The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

 

 

The Opposition says it is considering not putting out an alternative budget update, after Treasurer Wayne Swan announced $11.5 billion in savings to get the budget back to surplus in 2012-13.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says the Government steals its policies and the Coalition is tired of doing the "heavy lifting".

He says the Government's decision to make cuts to the public service to help make savings is stolen from the Opposition's policy play book.

'Well it's no surprise and we welcome the Government copying us. I wish they'd copy us on everything and then maybe the country would be in better shape," he said.

from Crikey .....

Hey, panic merchants: asylum seekers are already living next door

Caz Coleman, a member of the Council for Immigration Services and Status Resolution, writes:

ASYLUM SEEKERS, BRIDGING VISAS, DETENTION CENTRES

Julia Gillard has appealed to a handful of right-wing MPs for their support to avoid a humiliating defeat on the floor of this week's ALP national conference over same-sex marriage.

Having staked her leadership on keeping an election promise not to change the laws surrounding traditional marriage, the Prime Minister was forced yesterday to lobby individual ALP delegates as the Right faced defeat on the issue by as many as 10 votes.

Only nine of the 62 apartments sold in One Hyde Park - the world's most expensive residential block - have been registered for council tax.

The ownership of the Knightsbridge apartments, which range in price from £3.6m for a one-bedroom flat to £136m for a penthouse, is now under investigation by Westminster city council, which is determined to pursue the monies owed by the secretive owners of the apartments.

Someone in the Labor Party remarked yesterday that the former prime minister Kevin Rudd assumes that everyone has the memory of a goldfish".

The MP, like many others, was a touch staggered at Rudd's call over the weekend for the ALP to embrace greater internal democracy or perish.

He has been railing against factional thuggery and calling for the empowerment of the great unwashed on and off since he was deposed in June last year.

But with the three-day ALP national conference beginning on Friday, and the party reforms recommended in the post-election review conducted by John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks to be hotly debated, Rudd has joined in.

Mr Cain and Mrs Bachmann expressly endorsed the controversial interrogation technique – in which subjects are repeatedly made to feel they are drowning – with Mr Cain denying it was torture.

Without naming waterboarding, Governor Rick Perry said that any techniques that might "save young American lives" would be approved if he were in the White House.

Waterboarding was expressly condemned by Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. Mr Paul, a libertarian Texas congressman, described it as "illegal", "immoral" and "un-American".

The 0.1% only use small bills to light up their cigars... any more would be a waste of money...
We Are the 99.9%

The Liberal Party is waking up to the realisation that their leader's insistent oppositionism is not helping the cause.

 

We got a small glimpse of what makes Kyle Sandilands tick when he was interviewed on ABC TV's Enough Rope four years ago.

 

It's been a tough year for the captains of industry. The galloping salary increases of pre-GFC days have slowed to a canter, The Australian Financial Review reported. But it's hard to feel sorry for, say, Westfield's Frank Lowy on a package of $16 million.