CIS Crisis Commentary
The End of Capitalism? Exploring the Global Financial Crisis
What are the underlying causes of the crisis? How has it evolved from a decline in US house prices to a global financial sector crisis? How serious a risk does Wall Street pose to Main Street? What does the crisis tell us about capitalism and free markets? How serious is the backlash against capitalism? What can history teach us?

CIS Crisis Commentary
Depositor Protection and Government Bailouts
Australia is arguably in a strong position compared with the rest of the world, and our financial house is in reasonably good order. But with daily references in the media and on the street to the Great Depression, is it likely that we will experience a downturn of such dramatic and dire proportions? Walt Disney’s famous animated film of 1933, The Three Little Pigs, was widely touted as an allegory for the Depression; seventy-five years on, is the wolf at our door again?

CIS Crisis Commentary
The Ban on Short Selling: Help or Hindrance?
Amid sharp falls in global stock markets, governments around the world implemented temporary bans on the short selling of financial stocks. In Australia, the authorities went further, banning the short selling of all stocks. Was the ban necessary, or was it a case of shooting the messenger? Did the ban work to stabilise markets, or did it have unintended and destabilising consequences?

CIS Roundtable
Fixing Federalism
The CIS hosted a half-day forum in May to discuss the constitutional and legal foundations of federalism; the roles and responsibilities of commonwealth, state, and local governments; national reform; the fiscal aspects of federalism; and the benefits a federal structure brings to Australia. Panellists included Melbourne Law School professor Cheryl Saunders; Emeritus Professor Cliff Walsh and Dr Jonathan Pincus of the School of Economics at the University of Adelaide; Mr Ken Baxter, director of TFG International; and former CIS senior fellow Professor Wolfgang Kasper.

CIS Lightbulb Lunch
Dr Razeen Sally
Dr Razeen Sally is the co-Director of the newly-formed European Centre for International Political Economy, an international economic policy think tank based in Brussels. He is also Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as head of its International Trade Policy Unit, from which he is currently on sabbatical.

Dr Sally voices his thoughts on the future for trade liberalism, and examine what lessons can be learned from the political economy of policy reform in emerging markets.

The 9th Acton Lecture on Religion and Freedom
Bishop Tom Frame
Do Secular Societies Provoke Religious Extremism?

Secularism, properly understood, seeks to prevent the state from supporting religious causes and denominational campaigns. But this satisfies neither religious people nor those atheists who would like to see religion completely driven from public life.

Frame concludes that in a genuinely secular society all must recognise and respect the opinions of those with whom they disagree, and accept that both the religious and the non-religious ought to participate in public life and discourse. In this way, Australians can avoid creating a society of coercion and violence in the name of religion or of secularism.

Milton Friedman Tribute
Milton Friedman was one of the 20th century's greatest economists and champions of freedom, his passing on November 16 last year was a huge loss. The CIS is commemorating Friedman’s contribution to our intellectual life and policy environment with a forum on March 12 in Sydney. Five prominent economists and thinkers will discuss Friedman's public life, his visits to Australia in 1975 and 1981, and explore his most influential ideas on monetary policy, inflation, the role of the central bank, exchange rate policy, education policy, conscription and the military draft, plus a screening of Friedman’s 1980 TV series ‘Free to Choose’.