Monday, February 07, 2005



The Axis of Oil Irwin Stelzer, Weekly Standard The OPEC cartel meets and agrees to cut back production, adding to price pressures

Invisible Hands & Markets: Out of the Shadows
In October 2003, Goldman Sachs economists Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman released research that should have changed forever the way Australia saw India.

Their report, Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050, predicted that within 40 years, the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China - the BRICs - would be larger than the US, Germany, Japan, Britain, France and Italy combined. China would overtake the US as the world's largest economy and India would be third, outpacing all other industrialised nations.


India is becoming one of the top economic players [Credits: Little Tommy Torquemada is far too inquisitive for his own good. Or anyone else's, for that matter. Malefactors face devil they know ; Familes in Sydney's working-class suburbs account for the largest group of residents who would be liable to pay investment property tax. Property tax hits working class. Really?]
• · Neil Forscutt writes in the Webdiary: Albert Einstein tells us that "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them". While a renowned economist tells us that "as far as I am aware, no country has ever gone broke borrowing off itself". Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy; Greg Fisher: Democracy is like a "cloaking device" on Star Trek. It hides the seamy underworld where the Neocon rockspiders weave their webs
• · · What happens in many sessions is that you go into a reverie, listening to the burble..., the words utterly incomprehensible but somehow reassuring, tumbling from the mountains of genius. The room is dark, and you remember fondly the days, decades ago, when after lunch you were permitted to lie down on your blanket and take a nap. This sounds like every government conference I've ever attended ; [adventuresinbureaucracy]
• · · · Former jeans king Alister Norwood's foray into selling lingerie in virtual stores is to end in fiscal tears for the tax office and for 600 investors drawn by a mix of dot.com hype, lace undies and tax deductions. Creditors of the Norwood-directed company NoRegrets Australia are to meet next week to vote on having the company wound up after Mr Norwood failed to bed down a restructuring to keep the insolvent group out of liquidation. Investors in Norwood's NoRegrets left with plenty of them
• · · · · Tax is shaping as the new political battleground, with both the Government and Labor examining proposals for new policies. Moving deck chairs on the Titanic? Lets find the tip of the iceberg first and competent tax policy thinkers and gurus with practical savviness Tax cuts for high-earners on the cards ; The more ownership there is in America the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country A Nation of Citizen Investors By James K. Glassman
• · · · · · Ben Hill: One of NSW's biggest home-improvement builders has been banned from the industry for nine months for leaving more than 500 customers in the lurch Dodgy brothers' banned from building