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Imagine that God were to appear on Earth for the unlikely purpose of settling, once and for all, our disputes over economic policy. The Discipline of Choices. Julie McCrossin , a day before my name day on 18 March 2005, will tell us why it is essential that we develop the discipline of making the right choices in her speech God and me. Making Right Decisions in a Troubled World

Invisible Hands & Markets: Self Interest of Mirrors

A New Yorker cartoon depicts a well-heeled, elderly gentleman taking his grandson for a walk in the woods. "It's good to know about trees," he tells the boy, before adding, "Just remember, nobody ever made big money knowing about trees."
If the man's advice was not inspired directly by the economist's rational-actor model, it could have been. This model assumes that people are selfish in the narrow sense. It may be nice to know about trees, it acknowledges, but it goes on to caution that the world out there is bitterly competitive, and that those who do not pursue their own interests ruthlessly are likely to be swept aside by others who do.

• The Theory That Self-Interest Is the Sole Motivator Is Self-Fulfilling [ Property developer accused of $3.2m tax fraud ; Rodney Adler has spoken for the first time about the impact the investigation into the HIH collapse has had on his family The terrible toll on my family ]
• · Critical Thinking About Energy The Case for Decentralized Generation of Electricity ; At least 6000 of their colleagues die every year, but China's coalminers tell Hamish McDonald they have nowhere else to go but underground Digging their own graves
• · · A would-be gas developer is confronting the power not of one but many
• · · · Building the American dream…or nightmare? ; Usually the wealthy individual is a businessman who has lived in the same town for all of his life. This person owns a small factory, a chain of stores, or a service company. He has married once and remains married. He lives next door to people with a fraction of his wealth The Millionaire Next Door vs. the Politician in Washington
• · · · · Military base sold for $1 billion ; Two men spend two years making a random 18-year-old gamer the subject of their art project, in which he is informed he is the savior of the future human race. Hoax as art There's Someone at the Door, He Says He's From the Future
• · · · · · The End of Budweiser The End of Super Bowl? ; How to conquer tax research: making the most of online resources, Colin Fong, Taxation in Australia, issue. 39, no. 7, 2005, pp. 362-370. The past ten years have seen enormous changes not only in terms of tax reform, but also in the way tax practitioners have acquired information about taxation. This article highlights how tax research can be conducted using the internet and how to optimise your time in finding useful and relevant information Colin Fong is one of the best Tax librarians in the world

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It Helps to Remember that the Wolves Arrive in Sheepskins Measuring Investment in Blogging – The CEO Bloggers Club

Invisible Hands & Markets: Turnbull has taxing thoughts

Malcolm Turnbull, believed to be the richest person to sit in the Australian Parliament, had some advice for his new Coalition colleagues yesterday: before the Federal Government considers cutting tax rates for the rich it needs to crack down on tax avoidance

Everybody apart from tax practitioners are in the dark about tax matters. It is a black art
• Turnbull's tax warning [Debate on Tax ; Business offers tax remedy ]
• · Yesterday’s Fin had a piece by Louise McBride arguing for cuts in personal income tax rate, and including the claim that, according to Tax Office stats, Australian companies had a total taxable income of $1.1 trillion, far more than individuals (about $300 billion), even though individuals pay far more in income tax. McBride’s stats imply that company profits are approximately 150 per cent of GDP ; Watching the human heards: We have an incentive system that directs ... a disproportionate amount of investment into housing The Goldilocks years are over
• · · Australia has 21 per cent of the world’s poker machines Regulating social problems ; A SQUAD of 200 tax collectors would hit 200,000 high-income earners with superannuation tax bills backdated eight years after a $323 million tax office bungle, a Senate committee was told yesterday. Superannuation lottery ; Two shonky financial advisers have dudded more than a thousand people out of their life savings. That's just the tip of the iceberg of superannuation fraud: Andrej and Martin Michalik Up the creek without a pole or a paddle
• · · · Like an incoming tide that lifts all boats, the rising sharemarket looks to have raised our view of the money world. Soaring share portfolios and sparkling super balances have turned our heads. We have even stopped complaining so much about stock brokers and financial planners. Whingers on the wane ; How do you find a good financial adviser? There is a new website which will get you off to a good start Rainmaker
• · · · · A troubling paradox about corporate philanthropy has surfaced. Is such largesse even legal? Tsunami: the backlash ;
• · · · · · Carly Fiorina's confrontational tenure as a Silicon valley CEO unravels - with a $27m handshake Silicon Valley star's fatal error

