EDITORS' PICKS

Trade war sabre-rattling
Alan Kohler
Economists are at loggerheads over what a looming US-China trade war would do to the global economy and to what many see as 'China-dependent' Australia.

Telstra's future looks hard wired
Alan Kohler
Beyond all the posturing over an NBN-Telstra deal, Telstra's universal service obligation would seem to make the future more certain than either side has yet publicly stated.

A fight is brewing over contracting
Robert Gottliebsen
Major Australian industries are under attack as the government considers an assault on contracting. But if it chooses to proceed, the federal opposition is ready to weigh in.

Titans of the Chinalco affair
Robert Gottliebsen
The only way to understand what really happened in the Rio Tinto, Chinalco, BHP saga is to understand the extraordinary roles played by the companies' chairmen.

Telstra's ticking clock
Stephen Bartholomeusz
The longer Telstra takes in its efforts to be fairly compensated for its cooperation in building the NBN, the more the value of this cooperation is being eroded.

Throwing the book at Myer
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Calls for an examination of bookbuilds in the wake of the Myer float aren't unfounded, but there's much more to the ill-fated IPO than meets the eye.

Is 'Japanese disease' spreading?
Karen Maley
The massive debt burden that weighs so heavily on Japan's economy should ring alarm bells in the US and Europe, where the same problem looks to be emerging.

Beware the deflation quicksand
Karen Maley
Societe Generale strategist Albert Edwards has plumbed new depths of gloom, forecasting a debt-deflation spiral in the US that will ultimately catapult the world into years of rampant inflation.

The China risk is wildly overstated
Adam Carr
Whether or not China's growth falls off a cliff, the impact this might have on Australia's economy has been hugely exaggerated.