BIZ QUIZ

Change your status to What kind of biz-nerd are you? and re-cap TwentyTen with BusinessDays Ian McIlwraith

imcilwraith@theage.com.au

1 Greek-style refers to:

a) A type of yoghurt

b) A type of wrestling

c) The way Yanni dresses

d) Bailouts of battered euro economies

2 QE2 became prominent late in the year because:

a) She is Kate Middletons nanna-in-law

b) The retired ocean liner has been parked in Dubai for over a year

c) It was the US governments latest attempt to revive its economy

3 During the resource rent tax debate, Clive Palmer helped the mining industry by:

a) Speaking out

b) Stopping speaking out

c) Letting it all hang out

d) Providing cover for BHP, Rio and Xstrata to organise their own deal

4 During the resource rent tax debate, Clive Palmer helped the government by:

a) Speaking out

b) Making union boss Paul Howe appear to be the neatest, most correct entry in the kerfuffle

c) Showing less understanding of how it worked than either the Treasurer or Prime Minister

5 Retailer Clive Peeters went out of business because:

a) A massive $20 million embezzlement weakened the companys competitive position

b) People confused it with Clive Palmer

c) It diversified into property

6 Oil exploration and production company BPs name stands for:

a) Better people, better products, big picture, beyond petroleum

b) British Pollution (if you live around the Gulf of Mexico)

c) Barry Palmer, Clives cousin

d) British Petroleum

7 Ken Henrys "Future Tax review was so-called because:

a) It was designed to restructure the tax system for the next century

b) It mainly recommends that we all be taxed more in future

c) The rest of Australia was already Moving Forward, so tax had to catch up

d) With more than 130 of its recommendations left on the shelf, maybe something will happen in future

8 BHP Billiton made a failed $US40 billion bid to takeover Potash Corp. Potash is:

a) What you get on the outside of the saucepan when your soup boils over

b) The residue from smoking cannabis

c) An essential ingredient for fertiliser

9 Carbon trading is being introduced because:

a) Government wants to bring business to its knees

b) Polluters ought to bear some of the social cost of their actions

c) Someone told politicians that 20% of every human being is carbon, and therefore taxable

10 The federal election (eventually) produced a minority government. What does the

term mean?

a) Every one in it is under 18

b) None of those in it are white, Anglo-Saxon males

c) It only retains power by agreeing to do things it really did not want to, so it can get votes from no-longer independents

11 Banks have taken to increasing their home loan rates beyond the rises that are

deemed prudent by the Reserve Bank.

This is because:

a) They can

b) If everyone could afford a house, that would devalue the holiday homes of bank CEOs

c) Really? They need to borrow because they dont earn enough to buy a new house outright? Not even twice a year? is a standard exclamation in bank

executive meetings

d) Banks are trying to recoup the cost of borrowing the money that they lend

12 In recent months the Australian dollar has hit parity with the US dollar for the

first time since it became a freely traded currency. Does parity mean:

a) Someone who is always quoting a particularly popular Monty Python sketch?

b) That imported goods are cheaper

c) That the income from exports is less

d) That it is time to book an overseas holiday

13 The Irish governments ?90 billion ($A125 billion) bailout of its banks and

economy means that:

a) Each person living there will

be paying the equivalent of a pint and a half of Guinness a day to

repay the debt b) It will probably get its own entry in the Guinness Book of Records

c) The Irish miracle will be if the government can pull off the rescue without massive social pain

d) Irish eyes are definitely not smiling

14 Mid-year, there was a flash crash when the Dow Jones Index dived 600 points. It was called that because:

a) It all started when a broker exposed himself on the trading floor

b) Millions of microscopic, share-trading nanobots short-circuited

c) Someone said What does this button do? and then pressed it

d) So much trading is controlled by computers that when they glitch, they glitch big time

15 Leighton chief Wal Kings last annual meeting hurrah after 23 years running the company was celebrated with:

a) A 38-page glossy brochure showing his career there since 1969

b) A monster cake with replica earth-moving equipment

c) A five-minute tribute video

d) All of the above

16The battle between NAB and AMP for AXA AP, and pretty much decided by the ACCC:

a) Was both the most acrimonious and acronymic of the year

b) Will result in two one-time rivals, AMP and AXA, merging

c) Will see AXAs French parent get what it always wanted the potentially massive China operation

