Australia tops prosperity index

I’d like to thank the honorable Mr’s Howard and Costello for their contributions and stellar leadership
Australia tops prosperity index
Australia has topped the rankings in a prosperity index of more than 100 countries, with its quality of life and economic strength pushing it into number one spot.
The Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index of 104 nations measures the [...]

Psychic Predicts Aliens are coming….Today!

A MASSIVE alien spaceship is to land on Earth TODAY to prove life really is out there, an Aussie psychic insists – and bookies are so worried they stopped taking bets on it happening.
Queensland-based “channeler” Blossom Goodchild says aliens informed her of their plans that a huge intergalactic spaceship will appear over the American desert.
She [...]

Perspective: Why ‘Market Fundamentalism’ Has Failed

Very little has been discussed about the origins of the current crisis in a larger economic framework.  So, I went hunting for something that would offer an economic-political perspective and found an excellent article by a  professor of economics in the US, which I think is excellent as and overview.
Senior Scholar L. Randall Wray is [...]

PM throws money at economy…

The PM has just announced some new measures aimed at stimulating the economy. Specifically:
- A $10.4 billion “economic security strategy” in response to the global financial crisis.

- December payments of $2100 to pensioner couples and $1400 to single pensioners.
- A $3.9 billion in support for low and middle-income families.
- The $7000 first-home buyer grant will be doubled – and [...]

Market rallies – where to from here…?

“Trying to pick the timing of a halt to the current carnage is difficult. But I would make the following points. The fall in the current bear market in shares is already bigger than the average for such episodes. The Australian market is more than 40% below its peak; the average bear-market fall is about [...]

The Intervention

A report has been released into the NT intervention that has found that the relationship between the aboriginal communities and the government is “fractured”.
Some of the findings of the report are:

no arrests have been made for child sexual abuse (even though this was the main reason put forward by the Howard government)
no increase in school [...]

The $55 trillion question: Will this be the next disaster?

Yesterday we learned that our big banks ignored sub-prime troubles
What I didn’t raise was another article by SMH’s Michael West exposing another major potential liability that banks face, that to date, has gone largely unnoticed.  West writes:
Australia’s Big Four banks are all exposed to the default of Lehman Brothers via credit default swaps (CDS) – [...]