EDITORS' PICKS
A clear road to carbon pricing
Alan Kohler
Households and businesses should brace for higher electricity prices, starting next year. With Marius Kloppers kicking the carbon-pricing issue along, the political road to a new abatement scheme has been cleared.
Seeing through cloud computing
Alan Kohler
Cloud computing is undoubtedly an idea whose time has come, but without some sort of global regulation users may find their data locked up by the industry's early movers.
South Africa's murky mining politics
Robert Gottliebsen
The son of South Africa's president is defending his role in a controversial mining deal, the type of which many fear could be a sign of things to come. Interestingly, the situation links back to Australia.
China's game-changing strategy
Robert Gottliebsen
Having already changed the game for currency markets and gold prices, China's new strategy will transform global trade and share markets, and alter the relationships between the US, Europe and Japan.
Giving up on Telstra
Stephen Bartholomeusz
It is difficult to imagine a more destructive mix of external and internal challenges, and such a broad and substantial range of uncertainties, than those that Telstra is currently battling.
Interest rate bombshell
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Former Reserve Bank economist Paul Bloxham, intimately familiar with the central bank's thinking, has put a figure to Glenn Stevens' veiled rate rise warnings – 125 basis points by the end of next year.
Casualties of the zombie banks
Karen Maley
America's 'rescued' banks continue to lurch their way through America's financial system wreaking damage. But the greatest casualty of these undead banks will be the US economy.
Beijing will burst its own bubble
Karen Maley
While investors continue to back the China story, high-profile bear Jim Chanos says nothing has changed in the nation's construction and housing bubble – except that it's closer to bursting.
Abbott's monumental tax gamble
Rob Burgess
Tony Abbott is preparing for a 'just say no' term of parliament, but the growing business support for both a carbon and a mining tax will see Labor's tax-reform become steamroller that's extremely difficult to turn back.
China-Japan tensions will rise
John Lee
Hostilities between Beijing and Tokyo are destined to escalate beyond Japan's extended detention of a Chinese fisherman, as China's growing regional influence meets Japan's staunch resistance.
Rise of the white-collar zombie
Steve Keen
While sacked white-collar workers in the US can't turn to manufacturing like the bust of 1929, turning the finance industry into a sector of the walking undead risks everyone.
The fracturing of Australian politics
Oliver Marc Hartwich
The 2010 election should serve as a warning to the major parties – they should not count on compulsory, preferential voting to save them from fringe-party challenges.