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Thank you one and all for making me this week #440 on the Blogstreet and some high profile journos acknowledging my links at Technorati Blogs are like bras, a good one never lets you down!
Jay Rosen said it in Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over: "A blog, you see, is a little First Amendment machine."

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Absence of Malice
It is not hard to feel sympathetic toward Superior Court judge Ernest Murphy ...

The US Supreme Court, in its landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, raised the bar to an extraordinarily high level for any such person to sue for libel successfully. The court ruled that a public official must prove "actual malice" — a legal term that means Murphy must convince the 12-member jury that the Herald and its lead reporter, Dave Wedge, went to press with articles that they knew were false, or that they acted with "reckless disregard" for whether those articles were true or false. Such a standard, Justice William Brennan wrote in the Times decision, is necessary to ensure that "debate on public issues" remains "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open," even to the point of including "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

• The Boston Phoenix explains the difference between a newspaper being wrong about a public figure and being libelous [Remembrances of Arthur Miller ; Add Your Name to the Tribute to Doug Engelbart ]
• · Scoop: Access to Public Records; Is there a legacy of which CNN's Eason Jordan and his counterparts should be proud?
• · · Salam Pax takes to the streets of war-ravaged Iraq Baghdad blogger switches to the camera
; How insane. It’s a world where, on the one hand, we drownourselves in tears of regret about a meaningless destruction of human communities (tsunami) while remaining a party to the deliberate destruction of others (Iraq War) Phillip Adams in the Magazine 12-13 February
• · · · A newspaper editor has become the third person to admit lying to the NSW watchdog's inquiry into corruption at Strathfield council. Surprise, surprise ...Editor lied over bribe tape he didn't think was a story ; A former media adviser to federal Liberal MP Barry Haase is seeking restraining orders against the member for Kalgoorlie and his wife. Mr Haase and his wife, Dallas, have been summonsed to appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Monday to respond to applications for misconduct restraining orders lodged by Natasha Mutch Too Much Attention
• · · · · There is an element of irony when a so-called 'homeless hacker' is sentenced to home detention Doing time for cyber crime ; Rather than bringing users closer together, the increasing array of telecommunications available today may have made it harder to "get in touch Dating and dumping via email
• · · · · · Going into the 2004 election cycle, just about everyone said the Internet was going to change politics. But no one was sure how. Now we know Blogosphere politics; In a lengthy, wide-ranging interview with E&P today, former White House reporter Jeff Gannon, whose real name is James D. Guckert, revealed that, contrary to many media reports, he has not been subpoenaed in the Valerie Plame/CIA case. I haven't been this psyched since the sequel to Political Assassination on the Sussex Street

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How Wall Street Learns to Look the Other Way Maximizers of their own expected utility

Invisible Hands & Markets: How Economists Kill People
One person, one economist, can get a government to change its policy. I have done it. Often. It is what I do for a living. My book, The Economist’s Tale (Zed Books) shows one case where I did it. This time, I stopped a famine.

The White Man’s Graveyard, they used to call Sierra Leone. It was the Black Man’s Graveyard when I worked there. Half the children born died of hunger and disease before they were five. Life expectancy was the lowest for any country in the world.

