


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Australia: Champion Covidiot

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No, Australia’s “trust in institutions” has not served it well during this period. What has happened is that we have seen how corrupt and/or incompetent the people in charge of our institutions really are, and – to our horror – how our misplaced trust in those institutions has led to an abject failure of our systems of democratic oversight and accountability.


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