Monthly Archives: January 2008

The Bulletin folds

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Don Arthur

Andrew Norton mourns the passing of the Bulletin: The Bulletin hasn’t had a niche for a long time now. While it still occasionally broke stories, on a week-by-week basis it wasn’t providing much you could not find more promptly and … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 4 Comments

Silly false dichotomies

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Nicholas Gruen

You’d think that people would have had enough of silly false dichotomies.  I look around me and I see it isn’t so. I look at columns like this one by Geoffrey Barker.  In which he juxtaposes ‘government expenditure’ (good) with … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Politics - national | 4 Comments

Tandberg

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Nicholas Gruen

Ron Tandberg has done cleverer cartoons.  He’s done funnier ones.  But somehow I’ve never seen a cartoon that’s more Tandberg than this one. The master of the simple idea. And living national treasure.

Posted in Humour | 4 Comments

Mike Huckabee is OK on bass – but Mama Kicks really can sing!

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Nicholas Gruen
Posted in Music | Comments Off on Mike Huckabee is OK on bass – but Mama Kicks really can sing!

Richard Nixon and the mystery of the “extraordinarily, unbelievably, stunningly gorgeous” Russian women

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Don Arthur

Where did all those "extraordinarily, unbelievably, stunningly gorgeous" Russian women come from, asks Anne Applebaum. If you walked into any "well-appointed drawing room, dining room, or restaurant in London" around 1995 there they were, she says. But in the 1970s … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy | 52 Comments

Unbundling our way to convergence

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Nicholas Gruen

I’ve praised the Asus Eee PC before (though not its peculiar marketing name) as the direction I’ve been hoping portable computing would take for some time. It seems to have been a success and now they’re unbundling their way to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, IT and Internet, Media | 5 Comments

A Financial System Cannot Operate Without Trust

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Fred Argy

The report of the Campbell Committee* on Australias Financial System (1981) paved the way for financial deregulation of credit flows, interest rates and exchange rates. But it also recognized that a financial system could not operate effectively, let alone efficiently, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Politics - national | 53 Comments