• There is a lot of money to be made from a good famine [Credits: Cost of Sharing ; Cost of War ]
• · Twenty-one of the world’s most important leaders will descend on Sydney for the 2007 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation conference in what will be the city’s biggest international event since the Olympics. 21 world leaders to head to Sydney for APEC
• · · Ross Gittins: With the economy so strong, no one should be surprised to see interest rates rise Reserve lifts early so as not to lift often ; Economics in Sex Minutes
• · · · Tim Dunlop is on the Road Again with Big target strategy ; John Quiggin posts illegal post and commentariat melts down Illegals, again
• · · · · Sydney’s housing auction market over the holiday period may have been the weakest recorded Auction plunge contradicts rate fears
• · · · · · One of the nation’s judges has not lodged a tax return for seven years and a further 65 were at least 12 months late in settling their tax responsibilities for the year to June 2003. Among those was one who had failed to lodge a return for five years and another for three years, Australian Taxation Office figures obtained by The Australian show. Judges prove lax on their tax with 66 late to lodge returns

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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

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I translated this mother's sad farewell and sent it to my Mamka. The universal love of mothers expressed ever so deeply ... The eulogy Claudette Clausen will read at the funeral of her only daughter, Klara. There is nothing as hard as burying your own child. It's not the way it's meant to be. It's not the natural order of things. It's just not right... The day has lost a special light

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Doing It For Love
Clair Scobie meets some talented Australians who know you can’t put a dollar value on success. They may be at the top of their field - in writing, sport, fashion and acting - but they wouldn’t want to be doing it for the money.

Despite the success Pert author Brett D’Arcy, along with most of his fellow authors, is struggling at the low-income end of town: “Last year at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, I remember being on the stage with three others and looking at the sole of the shoes of one of them, a successful Sydney writer. Just like my own shoe, it had a hole in it. Afterwards I said to him, ‘Do you stuff it with newspaper or what?’”
Life is tough at the top. According to a study commissioned by the Australia Council in 1000-2001 just 26% of Australian actors earn more than $50,000 that year. Authors routinely earn $10,000 a book. Passion, talent and genuine desire to make a difference inspire many but on the consumerist merry-go-round some of us ride, success is often equated with a fat pay cheque. “Society makes money a measurement for success. It is obvious thing to do,” says celebrated fashion designer Akira Isogawa. “How much you earn - to me is absurd if you measure success by that ... The Question I have: am I passionate about it? And if I’m not, even if money comes, I do not thin it is worthwhile.”
Actor Nicholas Hope, who last year turned into his years on a fringees of stardom - he won an AFI for Bubby - into an amusing memoir, Brushing the Top Tip of Fame. “I have dealt with the [financial strains] through high blood pressure ... Suddenly, I think, ‘I’m 45, I’ve lost the chance of building up a pension and I only have enough money for the next six months.”
Unpredictability goes with the territory. “Risk is part of the actor’s existence,” says Michael Gow, 49, whose 1986 award-winning play Away is studied as a set text in schools... Then, he points out “I may not have a BMW, but I’ve inspired a whole generation of schoolkids.” In Australia there is ‘one millionaire playwright - David Willimason - and a huge gap between him and the rest of us struggling for scraps’ “The whole thing of the struggling artist is becoming a more respectable idea,” says Nicholas Hope. “Australia has always liked the idea of the rebel, the battler.” Brett D’Arcy is less convinced. “People are embarrassed by the sort of remuneration writers get ... you take a vow of silence as well as a vow of poverty.” (Indeed, many renowned Australians approached for this story were reluctant to talk about it)

