Month: December 2010

Ideas@TheCentre

New South Winfrey

10/12/2010
Imagine an American talk show host visiting Europe for a couple of recordings. Would the British display her picture on Big Ben? Would the Italians evacuate the Coliseum of Rome for her? Would the French cordon off the Champs-Élysées so she should move around more easily? If such ideas strike you as absurd, you are obviously not linked to the organisation committee of Oprah Winfrey’s visit to Australia.

[…]

Business Spectator

Trichet’s prize for shredding Europe

09/12/2010
Charlemagne not only entered the history books as the great unifier of Europe. He also established a stable, silver-backed currency whose weight units survived for more than a millennium in many countries. Giving a prize in Charlemagne’s name to a person complicit in the rapid debasement of a paper currency is another bitter-sweet European irony.

[…]

The Australian

German polemic has resonance for West

04/12/2010
When a German language book causes a global stir, it must be of relevance beyond the narrow national confines. This explains the scores of articles dedicated to Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany abolishes itself). Written by former politician and central banker Thilo Sarrazin, it covers topics such as the effects of the welfare state on the country’s underclass, demographic change and the ageing society, the failure of public education, and the problems of integrating Muslim migrants.

[…]

Business Spectator

The Euro monster

02/12/2010
Over the past three years we have had to get used to numbers with lots of noughts. Stimulus packages, bank bailouts and public debt figures have reached dimensions well beyond the imagination of the average person. It also appears that dealing with these fantastic sums on a daily basis has led policymakers to lose perspective. What else could explain current speculation that the Euro rescue fund may have to be expanded?

[…]