Qantas has announced it is splitting its loss-making international business from domestic operations, as part of a five year turn-around plan announced last August.
The two companies will have separate…
Austerity's political cheer squad: but is the game over? G8 countries have committed to growth by setting sights on employment.
The lingering commitment to austerity of leading Western politicians in the face of impending economic tragedy is beyond belief. The dismal science is a sobriquet often wrongly applied to economics, but…
Who would emerge better under a trans-Tasman currency regime: New Zealand or Australia?
AAP
The idea of a shared currency between Australia and New Zealand is not new and has engendered discussion over the past two decades. It has recently come to the forefront as a result of our Prime Ministers…
Does politics affect the integrity of economic forecasting?
K
The Melbourne Institute’s recent “Intergen +10” workshop was a retrospective on Australia’s pioneering Intergenerational Reports, an outgrowth of the fiscal responsibility legislation put in place by the…
A clear-headed analysis of the budget must delve beyond the buzzwords and political rhetoric.
AAP
Each year the budget is like an annual health check on a patient with many complexities. In a black coat, not a white one, the august Treasurer reports the nation’s temperature, provides much-needed tonics…
Lachlan Murdoch's familial and professional links with News Corporation - as well as Channel 10 and radio network DMG - are cause for concern for internet activists Avaaz.
AAP
The worldwide online activist group Avaaz, which claims over 14 million members and operations in 193 countries, has this week launched an Australian campaign against Lachlan Murdoch.
The group has written…
Joe Hockey has long extolled the virtues of hard work and the capacity for businesses to remain globally competitive, but an increasingly casualised workforce is exacerbating a divide between secure and insecure workers.
AAP
The ACTU released the report Lives on hold: unlocking the potential of Australia’s workforce summing up the findings of its six month inquiry into insecure employment chaired by Brian Howe at its Congress…
Are we agile and resilient enough to deal with a "hard landing" in China and a double dip global recession?
AAP
In Perth last October, New York University’s Professor Nouriel Roubini issued a dire warning to the business forum of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that Australia faced the threat of a…
Associated with sexy, outdoor aesthetic, Australia's surfboard culture defines a way of life. But it is in danger of disappearing?
Flickr/Desobry23
Last October surfboard company BASE abruptly closed its factory on the Gold Coast, with the direct loss of 30 jobs. Since then, nearby D’Arcy Surfboards has announced it is shedding workers and downsizing…
During the Great Depression, policymakers had an irrational - and detrimental - attachment to the gold standard. Should we be worried about the similar fervour for a strong euro?
BullionVault
Are the tragedies of the 1920s repeating themselves in the twenty-first century? In the 1920s, an irrational attachment to the gold standard helped cause the Great Depression, as European fears of inflation…
Euro group chairman Jean Claude Juncker: "This is nonsense; this is propaganda.”
“I don’t envisage, not even for one second, Greece leaving the euro area. This is nonsense; this is propaganda.”
That’s Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, chairman of the Eurogroup, speaking…
German chancellor Angela Merkel and France's new President Francois Hollande meet to discuss Europe's economic woes.
EPA/Rainer Jensen
Europe is in economic dire straits and the two most powerful economies on the continent are, at least on paper, led by individuals with considerable differences.
The previous French President Nicolas…
In today's world, businesses have to find new ways to tackle wicked problems.
luxamart
Obesity. Climate change. Brain drain. Tax havens. War in Afghanistan. All have been described as “wicked problems”.
UC Berkeley scholars, Rittel and Webber, coined the term in 1973 when they were reacting…
Nations half the size of Australia spend more on scientific research, have higher employment levels for scientists, and greater appeal to foreign investors, according to a report on Australia’s global…
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras would like to seek Greece withdraw from the Eurozone.
EPA/Simela Pantzartzi
Ten days ago, the political landscape in Europe changed profoundly.
Greece voted in the main to elect parties from the far right and far left who are opposed to austerity, and France elected a socialist…
Fears over Greece saw the Australian dollar dip under parity for the first time since December.
AAP
The Australian dollar has touched below parity with the US dollar for the first time since December last year.
This will no doubt disappoint the long line of Australian citizens touring the world, firms…
Stuck in Botany Bay: Greenpeace activists celebrate the Danish government's decision to halt Orica's plans to ship toxic waste to Denmark.
AAP
Are sustainability-dependent executive bonuses the answer to saving the planet? Research recently conducted by the Centre for Corporate Governance at the University of Technology, Sydney, examined whether…
Australia's approach to alcohol taxation is riddled with inconsistencies.
Johnsyweb
Alcohol is a prime target for taxation. It’s a good source of government revenue; it allows governments to recoup costs for providing services to drinkers (such as accident and emergency care and policing…
System 1 thinkers on the left, System 2 thinker on the right?
AAP
It’s an old joke, but hard to resist around Budget time. That is, that economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable.
Over the past few days we’ve heard a lot about how notoriously…
With Greek leaders still unable to form government more than five days after the election, the prospect of Greeks returning to the polls is strengthening.
The democratic executions of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Lucas Papademos in Greece means the body count of European leaders guillotined by angry electorates has risen to 12.
Sarkozy and Papademos join…
JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon: trading loss was "an egregious error" that underlines the case for Volcker.
AAP
The content and tone of JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon’s telephone call to analysts explaining JP Morgan Chase’s regulatory filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission reporting a $2 billion loss in…
The rehabilitation of Cambodia's railways has involved the forced relocation of many families that live along the railway line
Neil Rickards
In the lead-up to the federal government’s decision to delay the promised increase in the aid budget, a CARE Australia survey found strong public support for Australia’s international aid program.
From…
Arguments against taxing the super rich are centred around the notion that wealth encourages investment and creates jobs. But what about the effects of income inequality?
R SH
In a widely anticipated forthcoming book, Edward Conard – a former Bain Capital colleague of Mitt Romney’s – has advanced the arguments that investment drives economic growth, and that deregulation and…
New research has found many industries have recommended the use of quotas to increase women in leadership roles, although their use also evokes negative reaction.
Flickr
In Australia and many other countries, increases in the number of women in senior leadership roles within most corporations have been small and slow to occur. The underemployment and under-utilisation…
The increased provisions for welfare spending are partially symbolic, but also lay the foundations for a more progressive tax and welfare system.
AAP
The Treasurer Wayne Swan has described the 2012 Budget yesterday as “a Labor budget to its bootstraps”, and commentators have variously seen it as “a big taxing, big spending budget, including a big increase…