Media Dragon is of an opinion that if you cannot take it to the coffin what is the point of owning it? People might be smart enough to accumulate amazing quantity of power and riches, but they also must be dummies enough if in the process they end up with a soul so empty that charity becomes a foreign word in their world ...
• Not on line It won’t make you rich but ... [credits: Complete strangers often approach Mitch Albom and ask whether they can give him a hug. His presence can trigger grateful tears from middle-aged men, while Oprah simply adores him The Five People you Meet in Heaven ; Raising the dead: Brave voice of the silent witnesses. Koff belongs among these modern mercenaries of the human rights and humanitarian world. Like them, she exudes restlessness, a sense of pleasure in risk, a need for this kind of adrenalin, as well as an obvious enjoyment in the camaraderie of working friendships as colleagues, befriended in Rwanda, are encountered again in Bosnia and Croatia. Like them, she is drawn back, again and again, by a feeling that it is still possible in the world to do something worthwhile and by a belief that witnessing is all that keeps the world from sinking into barbarity. She is part of what Michael Ignatieff has called the "expanding moral imagination" of our times. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don’t have a poker face ; Not only do these people want to make you rich, but they can do it in record-breaking time. And they will make it so easy that you won't even have to do any real work. Why Are There So Many People Eager To Make You, like me, Rich? ]
• · It is award time in America. In all the precincts of intellectual and cultural endeavor, the hubbub begins. One book fewer given to literature; A Post-Pulitzer Coogler
• · · Chicago-based Jessa Crispin launched her literary webzine and daily blog hoping publishers would send free books. Three years on, she is a minor celebrity. We asked her to keep a diary Strange meetings ; The agony and the ecstasy of a reading life Guardian Unlimited Books' top 10 literary blogs ; Bookslut
• · · · I went on a date a while back and met one of the founding members of the "for Dummies" series. His thoughts on publishing were simple. Figure out a way to get rid of the writer. Money, money, money: Big thieving monkeys always hang the little thieving dummies!!! Always!!! ;
• · · · · Sandra Lee: THE State Government is gearing up to celebrate 150 years of responsible government in 2006 by shelling out almost $2 million in grants for a string of back-slapping congratulatory books on the politics, politicians and those who cover them. In 2002 Premier Bob Carr set up a bipartisan trust charged with dishing out money to a series of authors commissioned to produce riveting titles including A History of Politics of the 1850s ($50,000 grant) and the Book on Premiers of NSW 1856 to 2005 ($60,000). Other projects included $27,500 to a political journalist to write The History of the NSW Press Gallery (potential readership, 25), and another on the sporting prowess of politicians throughout the years. Seriously! Interestingly, one committee member who signed off on the project is the newly trim deputy Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell, who once endured the cheeky nickname, Fatty O'Barrell. Your money hard at work. Literary follies of our pollies; First he was on radio hamming it up and promising a law to ban people from wishing others a belated Happy New Year. This week the funster Premier played actor (is there any difference?) at the official opening of the Sydney Film School. During a mock Oscars ceremony, Carr was awarded a green zucchini for his film, "Million Dollar Maybe" (geddit?). Ever the showman, he brandished the award in good grace, a la Clint Eastwood at the recent and real Golden Globe Awards. Is Premier Bob Carr auditioning for life outside of politics?
• · · · · · There's an affliction called mirror-face which strikes many women. When we catch sight of ourselves in a reflective surface, the following instinctively happens: we suck in our cheeks, tilt our jaws upwards and sideways, and bug our eyes out in what's supposed to be a startled-fawn expression. I could write a thesis on the reasons for this phenomenon, but in short, I believe we assume mirror-face so our external image matches our fragile internal one.First Daughter ; It's often said that motherhood is a thankless task, but being the mother of a writer is much, much worse than that Granta 88: Mothers

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The unusual weather that turned summer into winter in eastern Australia had meteorologists gasping, with some describing it as among the most extraordinary they had witnessed ... Siberian invasion!
Dubbed the “shock jock” of blogging by The Sydney Morning Herald, journalist and Bulletin columnist Tim Blair has a history of stoushing with ABC TV’s Media Watch. More recently, he exposed a plagiarised story about the Redfern riots from the Chicago Tribune, resulting in the journalist’s sacking. Whether or not you agree with Blair’s often irrational diatribes, he’s arguably the most widely-read Australian blogger. Shock Jock

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Revolutions: These days, the World is Smaller and Faster
Making a killing by spinning stories in a smaller revolutionary world of freedom from real information. Will the real corporate thug please stand up?

