from Crikey …..

In the global Stock Market Olympic awards last week, the race to beat their pre-GFC stock market highs was won by  Denmark – the home of Lego, King Canute, Soren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen, Hamlet, Jørn Utzon, Helena Christensen, Danish pastries, and a long line of Vikings called Erik.

from the 730 report …..

JOE HOCKEY: Well, Labor have no Plan B. Labor have no Plan B. We have laid down...

SARAH FERGUSON: Do you have a Plan B?

US tech giant Apple has shifted an estimated $8.9 billion in untaxed profits from its Australian operations to a tax haven structure in Ireland in the last decade, an investigation by The Australian Financial Review has found.

"Foreign minister Julie Bishop will officially summon the Russian ambassador, Vladimir Morozov, in Canberra on Monday morning for an explanation of his country’s actions in the Ukraine.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Sunday called on Russia to “back off” from its military escalation in the semi-autonomous region of Crimea."

In political economist Mancur Olson's path-breaking book, The Rise and Decline of Nations, published in 1982, he argued that a country's economic stability ultimately leads to decline as it becomes increasingly dominated by organised interest groups, each seeking to advance their interests at the expense of others.

Waltham, September 11, 2011: Three men, throats slit, cash and drugs left on the bodies. Two years later, two dead suspects: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and a friend who the FBI says was about to confess. One haunting question: Could solving this case have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings?

What is rent? You don't make it past the elementary economics class unless you know that's a trick question. In economics there are two kinds of rent: common or garden rent and ''economic rent''.

from mike carlton ….

Hate to say I told you so, etc, but the crystal ball gazing in my first column for this year is already coming good.

from civil liberties australia …..

Aussies hate government surveillance 

Before our eyes, day by day, Scott Morrison becomes the hollow man. His face tightens and twists, his eyes are dead, and his words strangled with jargon.

from Crikey

When governments drape a flag over their secrets, we need whistleblowers

Qantas this morning reported a $252 million half-year loss and announced it would cut 5000 jobs as part of an overall plan to reduce costs by $2 billion over 3 years.

The results come as the government weighs up assistance measures for the struggling airline.

According to a February 25 article in the business section of The Washington Post (WP), a senate report has found that the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse knowingly enabled and assisted wealthy Americans in avoiding paying US taxes on billions of dollars in income for many years.