EDITOR'S PICKS

This week Robert Gottliebsen debated carbon politics with the readers and Climate Spectator's Tristan Edis, Maley differed on America's prospects with Byron Wien, and Budde and the KGB caught the attention of NBN Co's Mike Quigley.

Who's really failing Australia?
Rob Burgess
Come the federal election, voters will reward whichever party speaks the lines they want to hear – but these are just as likely to be myth as truth.

Business is marginal, economics is gross
Alan Kohler
There's a gaping divide between the outlook of Australia's economists and business people and while businesses watch their marginal sales collapse, government economists have their heads in the clouds.

Who wants a poor man's NBN?
Robert Gottliebsen
The horror expressed by many who missed out on the first NBN rollout stage shows how important the network is, and how much selling the Opposition has to do.

America's misplaced market frenzy
Karen Maley
As the US sharemarket soars to giddy heights, a closer look shows gains are based on pricing out a European disaster, rather than sustainable growth.

No surprise in a Wall Street surge
Byron Wien
With equities on the rise investors are still finding reasons to be sceptical, including the US election, oil prices, Iran and rising bond yields – yet on closer inspection these fears aren't entirely borne out.

The carbon revolt
Robert Gottliebsen
In the face of huge power price rises, resistance to Australia's carbon tax is growing – and triggering unprecedented scientific scepticism.

CLIMATE SPECTATOR: Gottliebsen's misinformed carbon revolt
Tristan Edis
Highly influential business people are trying to dismiss human-induced global warming as a theory. Unfortunately, their judgement is clouded by a fear of the Greens.

A $7 billion NBN warning
Paul Budde
The real economic benefits of high-speed broadband will only come when it's ubiquitous, so any move by the Coalition to stop the NBN in its tracks could mean a repeat of the HFC debacle that saw billions in wasted private-sector investment.

TECHNOLOGY SPECTATOR: Digital education revelations
Nate Cochrane
Forget the NBN, the IT systems and policies in many of our TAFEs are mismatched with what is already possible through new technology, and students are missing out.

Swan's slow-motion crash
Rob Burgess
With one in ten firms predicting 'much lower' levels of full-time staff, Labor's surplus obsession looks set to trigger unjustifiable economic pain.

Boxed in to Metcash misery
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Metcash's response to a difficult environment was unavoidable, but between claims independent supermarkets are holding share and Coles and Woolworths are gaining, something doesn't add up.

KGB: Mike Quigley
Kohler, Gottliebsen & Bartholomeusz
NBN Co's chief executive says much of the initial network infrastructure build would still be required under a scaled-back fibre-to-the-node plan, and the value of the NBN goes well beyond speed.