The great annual political donations list was released by the Australian Electoral Commission on Tuesday morning and, as usual, there are about 50 interesting stories.
Our intrepid political correspondent Christian Kerr has already driven down to the address of Family First's biggest donor in South Australia, the mysterious Hardel Pty Ltd at 255 Port Rd, Hindmarsh, and discovered the generous benefactor to the tune of $23,000 resides in a modern business centre with several tenants.
Could it be Johnson & Johnson? We doubt it. Could it be a Job Network provider? Unlikely.

• A deluge of political donations [At least 12 skyscrapers the size of the 47-storey Australia Square, housing 25,000 workers, could loom over Darling Harbour in order to pay for the Premier's dream of a huge harbourside park Roasting and Toasting the villages in order to save them ; Bush is an idealist and a revolutionary willing to fight for other countries' freedom Gun Point Democracy; St Kilda Writer's Festival Artists and Political bloggers ]
• · Property developers are becoming a more important source of funding for political parties as big sharemarket-listed companies adopt "no-donation" policies ; [Paul Whittaker and Michael McKinnon of The Australian used a freedom of information request to obtain records on travel spending by members of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The 49 members spent about $250,000 on foreign travel during the past two years, and another $1.4 million on trips within Australia. Tribunal's $2m travel bill]
• · · Two members of Sydney's notorious rape gang could escape a retrial for an attack on a 16-year-old girl, after prosecutors accepted she was unable to face the ordeal of giving evidence again Skaf brothers escape retrial on rape charge ; [The High Court today granted a new trial for a man who allegedly confessed to murdering a prostitute when the video recording of his police interview was switched off Prostitute murder: High Court orders new trial ]
• · · · A key witness has backed independent MP Tony Windsor's claim that a Tamworth businessman offered him an inducement on behalf of two government members to stand aside from his federal seat of New England. I witnessed bid to bribe MP ; [Chris Casteel and Tony Thornton of The Oklahoman used federal campaign finance data and local property records to show that Oklahoma taxpayer money was used in 2002 to buy property in McAlester from then-state Sen. Gene Stipe, a transaction that allowed him to repay a $50,000 loan that had been illegally funneled into the 1998 congressional campaign of Walt Roberts.” The price was more than double the property’s assessed value at the time. “Taxpayer money was directed to the project from the city of McAlester and from the state, when Stipe was still a powerful senator]
• · · · · The State Government failed to intervene for almost three years in the business affairs of Westbus, despite the troubled bus company's directors refusing to submit key financial records as required. Mr Watkins insisted the firm's troubles had nothing to do with the Government's slow and controversial transport reforms, which are splitting the private network into 15 divisions. State looked on as Westbus stalled
• · · · · · For the first in more than three years, Mamdouh Habib is enjoying the freedom of open spaces with his family and friends. Marty Morrison, a member of Rural Australians for Refugees; [Margo Kingston: Your democracy ]

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Towards an easier tax law. By Tom Skotnicki in the hard copy of 3 February 2005 describes the approach, known as coherent principle-based drafting, is designed to establish the objectives of the law rather than try to deal with every possible situation in exhaustive detail. Business Review Weekly

Invisible Hands & Markets: Borrower Beware

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Ann Hardie, Alan Judd and Carrie Teegardin analyzed how Georgia lending laws affect consumers, creditors and regulators, finding that the state “consistently stood out for its harsh treatment of borrowers and indulgent handling of lenders. Practices permitted in Georgia carry a human toll: escalating numbers of Georgians in financial ruin. Of the 100 counties nationally with the highest rates of personal bankruptcy filings, 45 are in Georgia.” Even loans for small amounts can be a bad deal: “Georgia allows higher finance charges for loans of $1,000 or less than any other regulated state except South Carolina.” Equisystems LLC compiled the foreclosure data for the series.

