The Sydney Morning Herald Comment

Loudmouthed narcissistic billionaires with political aspirations exist the world over, but rarely do they capture the political imagination in the way Donald J. Trump has enthralled America.

Elizabeth Farelly: Question. When is libertarianism not liberating? Answer: When it's the low-profile but remarkably influential Institute for Public Affairs.

Editorial: Federal-state conflicts over education control and allegedly "fantasy" Gonski funding can be sorted out – through a thorough public process, not thought bubbles.

Today's Letters: While I would prefer that toys weren't put into a blue or pink box, genes, environment and society allow violence against women. Don't pass the buck onto toys, writes Anna Beniuk of Mount St Thomas.

Waleed Aly and Lee Lin Chin are not your typical bland, safe network stars. Each has lots of haters. But that's okay. If you're on TV in 2016, and trying to appeal to everyone, you will be boring, writes Spectrum Entertainment's Michael Lallo.

When Vivienne Pearson moved from Victoria to NSW, she assumed the biggest challenges would be finding work and coping without family and friends. She was wrong.

As the ups and downs of the mining boom stole the headlines Australia was experiencing a less celebrated economic transformation: a know-how boom, writes Matt Wade.

Loudmouthed narcissistic billionaires with political aspirations exist the world over, but in Australia we wouldn't get to vote for candidates like Donald Trump at all. Australia lacks the political plurality that allows for such candidates to come to the fore in a more meaningful way than a Clive Palmer sideshow, writes Ed Coper.

Debate about Indigenous history in Australia always descends into hysteria because it bruises our misplaced national pride, writes Waleed Aly.

"It's shuffling the deck chairs as the ships of state head towards a demographic iceberg."

Malcolm Turnbull's plan to reform income tax is not only wrong, it's also the wrong tax being offered for reform, says Michael Pascoe.

On daylight saving, there’s no knock-down case to be made for either side – and it’s precisely that magnificent irrelevance that makes it such a hot-button issue, writes Andrew P Street.

Despite Australian consumers being among the gloomiest in Asia, there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful about Australia's prospects, says the Herald's Matt Wade.

It's hard to find a good reason why Australians are much gloomier about their economic circumstances than most of their Asian neighbours, including New Zealand, writes Matt Wade.

Last year the RBA reported an 11% surge in demand for the $100 banknote. Yet few Australians ever see our largest bill.

The reality is that high denomination notes play a tiny role in most legitimate economies, writes Alexander Smith.

Donald J. Trump told The New York Times that, as president, he would "perhaps" lay claim to one of the disputed islands of the South China Sea for the US. This would be tantamount to an American declaration of hostilities against China, writes Peter Hartcher.

One is not supposed to mention the indelicate matter of financial incentives when it comes to having children. Those little blighters are priceless, of course.

But actually, they're not. They're pretty expensive. Particularly when you factor in the opportunity cost of the carer's time – the income they could otherwise earn by doing paid work, writes Jessica Irvine.

Our chief international correspondent Paul McGeough analyses the security, political and social implications of the bombings in Brussels.

The attacks in Brussels are shocking, but not surprising. They reinforced what many have known for years: Belgium has a serious problem with terrorism, writes Fiona de Londras.

It's remarkable the way the Business Council of Australia constantly lectures us on the "reform" we should be accepting to improve our economic performance, but never seems to lecture its big-business members on their manifest need to "reform" their own standards of behaviour, writes Ross Gittins. Among its most profitable members would have to be the four big banks. But the litany of scandals over their bad treatment of customers never seems to end.

Telstra must acknowledge that it has a systemic problem on its hands and work hard to fix it. Three national outages in two months is unacceptable.