Why the shares in probably the safest of the sectors in the market had to be sold yesterday in their millions, and were then bought back in the afternoon, will be the biggest mystery of yesterday’s outing by the lemmings of Australian finance.
August, 2011
Life in Hackney where CCTV is the most-watched station
I could see the police, about 100 metres away — very contained and not moving much. Every time they advanced, there was slight panic and excitement and a wave of people would come forward, writes Martin Schoo, a Crikey reader in London.
Morning Market Report: Local and US markets continue to rally
The Dow Jones closed up 430 overnight. It dropped 400 points but then rallied 640 points in just over two hours.
Daily Proposition: See a dog of an Aussie drama
Red Dog taps into the spirit of old school Australiana with infinitely more grasp of the national ethos than anything slapped together by Baz Luhrmann.
Media briefs: Frankie for blokes … Murdoch’s mafia … defending MasterChef split …
Frankie for blokes? Hipsters’ wildly-successful magazine of choice is expanding, with Gold Coast-based publisher Morrison Media to launch a new male-skewed title. Plus other media news of the day.
The Media Monitors' Top 20: Malaysian deal boosts Chris Bowen’s press
Chris Bowen put his sternest no exceptions face on, as the complexities of the asylum seeker issue continue to mount up.
Political snippets: Confidence in Australian economy ebbs again
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment fell by 3.5% in August from 92.8 in July to 89.6 in August.
Video of the Day: London rioters steal from injured kid
A sad video from London, showing youths helping a young boy left injured and bloody by the riots. At least, it seems like they’re helping him, until they open his backpack …
Tips and rumours: Tips and rumours
Future Fund saved the market? The share market collapsed 5.5% yesterday before investors pounced on bargains. We hear the Future Fund was among them, launching a massive share buyback to help arrest the falls. Labor’s fortunes are sick. According to one very worried Labor figure: “If GFC Mark 2 happens, the only Labor person trusted […]
London riots: it’s a class war
Why are young people in London burning police cars and looting local shops? It’s a protest against a middle class Britain that has ignored its unemployed and angry brethren, explains Mary Riddell.
infographic 
We’re getting old: census over the century
In honour of census night, check out the ABC’s great interactive graphic showing Australia’s ageing population based on 100 years of census population data.
film reviews 
Red Dog: deserving of a pat on the back
Director Kriv Stender’s all ages ode to the power and personality of a great pooch in his new film Red Dog trots a fine line between sentiment and sop and consistently lands on the right side of the border, says Luke Buckmaster.
Cool heads needed to navigate crisis
The stockmarket isn’t the economy — but it can infect the real economy with panic if we allow it to, write Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer.
Census 2011: finding and counting 2.3% of the population
Thanks to $20 million from the government to address the undercount of indigenous people this time around, a significant amount of census resources have been allocated to ensure indigenous communities are counted accurately, reports Amber Jamieson and Crikey intern Sophie Malcolm.
Syria’s neighbours looking out for themselves
The Arab spring has become bloodier than we all hoped, but the autocrats are still losing ground. And Saudi Arabi’s intervention is deeply worrying.
‘Sticky carpet-clad’ Ted pledges Libs’ love of live music
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu draped himself in the iconic Melbourne music venue The Tote’s mythical sticky carpet to ram home his message that Liberals “love live music”.
Parkinson: why the carbon crash is good
Of all the equity and commodity prices that plunged last week in the global market carnage, the most dramatic falls came in the European and international carbon price, writes Giles Parkinson.
US Congress swapped a crisis yesterday for a bigger crisis tomorrow
No wonder markets have tanked worldwide and the US has lost its AAA credit rating, writes Adam Creighton, a research fellow at The Centre For Independent Studies.
Protests over Better Access cutbacks miss bigger concerns about fairness
We need to be looking at major structural changes to how we fund our health system, writes Dr Tim Woodruff, of the Doctors Reform Society.
Bank of America as the new Citigroup?
Bank of America is America’s biggest bank, but you wouldn’t have thought so after its stunning slide on Wall Street overnight.
Hugging with knives: the viciously cosy culture of reviewing
While not every hatchet job might attract a libel suit, it’s still lazy reviewing.
