The Australian sharemarket was beaten up badly yesterday, with fears of a US recession and the credit crunch continuing to squeeze the country’s banks and debt-fuelled former success stories. Across the Tasman and throughout Asia markets were pounded, with the ASX down almost 3 per cent, Japan’s Nikkei average down 4.5 per cent and Hong […]
Category Archives: Australia
CANBERRA – Economic growth in Australia could struggle to reach three per cent over the next decade, well short of expectations, new research has found. But in some good news for the government, the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) report also found that the unemployment rate can fall further without necessarily pushing up inflation. “In […]
February begins with a reprieve. Bond insurer MBIA told American investors it had more than enough capital to keep its triple A credit rating. The company still lost US$2.3 billion in last year’s fourth quarter (or $18.61 per share). But the big worry is that if MBIA loses its ratings, the US$652 billion in bonds […]
March 14 -16 at the POWERHOUSE MUSEUM http://www.powerhousemuseum.com Darling Harbour Sydney, Australia Advanced Booking Price: AUD $128 To book a seat » click here Confirmed Speakers: Prof Steven Jones – Physicist, Co-founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice Lt Col Bob Bowman – Former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development (USA) G. Edward Griffin […]
Steve Biddulph: The Liberal Party is in trauma. The corporate sector is attempting to calm its nerves, and even the victors in the Labor Party cannot quite believe the seismic change in the landscape of power. But the ramifications of last Saturday may be much greater than just one election won or lost. In a […]
This next year will be interesting for many reasons. First, it’s the next year, and that is always interesting. Second, China plays host to the world at the summer Olympics. Though this date doesn’t have any official importance in China’s rise, it is kind of a “coming out” party for China. But why is the […]
The latest Newspoll shows the Coalition is facing annihilation in the federal election on November 24, with Labor sitting on 56 per cent of the vote, compared to 44 for the Coalition, on a two-party preferred basis. The poll, published in The Australian newspaper today, shows Labor’s primary vote remains on 48 per cent and […]
Posted by Bill Bonner on Sep 28th, 2007 Now we’ve finally figured it out. We were sitting in a pub, listening to a crazy woman. All of a sudden, it was clear…what went wrong with the US economy, we mean.The dollar has dropped so low that America is becoming a shopping paradise for foreigners. Of […]
Posted by Dan Denning on Sep 28th, 2007 Anyone know if the credit crunch is officially over yet? Just checking.The US Fed was busy pumping US$38 billion into the financial system in the last two days. “The Federal Bank of New York added US$6 billion in 14-day repurchase agreements, US$20 billion in 14-day repurchase agreements, […]
A Parliamentary select committee has decided the Prime Minister and not the High Court should decide who is a terrorist. The committee has reported back on the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. Read more
A bill introduced this week by Australia’s Parliament would give the Australian federal police the power to control which sites can and cannot be viewed by Australian Web surfers. Introduced on Thursday, the bill–titled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007–would empower the federal police to alter the “blacklist” of […]
Posted by Joel Bowman on Sep 19th, 2007 In matters of the heart, they say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. We’re not sure the same can be said for matters of the wallet. After all, “money borrowed” does, at some point, demand a dutiful transformation […]
By Ian Chua HONG KONG, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Credit fears flared in Asia on Tuesday prompting Australia’s central bank to quash speculation that one or more regional banks had asked for emergency funding, a day after savers rushed to withdraw deposits from a British lender. Japan’s finance minister provided soothing words to investors, saying […]
Published: 13 September 2007 Have we reached the moment when the contagion in the rarefied world of the credit markets finally begins to infect the real economy? This week two well-known fashion retailers, French Connection and Next, warned that trading conditions are likely to become a lot more difficult in the coming months. And yesterday, […]
By Hale Stewart, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted September 10, 2007.Supply-side economics is a great marketing concept, but in reality is a poor national policy. Tools Republicans are enamored by “supply-side” economics. Frankly, I have to admit it’s a very easy sell. Think about it. “Cutting tax rates stimulates the economy to such a high level that tax […]
National leader John Key today unveiled plans to negotiate a free trade agreement with the US, which the government is yet to succeed in doing since it came to power in 1999. National will soon release a foreign policy paper with the key objective of preparing the ground for negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) […]
LEADING bankers are warning of the worst crisis in the money markets for 20 years, which will come to a head this week when $113 billion (£57 billion) of commercial paper – market IOUs – comes up for refinancing. This huge refinancing, mainly through London, exceeds the $100 billion that became due in mid-August, and […]
Police Removed Mandatory ID Badges Before Unleashing On Protesters Media Assaulted & Arrested, Women Shoved And Knocked Down, Hundreds Of Undercover Police Infiltrated The Crowd Hundreds of uniformed police removed their ID tags before the arrests and violence began They came in their thousands, in defiance of a month long fear and intimidation campaign by […]
By Mike Whitney “The new capitalist gods must love the poor – they are making so many more of them.” Bill Bonner, “The Daily Reckoning” “The hope of every central bank is that the real problem can be kept from public view. The truth is that the public—even professionals on Wall Street—have no […]
Naomi Klein on her new book. Hear it here
Quick vote and NZX boss gets deal topping $1.4m By JAMES WEIR – The Dominion Post | Friday, 7 September 2007 ROBERT KITCHIN/Dominion Post REASON TO SMILE: NZX shareholders have approved a new incentive scheme for chief executive Mark Weldon, which could potentially boost his annual salary package to more than $1.4m.Advertisement In less than […]
Showdown time as Clark heads to Apec By TRACY WATKINS in Sydney – The Dominion Post | Friday, 7 September 2007Prime Minister Helen Clark arrives in Sydney today to unprecedented security and a showdown over nuclear power. As police prepare for a big protest march tomorrow, expected to attract 20,000 people, Sydney-siders are reporting security […]
(CNN) — A virus found in healthy Australian honey bees may be playing a role in the collapse of honey bee colonies across the United States, researchers reported Thursday. Honey bees walk on a moveable comb hive at the Bee Research Laboratory, in Beltsville, Maryland. Colony collapse disorder has killed millions of bees — up […]
Journalists in Australian and New Zealand newspapers today speak feverishly of the worst ever violence to be expected in Sidney.(By the way the articles are exactly the same and show all the more that New Zealand’s main newspapers are now corporately owned and our news is managed and no longer independent.) John Howard blames the […]
SYDNEY – New Zealand is resisting a push by Australia and the United States for nuclear power as the answer to global warming. Ministerial meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (Apec) have been dominated by climate change policy, but New Zealand has found itself on a different side of the table from the US […]
Greens Party leader Senator Bob Brown An outspoken Australian politician has called US President George W. Bush a ‘dunderhead’ for sending troops to Iraq. Bush, whose five-day visit has placed Australia’s biggest city Sydney under a security lockdown, spent the day in talks with Prime Minister John Howard. Meanwhile, Greens Party leader Senator Bob Brown […]
“We’re Like A Bunch Of F*cking Rats In A Maze!” The ‘steel wall’ goes up only metres from the Sydney Opera House. Report And Photos By Darryl Mason On the outside of the ‘steel wall’ stretching five kilometres through the centre of Sydney, it looks like a fence. A three metre high, concrete reinforced fence. […]
At first glance, New Zealand appears to enjoy the same “hot money” problem as emerging economies such as Thailand. There, global investors have been driving the currency higher by flooding the country with money. But the problem for New Zealand is that its own investors and consumers refuse to hold cash over anything else. The Reserve Bank […]
United States Secretary of States Condoleezza Rice is keen to visit New Zealand, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said. He met Dr Rice yesterday on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum being held in Sydney under tight security. read more