17 Rumourtrage is:

a) The 2007 Melbourne Cup winner

b) A yacht in the Sydney-to-Hobart race

c) A hot new fashion label for stockbrokers

d) The practice of spreading false sharemarket rumours to manipulate prices for

profit

18 Fosters Group plans to split itself in two because:

a) Its directors are drunk, with power

b) Its chairman is an insolvency practitioner who spent his working life mostly breaking companies up

c) Fund managers know how to run companies better than management

d) It overpaid on its wine business, and basically everything is now for sale

19When you hear the phrase QR National, the first thing that springs to mind is:

a) It must be time for a nap

b) A giant train set in Queensland in which you can trade shares

c) Queens Park Rangers are getting a makeover

d) Something to do with the Quasi-Relativistic Mulliken- Wolfsberg-Helmholz Method

20 Qantass safety record is:

a) Impeccable, and a good reason to choose them

b) Only shortening the odds that somewhere, sometime...

c) Being tarnished by its drive to reduce aircraft maintenance costs

d) Much better than responding to an exploded engine and falling debris with:The number two engine has shut down, so as a precautionary measure we are

taking it back to Singapore.

21 Mark McInnes lost his job at David Jones mid-year because:

a) He was out of touch with customers and staff

b) He may have been in touch with customers, but he was way too in touch with some staff

c) Sorry seems to be the hardest word

22 Structural separation in the context of Telstra is:

a) Another way of saying that the wheels have come off

b) A plan to split its phone flogging retail business from the architecture that delivers it

c) A way of getting some value back into what was sold as a great investment when the government floated it, but has just turned out to be a de facto tax for all those silly enough to buy the shares

23 In the post-financial crisis world, Canada has a lot in common with Australia

because:

a) It now owns most of our agricultural output

b) It doesnt like foreigners buying its resources companies either

c) It also has a minority government that makes decisions based on retaining power rather than commercial credibility

24 2010 has really seen the class action come into its own but what is one?

Is it:

a) Warnies bowling style

b) When you're a 5, and dating a 9

c) A lawsuit by one person, on behalf of several who all have the same grievances

25 After years of supporting the idea of Australia

becoming a regional financial hub, the ASX has decided that being taken over by the Singapore stock exchange is a good idea because:

a) Somehow this will give Australian companies more access to capital markets that they could already access

b) Stockbrokers are sitting on massive profits from shares that they were effectively gifted when the ASX listed

c) It might make Sydney property cheaper if investment bankers sell up and move o

26 After years of inaction, Australian companies are finally trying to get more

women in as directors. This is because:

a) Theres a better chance of getting a fresh cup of tea more quickly

b) Its somewhat bizarre that the upper echelons of corporate Australia dont go anywhere near reflecting the 50/50 gender split in the population

c) Women tend to live longer than blokes, so theres

more chance theyll be around to get the lawsuits later 27A currency war is when:

a) Someone belts you over the head with a roll of 50? pieces.

b) The British no longer have enough money to buy opium

c) Desperate countries manipulate the value of their dollars, dongs and zlotys by either printing more or pegging the value to someone elses dollar, dong or zloty

28 Channel 10 is now the plaything of seriously rich shareholders Jamie Packer,

Gina Rinehart, Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon because:

a) They all like sport, but not that ridiculous truck pulling, fridge lifting Worlds Strongest Man show

b) Executed executive chairman Nick Falloon allowed scenes to be cut from episodes of The Simpsons

c) Everybody needs good neighbours

d) Australias takeover laws allow coincidental purchases of stock by non-associated persons, which means small shareholders better cross their fingers and hope it works because they are not going to get an offer for their stock like the institutions that ratted out the old board did

29 The national broadband network is costing so much money because:

a) The government has no idea how much it should cost

b) Australians are used to paying telecommunications providers ridiculous premiums for services that dont actually cost that much to provide

c) Someone should have thought about starting to dig the trenches in the north of Western Australia because you were bound to discover something that could be sold to China, and pay for the rest of the rollout

d) Like it or not, people living outside capital cities are Australians, and the government has a responsibility to look after them, too

30 The bid by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation to buy the rest of British broadcaster BSkyB has been opposed by:

a) The Pope

b) The Bishop of Manchester

c) Osama bin Laden

d) Pinky and Perky

ANSWERS: 1 (d), 2 (c), 3 (b & d), 4 (a, b, c), 5 (a), 6 (a or d), 7 (a), 8 (c, pay a at a stretch because the word literally comes from pot ashes), 9 (b) ,10 (c), 11 (a & d), 12 (everything but a), 13 (a, b, c, d), 14 (d) 15 (d), 16 (c), 17 (d), 18 (d), 19 (b), 20 (d), 21 (b), 22 (b), 23 (Pay all), 24 (c), 25 (a), 26 (b), 27 (c), 28 (d), 29 (d), 30 (b).