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Australia's superannuation system is in need of reform, according to survey results from Hawker Britton and UMR Research. Their joint survey indicates that 57% of Australians believe that they are being "ripped off" by their super fund, and that 42% do not understand how super works.
In AUSTRIA superannuation funds provide long term leases to families at a reasonable prices. As a result, whether you own or rent in Austria is not such a big deal. In Australia if you rent you are forever the one at the end of the food chain.
Economists suggest that Australian fund managers are harming the economy by investing funds overseas. Figures estimate that $A94bn out of a total superannuation pool of $A534bn is being invested outside Australia.
· Super Stealing the Show

THE MARKET AND ITS ENEMIES
Although I wrote a book on the subject, I never cease to be amazed at how predictably certain political views lead to others. If, say, you're a pro-growth free-market economist who is creepily nostalgic for the good old days of Jim Crow, you will inevitably abandon your free market ideas in favor of economic nationalism and protectionist trade policy, using half-baked arguments that amount to "but they're foreigners." And, just as predictably, you will be embraced--at least temporarily--by supposed liberals, who will happily ignore your less savory views in exchange for the cover of a conservative ally in favor of protectionism.
· Even Pat Buchanan had a brief honeymoon with the left when he started bashing corporations and international trade [link first seen at Corante ]
· Our fiscal gap is too great to grow our way out of this problem: David Walker, the Comptroller General and head of Congress's nonpartisan General Accounting Office (GAO)