HOME ABOUT US ADVERTISE SUBSCRIBE SITEMAP HELP CONTACT   Friday 10 September 2010 Make EMN my HomePage    FINANCE STORIES [ 149 Results - Showing Results 1 to 30 ] Post-carbon parliament (Friday, 3 September 2010) The global warming election that you have when you are not having a global warming election was, in the end, a victory for global warming and a defeat for the sceptics. The last few days have seen the parliament, independent candidate by independent candidate, declare for or against global warming. The sceptics are losing as the relentless head counting goes on. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Insight versus cliches (Friday, 27 August 2010) Stop debt. You have heard the argument, but the Australian public is obviously completely divided on the question because that’s where our national elections have left us. Electors were denied a vote on other factors in the sustainable development of this country, such as global warming, due to the ‘dead bat’ policies of the major parties. Full Story... Playing the game (Friday, 20 August 2010) Economic analysis is blood sport and it’s just like politics. We don’t take prisoners and no quarter is given. Economics does however have its own Geneva convention. Don’t play the woman, tell the truth, and you will be judged eventually - after a lot of pain - on your ability to predict the future. The world economy and the environment are at a turning point and these years matter. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Speak different (Friday, 13 August 2010) The election is running at lineball, if you listen to most of the polls. Essential Media is the fifth polling company of this campaign and has attracted some controversy, with the government running ahead of the Opposition. EMC, whose work and founders I am familiar with, have in-field research that give them a very strong feel for the actual attitudes behind much public thinking. Full Story... Gutless government (Friday, 6 August 2010) I had a brief comment from a reader about the timidity of US President Barak Obama this week as Russian PM Vladimir Putin, fresh from a bikie gathering, got decisively tough. This morning’s NY Times saw a front page graph of soaring grain prices as Russia, a major grain producer, banned exports in response to a ravaging drought. Full Story... Wind power led recovery (Friday, 30 July 2010) ‘US Fed member deflation warning hints at policy shift’ – you slept the last night the world moved just a little. A very hawkish governor of the US Federal Reserve warned that, in effect, inflation was no longer the threat, but deflation was the threat of the day – and the Fed should be ready to throw more quantitative easing at the weakening US economy. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Sustainable leadership (Friday, 23 July 2010) The popularity of US President Barak Obama has taken hit in the last few months. Just like in Australia and every other country, the public looks to its own economic circumstances and will vote for leaders when the economy is strong and against them if the economy is weak. In a recent article, Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman draws attention to recent research in the US underpinning this view. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Investors globally target green sectors: survey (Tuesday, 20 July 2010) Green private equity is on the agenda of almost all institutional investors, claims a survey by New Energy World Network. More than two third of respondents (69%) said they had already made green investments or are considering doing so within the next three years. Full Story... Public AND private investment, please (Friday, 16 July 2010) Last week I made the terrible error of leaving the grid – yes I was without high speed internet and actually had to use a phone box! If we had better broadband connections the public could read all of those economic reports – the ones that say the world economy is slowing down. Our world wants to have it both ways. Full Story... A run in the red (Friday, 9 July 2010) Regular finance correspondent Francis Grey is on sabbatical and will be back next week. In the meantime, the markets ticked up yesterday after a poor run in recent weeks due to ongoing doubts about the strength of the global economy in the face of the European austerity budgets and a slight cooling in China. The sustainability and clean tech indices were not immune to the gloomy figures. Full Story... Leadership lessons (Friday, 2 July 2010) Markets are continuing to weaken as investors savour the choice between two views: either governments around the world are loaded with debt and can’t pay, or those governments are loaded with debt, may struggle to pay, but nonetheless have to keep spending because it is the only thing holding up the world economy. Economics often provides a reality check on ideology, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Of taxes and ‘fiscal discipline’ (Friday, 25 June 2010) Some of you may have noticed the new ConDem government in the UK – that’s Conservatives and Liberal Democrats together – has produced its first budget and effectively begun to withdraw funding from a weak and suffering economy. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Taking back the leadership (Friday, 18 June 2010) The complexity of the human world has grown by orders of magnitude since Winston Churchill gave his 1930s “gathering storm” speeches in the British House of Commons. His speeches were able to slowly alert a public, already sickened by war, to the growing danger from Nazi rearmament and ambition. In today’s world, however, a well-funded lobby group may have countered his arguments, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Change agent: where art thou? (Friday, 11 June 2010) Who saved Australia from recession? Treasury defended its economic forecasting this week, and noted old-fashioned policies did the trick. The mining industry is suggesting they saved the economy. The truth is our society requires many elements to work effectively, and suggestions one thing or another were silver bullets are normally very wrong. Examining the elements of change can be useful, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Green spending in the NSW budget (Friday, 11 June 2010) The NSW Government’s 2010-2011 budget details $1.39 billion to be invested in programs to protect and improve the environment. It includes $81 million for environmental protection, regulation and compliance activities, while $29.4 million will go to helping local councils improve their performance on waste and recycling. The state also set aside up to $120 million over 20 years to support projects shortlisted for the Commonwealth Solar Flagship Program. Full Story... Operating license sub-clause: speak the truth (Friday, 4 June 2010) Some people have watched the mining industry ads and assumed the weaker Australian dollar is due to the super profits tax. This charmingly deluded understanding of the economy (what’s good for mining is good for the economy) is wrong. In the first days of June the commodity markets global data has revealed a fall in commodity prices. The Australian dollar has been sold as a result. Francis Grey explains. Full Story... Wide angle lens (Friday, 28 May 2010) In a week where we found out former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser had resigned from the Liberal party because it is too right wing, we have also seen mining companies and some short-sighted fund managers acting hysterically about a new “super profits tax”. Now the “free market ideology” is going the way of the Keynesian consensus. Its course has been run, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Knee jerks on super mining tax (Friday, 21 May 2010) The wobble in world markets continues as markets begin to comprehend the severity of Europe’s self-induced economic crisis. The weakness in the Eurozone goes deeper than lending to Greece – as argued previously, it’s driven by a poor policy design and implementation of the Euro concept. