Blogotariat

What was Mussolini’s funniest one-liner?

Opening a venture capital branch seems to be the new “thing” in the corporate world. While Telstra and Westpac are the new big national players, Google is clearly ahead of the curve, with two distinct venture capital firms: the newly launched Google Capital and the five-year-old Google Ventures. But why are so many companies, across a range of sectors, now running to open their own venture capital funds?

By Leith van Onselen Business Day’s Michael Pascoe has written a cracking article today (worth reading in full) questioning whether the New South Wales Government will have the cojones to side with the “consumer, competition, innovation and improved productivity”, or will side with the rent-seeking taxi industry, and seek to shut-down Uber’s ride sharing operation: [...]

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By David Collyer, cross-posted from Prosper WA Treasurer Mike Nathan has heard the call from REIWA President David Airey to end Stamp Duty and fund this by removing exemptions from State Land Tax, according to today’s West Australian newspaper. I warmly welcomed Mr Airey’s comments yesterday because they rose above the traditional selfish tax-shifting nonsense [...]

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By Leith van Onselen In the week ended 24 April 2014, the RP Data-Rismark 5-city daily dwelling price index, which covers the five major capital city markets, fell by 0.09%. It was the first weekly fall in values in eight weeks (see next chart). Values fell in two major capitals but rose in three (see [...]

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I spoke today with Marius Benson about Joe Hockey’s one big manufacturing success – a manufactured budget crisis, created by doubling the deficit. Here’s a transcript.

ANDREW LEIGH
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION
MEMBER FOR FRASER

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW
ABC NEWSRADIO

THURSDAY, 24 APRIL, 2014

Over-the-top plays have not always gone well for Australia's telcos and Internet service providers. While the sector's big players -- Telstra, Optus, TPG, iiNet and Vodafone -- have proved themselves able at selling telecommunications services, in most cases they have also found it hard to make money from content or services sold over the top of their telco packages. But this doesn't appear to daunt iiNet, which tells the Financial Review this week that it has a war chest for just this purpose.

The basic assumption in Australian monetary policy right now is that the US recovery will push up interest rates in the medium term and that will, in turn, close the yield spread between Australian assets and those in the US, dragging down the Australian dollar. This forecast relies largely upon the expectations of the US [...]

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If you believe the generous tributes to Neville Wran, NSW under his government was a paradise. In reality, corruption and dirty deals were rife, writes NM contributing editor Wendy Bacon

By Leith van Onselen Larry Summers, former secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and the director of the National Economic Council for President Obama, has written a great article arguing for a substantial expansion of public infrastructure investment across the US in a bid to boost the economy: The American economy is not performing [...]

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The Joint Strike Fighter is a precautionary purchase - we pay for the best, in case we need it. It's a pity that doesn't apply to other defence priorities, like climate change, writes Ben Eltham

Bill Shorten's plan will weaken the influence of unions over the party. Making the ALP-union link more democratic would be a better idea, writes historian and ALP member David Lockwood

It is pretty clear that the Abbott Government's politics of austerity--known as fixing the budget in order to fix the economy --- is going to target welfare, especially the aged pension, whilst leaving the Coalition’s generous expansion of the paid parental leave scheme untouched. So much for equity.