Wall Street

Address to the US President

Comment

By Don Watson

Mr President, Thank you for making room in your busy schedule to see me while you are in Darwin. In the short time I have at your disposal, let me welcome you to our shores. I trust you have found your soldiers in good spirits and enjoying their vital role as guardians of our joint regional security. I hope they’re putting on plenty of sunscreen, Mr President. Our Aussie sun really burns. I

Left Behind: Why the Right Keeps Winning

By Peter Hartcher

It was Carnegie, son of the arch-establishment businessman Sir Rod Carnegie, who emerged as the media star of the Gillard government’s tax forum in October with his call for the wealthiest 15% of income earners to pay 15% more in income tax. “What I am saying is that the economic rents of capitalism are disproportionately cascading towards a smaller and smaller section of the community �

Geoffrey Robertson’s Life in the Law

Knight in Shining Armani

By Paola Totaro

Robertson has 13 books under his belt, among them The Tyrannicide Brief (2005), the story of John Cooke, the lawyer who prosecuted King Charles I in the treason trial that led to his execution. David Williamson and Robertson are now collaborating on turning the book into a play. Most recently, last year – on the eve of the first papal visit to the UK in nearly 30 years – Robertson published the fiery The Case of the Pope, arguing th

Satyajit Das’s 'Extreme Money'

Air Traffic Out of Control

By Lindsay Tanner

Did you know that the Japanese Ministry of Finance advertises Japanese government bonds by claiming that men who own them are more popular with women? Or that Black Sea waterfront properties in Bulgaria were the hottest real estate in the world before the global financial crisis? Or that cacao, corn, dried fish, almonds, tea and rice have all been used as mo

Bret Easton Ellis’ 'Imperial Bedrooms'

The Public Mind

By Delia Falconer

“Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-fucking-ever. Party tonight!!!” Bret Easton Ellis posted this Tweet in January this year, as the net began to buzz with news of reclusive author JD Salinger’s death. Ellis’ Twe

Michael Lewis’ 'The Big Short'

Clueless

By Kate Jennings

The financial crisis marked its dismal second anniversary in March. In the US, 3 million households are expected to be served with foreclosure notices in 2010, up from 2.8 million last year. Unemployment is edging toward 10%. States are hurtling toward bankrup

Steven Soderbergh's 'The Girlfriend Experience'

Amoral Tale

By Luke Davies

In what passes for context-setting in a porn clip I found on the internet as research for this review, an off-screen cameraman asks porn star Sasha Grey to tell a little about herself. “When I’m not fucking,” she smiles, “I like seeing a good movie, or writing,

The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis

By Charles R Morris

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's recent essay. I find myself in virtually complete agreement with his analysis of the origins of the current economic crisis, its historic importance and the nature of the response that gove

The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis

By David Hale

The current global recession will be a more defining event than any other business cycle since the 1930s. As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd noted in his February essay, "This crisis has become one of the greatest assaults on global economic stability to have occurred in thre

Michael Wolff’s 'The Man Who Owns the News'

Vanity Fare

By Gideon Haigh

In the mid 1960s, Fred Friendly, friend of and producer to the legendary newsman Ed Murrow, visited his boss at CBS, the no-less legendary William Paley, and fell to arguing about the network's profitability. "How much money did CBS make last year?" demanded F

The Response to the Prime Minister’s Essay

Neo-Liberal Meltdown

By Robert Manne

The causes of the global financial crisis are already reasonably clear. The crisis originated in a series of interconnected developments within the American financial sector. From the 1980s a vast market in obscure and opaque financial instruments known as der

What Drives Economic Optimism?

Feeling Lucky

By Gideon Haigh

Any serious stock-market turbulence invites images of flappers, bathtub gin and plummeting stockbrokers: that is, of the Wall Street Crash of October 1929. It makes for compelling extracts from the newspapers of the era, such as this, from the New York Times: Wall

Ursa Major

By Gideon Haigh

This year marks the centenary of an early classic of American finance: Fifty Years on Wall Street, by Henry Clews, a self-made speculative tycoon turned éminence grise. It is bookended by calamities. Clews first strolled the street during the Western Blizzard of 1857, when stock prices halved in a few days thanks to a crisis of confidence over the terms of

Alan Greenspan’s ‘The Age of Turbulence’

Reigning Bull

By Gideon Haigh

Norman Lebrecht’s 'Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness'

Ein Schwindel!

By Anna Goldsworthy

The story of the millionaire’s factory

Who’s Afraid of Macquarie Bank?

By Gideon Haigh

The future of journalism as a public trust

War of Words

By Eric Beecher

"I don't want Rupert Murdoch to decide what belongs in the Wall Street Journal news pages. The essence of a great newspaper is independence, even from its proprietors and shareholders, and Murdoch, in the final analysis, hasn't come down on that side."- Peter Osnos, the

Wendi Deng Murdoch

By Eric Ellis

Deng Wen Ge - she changed her name to Wendi in her mid-teens - was born in Shandong around the time that her future husband was buying London's News of the World. One of three children, she grew up in neighbouring Xuzhou as a Subei ren - a vernacular term for the robust, rosy-cheeked folk of northern Jiangsu province, who are known, if not always loved, throughout China for being blunt, blithe and