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Super profit, super taxes = steady as she goes (Friday, 14 May 2010) An economy without taxation would be poorer than the same economy with taxation. The difficulty with industry’s knee jerk reaction that every tax increase means less investment and production is its presumption that all else is equal or unchanged. In the real economy, which is what makes economics fascinating, all else is not equal. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Federal budget not so keen on green (Wednesday, 12 May 2010) The Federal Government has unveiled its third national budget, and optimistic environmentalist hoping to be surprised by strong green measures will be left disappointed. After shelving the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) until at least 2013, there was some pressure for the government to consider an interim tax on carbon polluters. Instead it created a $652 million renewable energy fund, described by critics as a “piecemeal approach” to climate action. Full Story... Generals, Greece and hubris (Friday, 7 May 2010) Generals are always accused of fighting the last war, not the war to hand. So it may have been with the GFC as US policymakers were following the faulty model of the 1930s depression, which was caused by US Government failures to regulate bankers and act as lender of last resort, then pull the plug too early on the then stimulus process. But now Greece has intervened. By Francis Grey. Full Story... Sailing through the ETS squall (Friday, 30 April 2010) A winter of discontent is looming for the Australian version of the green economy. We can despair or we can use this process to prepare for the spring. Markets have cycles where events reduce or increase income. Governments try to manage these cycles, with greater and lesser degrees of competence, but, despite my fondness for the freeway metaphor, economic management is more like sailing than driving. Francis Grey explains. Full Story... Populate, or bust? (Friday, 23 April 2010) Population is going to be a huge issue in Australia, but the trouble is population is not necessarily under our control. Overnight the IMF has released a review of the Australian economy suggesting we have climbed the rankings to become the world’ eight richest country. This is our big driver – population is road kill on the income highway. If Australia’s income increases then the population will expand, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Obama’s narrative sets sustainability agenda (Friday, 16 April 2010) The US President must occasionally read columns like this to gather advice! In only a few minutes last night, he succinctly summarised the complex web of issues around carbon that we have previously detailed here. He then provided sensible guidance as to how adversity could be turned to benefit to unleash a new era of growth and prosperity while still delivering on sustainability. Francis Grey summarises the highlights. Full Story... The Beijing to Prague bullet is leaving the station (Friday, 9 April 2010) China is a serious contender for building the Californian high-speed train network from LA to San Francisco. Chinese technology is now producing the world’s fastest trains, and Chinese cash can finance California’s Chinese built high-speed rail network. The Chinese are laying down 1,900km of high-speed track each year. It’s easy to see how the Chinese economy can grow, although improving “human efficiency” is a challenge, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Reading the tea leaves (Friday, 26 March 2010) The news of the day is that Australia imported 300,000 new residents last year. The news out of China is that the coastal provinces have increased wages by 20% to attract migrant workers from the newly developing hinterland. This is new. The increased wages on the coast are a clear sign of the strong economic circumstances that China has created for itself – and hence for us. By Francis Grey. Full Story... China boom: fiscal carbon versus interest rates (Friday, 19 March 2010) I would like to declare the beginning of the China boom! I mean the one Australia is about to have, as opposed to the China boom everyone else (including China) is having. Anecdotally, some 20 million unemployed Chinese have vanished, the implication being they are back at work (although statistics from China do need to be handled with care). Francis Grey reflects. Full Story... How winners are really picked (Friday, 12 March 2010) One of the world’s largest economies, the US state of California, cannot organise its own public finances because of bizarre electoral and governance structure that hamstrings rational government. The electoral process grants too much power to voters where governments should be allowed to make ‘micro’ decisions without voter involvement. It’s time for Australian politicians to step up to the plate with some firmer statements too, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... Left behind as the debate rolls on (Friday, 5 March 2010) At an event in Melbourne last night I had to wonder why a climate scientist was asked to debate nuclear power. Two “nuclear industry” experts were also talking. On the other side of the debate were “public policy” specialists arguing against nuclear power. What was striking was the tendency to expect people to comment outside their area of expertise. And where was the renewable energy industry, questions Francis Grey? Full Story... Technology and teams (Friday, 26 February 2010) Coal defined the 19th century, oil defined the 20th and gas is going to define at least this part of the 21st. Even as the sceptics of global warming savour the Indian summer before the demise of their odyssey, the world is preparing for carbon reduction and elimination. But we need better team work to drive this forward, especially at a government level, writes Francis Grey. Full Story... 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