Keywords: Five Billion Years
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AUSTRALIA
- Paul O'Callaghan
- 12 December 2014
14 Comments
As we prepare to mark the tenth anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami, Australia's proud achievement in being the largest per capita provider of overseas aid at the time is being overshadowed by reports of further devastating government cuts to our aid program. Successive cuts - including 20 per cent in the May Budget - mean that we are starting to be seen as a country turning inwards.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 13 October 2014
7 Comments
Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann announced 'the scoping study found no evidence that premiums would increase as a result of the sale' of Medibank Private. But the sale is being presented as a way to make the fund more efficient. If successful, Medibank Private will become even more dominant than it is at present and there will be pressure to raise premiums to achieve its purpose of keeping shareholders happy.
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MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD
- Harry Maher
- 20 August 2014
14 Comments
Inequality is dangerous. And inequality is at a near all-time high. At its core, the Government’s recent budget not only engenders but actively exults in the creation and maintenance of inequality, a phenomenon rapidly expanding not just in Australia, but around the world.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 13 August 2014
1 Comment
In 1976 management thinker Peter Drucker said the real owners of the stock market were workers, through their pension funds. A similar broadening of ownership has occurred in Australia since the creation of compulsory superannuation. But intermediaries called fund managers still stood between the people and ultimate control of their financial destiny, until the rise of the Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF).
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ECONOMICS
- Brian Toohey
- 11 June 2014
15 Comments
The superannuation industry inhabits a cosseted world in which the money pours in thanks to a combination of government compulsion and tax concessions. The foundations of this empire are criticised for how the tax concessions create an expensive form of upper class welfare, and for the harmful effect of compulsory super's artificial expansion of the finance sector. The Abbott Government shows scant concern about either aspect.
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AUSTRALIA
- Paul O'Callaghan
- 23 May 2014
6 Comments
Last week the Federal Government committed to a much smaller and 'just in our neighbourhood' aid program for the long term. This major shift sent a perplexing signal to the world, with Australia abandoning Africa's poorest at a time when Australian mining investment in Africa continues to boom.
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INTERNATIONAL
Despite the bloodletting of last week's budget, the Australian Government could still find some 12 billion dollars for 58 Joint Strike Fighters. This is part of the reality of the Asian Century. Australia will need statesmen and women of the highest calibre, but ultimately a lasting peace requires all nations to act together to create an international order that is actually ordered.
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AUSTRALIA
- Lily O'Neill
- 20 January 2014
6 Comments
The WA Government recently acquired 3414 hectares at James Price Point near Broome, in the continuing saga to develop the region's liquefied natural gas reserves. Meanwhile, the building of four LNG processing plants on Curtis Island, off Gladstone, Qld, is proceeding smoothly. While the traditional owners of James Price Point have received international attention, traditional owners in Gladstone have barely been heard.
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AUSTRALIA
- Donna Mulhearn
- 07 January 2014
I sat with my Iraqi friend in his photo store. I was his last customer, he said; the bombs would begin tomorrow. And then he began to weep. I remember thinking that his life, and the lives of others like him, would not be given a second's thought once the invasion started. The next day, the bombs began.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Menadue
- 18 October 2013
1 Comment
Some miners must be wondering whether they took the right course in opposing the Rudd Government's Resources Super Profits Tax, in which taxes would be levied on the profitability of the enterprise rather than royalties. Higher state mining royalties, lower commodity prices and higher costs will put the squeeze on the mining companies. It will be quite delicious to see them then urging a tax based on profits/losses rather than royalties.
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ECONOMICS
Religious authorities may not spend a lot of time pondering the nature of global financial systems, but the Pope's recent comment that 'money has to serve, not rule' suggests it can be useful when they do. Given scope to become rule makers, rather than just people who know how to exploit the rules, financiers have moved themselves to a position of mastery.
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ECONOMICS
In The Big Bang Theory Sheldon invents a game of chess which 'utilises a three-sided board with transitional quadrilateral-to-triangular tessellation to solve the balanced centre combat-area problem'. This gobbledegook sounds suspiciously similar to the application of mathematical models to financial securities in derivatives markets.
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