Vital Signs is a regular economic wrap from UNSW economics professor Richard Holden (@profholden). Vital Signs aims to contextualise weekly economic events and cut through the noise of the data affecting global economies.

In the 2017 budget lockup - when Treasurer Scott Morrison announced his outrageous bank tax/heist - I heard one well-known...

They’re made of carbon – but there’s something almost supernatural about diamonds.

Just the word diamond invokes luxury, desirability and toughness. Yet when we think of the element carbon we are more likely to think of charcoal; soft, black, opaque, earthy, light-weight.

If you’re a woman, then you’ve definitely experienced the frustration of standing in a long, slow-moving queue for the toilets while watching men quickly go in and out of theirs. And you’ve likely had the same conversation with others in that queue - “Jeez, why does it always take so...