• Debts [Credits: TREASURER Peter Costello has pledged further economic reform after the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) criticised the Federal Government for dragging its feet and putting the Australian economy at risk; Your Democracy ; The Tax Office has a team of experienced presenters available to deliver a variety of presentations for tax professionals and/or their clients ATO's Speakers and Seminars Unit serving Australian public ]
• · John Garnaut Enjoy it, before the mean spirits of deficit prevail
• · · One thousand building workers employed by the Walter Construction Group face unemployment after the Australian construction and mining company followed its German parent into liquidation Walter
• · · · It is never easy choosing the 10 Worst Corporations of the Year – there are always more deserving nominees than we can possibly recognize. One of the greatest challenges facing the judges is the directive not to select repeat recipients from last year's 10 Worst designation. The 10 Worst Corporations of 2004 ;
• · · · · First it was two bathrooms; then it was two cars; now it's two houses. Almost one in 10 households in NSW owns a holiday house, usually somewhere on the coast Holiday shack attack on seaside serenity
• · · · · · Often it is said that the flat tax is passe, a posterchild of the small government movement of the 1990s. In fact, announcements of its intellectual death are premature. The reality is that the flat tax is robust and unique, and outstrips its competitors - the head tax and the progressive tax - in fairness and efficiency Richard A. Epstein: The case for flat taxes [ Calling All Sinners: The Czech Ministry of Finance on January 27 issued a general waiver (D-272) of penalties and sanctions related to VAT liability. The VAT amnesty covers the period from May 1, 2004, to December 31, 2004.]

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Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.
- G. K. Chesterton A Miscellany of Men

First we had George Soros betting in 1992 against the UK pound and now we have Bill Gates, the world's richest person with a net worth of $46.6 billion, betting against the U.S. dollar. We're in uncharted territory when the world's reserve currency has so much outstanding debt Gates's comments reflect the same view as his friend Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has bet against the currency since 2002

Invisible Hands & Markets: $2bn offer for Hills Motorway

Toll-road group Transurban Group has made a $2 billion-plus push to buy out Hills Motorway Group, driving the price of securities in both companies more than 20 per cent higher yesterday as investors backed the move - but it has not yet won the approval of the Hills directors.
The announcement of the bid sent stapled securities in Melbourne CityLink operator Transurban soaring $1.49 to $8.25 as Hills securities, already higher over the past few days, climbed $2.54 to $12.05. Both are trading at their highest levels and yesterday's price spikes added a total of $1.3 billion to the companies' combined market capitalisation.

• Hills Motorway: Riches of Men [Credits Crikey in December 2004 on M2 et al. ; manicure - M2 ]
• · Chesterton tells us that by experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men...Its horrors were highlighted by Charles Dickens and countless campaigners since, but child labour - including prostitution, mining, deep-sea fishing and drug trafficking - should not be banned in poor countries, says a study by the Royal Economic Society of Britain. Making the worst forms of child labour illegal is misguided, does more harm than good, and can damage the economy and the living standards of many families in developing nations; Dirty deals: cartel leaders face jail
• · · John Seaton, who died suddenly in Christchurch in November, was New Zealand's biggest owner of standardbreds, among them Born Again Christian. A Crooked Mile of Suicides ; On a stunning autumn day in May, police cars fanned out into the manicured countryside west of Christchurch, cruising the flat, straight roads past magnificent homes, racing stables and the inevitable vineyard. At 11am, glamour trainer Mark Purdon was startled to see police cars roll up the sealed drive of his state-of-the-art training establishment in Russley Rd, Yaldhurst. Racing: Blue Magic and the trail of death
• · · · After another upward surprise in economic data today, economists suspect the alarm bells are starting to ring at the Reserve Bank of Australia for higher interest rates. Credit of Debits
• · · · · lmost everything you read in the financial pages about what is going on in markets is mainly attributable to chance. More practical speculation
• · · · · · High profile Aboriginal leader Ray Robinson was greedily dishonest and arrogant in the way he gambled and drank away government funds Inala Hotel