On the economy

Joe Boswell writes: Re. “Business Bites” (yesterday). Concerning the economic outlook, Glenn Dyer informs us, “The increased threat from offshore is a worry because the domestic economy is doing better.” Right … so an increased threat would not be a worry if the domestic economy was already doing worse?

On education funding

David Hardie writes: Re. “On Gonski” (yesterday). David Edmunds makes several excellent points about school funding and its educational consequences. But this can be taken further. The two big trends in Australian schools since the 1950’s have been 1) increasing funding for non-government schools (and consequently the movement of students from the government to the non government sectors), and 2) the shift to school autonomy. And what have we got for this? Pretty much nothing in comparative terms.  What is the federal government doing about this? The current minister has flagged school autonomy as one of the key parts of his government’s education policy (while advocating and implementing a national curriculum), and proportionally raising funding for non-government schools.

Hands on the wheel

Jock Webb writes: Re. “Trust and money” (yesterday). Who indeed shall we trust, John Richardson? It is a matter of great vexation to me the these same agencies, Fitch, Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s all rated the junk status CDO’s that brought such grief on many investors in Australia and helped precipitate the GFC as investment grade and all rated the failed US and UK banks highly. Not one of these parasites has been called to account. Not one! Yet our Treasury Secretary who of course comes from the shadowy world of financial advice and merchant baking asks that we believe their every word. Every company worth the name borrows and so do most nations.