Worth A Look

Welcome to 2012: All Debt, All the Time

Another year older and deeper in debt. You can Google “Canada’s debt clock” for a precise reckoning. Maintained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, this clock now ticks off another $1,000 in federal debt every second or, more precisely, $61,454 every minute.

Featured News

Political Reversal Down Under: Running an explicitly conservative campaign, Australia’s Tony Abbott has denied Labor a governing majority.

As it turns out, Australians—who are, after all, much like Americans, proudly democratic, entrepreneurial and of immigrant stock—warmed to Mr. Abbott’s old-school conservatism, along with his blokey, down-to-Earth persona. It’s a lesson to which conservatives in America (Republican, tea party, or otherwise) should pay close attention.

Australian Boomerang: Another big spending center-left party loses its majority

Australia now faces a period of uncertainty as Ms. Gillard and Mr. Abbott scramble to assemble what in either case would be a narrow majority. This may mean a period of more cautious policy, at least in the short term, which Australians may prefer after the tumult of the last three years. The bigger picture is that, in Australia as in the U.K., voters have stopped the revival of big government dead in its tracks.