British policy is to change the electricity industry so it emits very little carbon. Then transport needs to be changed to use electricity. Richard Lester reviews the options and the challenges.
Guests: Richard Green, Professor of Sustainable Energy Business, Business School, Imperial College London UK
Further Information Richard Green at Imperial College London (http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/r.green)
Rear Vision dives into the murky waters of superannuation to see just how Australia came up with its unusual system of retirement funding.
A means-tested age pension became available in Australia to all women aged sixty and men aged sixty five in 1910. It was - and is - paid out of general revenue. Superannuation – a retirement savings scheme in which our employer contributes a certain percentage of our wages into a fund – didn’t become widely available in Australia until it was introduced by the Keating government in the early 1990s. Rear Vision looks at how Australia came up with its unusual system of funding retirement through a mix of superannuation and the age pension.
Guests:
Professor Susan Thorp, Chair of Finance and Superannuation, University of Technology, Sydney
Peter Martin, Economics correspondent for Fairfax Media
Professor Francis Castles, Emeritus Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University
Further Information:
ASIC Money Smart (https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/superannuation-and-retirement)
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/superannuation-in-australia/4626038
Robot traders are dominating stock markets using high speed computer algorithms. Human traders and government regulators canât keep up, and markets could be one programming glitch away from the next big crash. Stan Correy investigates.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-09-09/4242538
If you’re looking for a good gripping and compelling read you probably don’t head to the business section of the bookshop for a hefty corporate history. Yet often the stories behind companies—and the research that goes into them—tell us fascinating tales of intrigue, politics and history, and much about our economic and social world.
Guests:
Trevor Sykes, Author of ‘Six Months of Panic’ Allen and Unwin, 2010
Gideon Haigh, Author, "Asbestos house: the secret history of James Hardie Industries"
Professor Geoffrey Blainey
Publications:
Title: The Concept of the Corporation
Author: Peter F. Drucker
Publisher: Mentor Executive Library Books , New York 1946
Title: Asbestos House
Author: Gideon Haigh
Publisher: 2006
Title: This is the ABC
Author: Ken Inglis
Publisher: Melbourne University Press, 1983
Title: The Rush That Never Ended
Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Publisher: Melbourne University Press, 1963
Title: One of a kind: the story of Bankers Trust Australia 1969-1999
Author: Gideon Haigh
Publisher: 1999
Title: A Company of Heralds
Author: Gavin Souter
Publisher: Melbourne University Press, 1981
Title: Jumping over the Wheel
Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Publisher: Allen and Unwin, Sydney 1993
Title: The Reckoning
Author: David Halberstam
Publisher: William Morrow, 1986
Title: The Golden Mile
Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Publisher: Allen and Unwin, Sydney 1993
Title: The Deutsche Bank
Author: Lothar Gall
Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1995
Title: Six Months of Panic
Author: Trevor Sykes
Publisher: Allen and Unwin, 2010
Title: Mines in the Spinifex
Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Publisher: Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1960
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/corporate-tales/3764372
Where does the buck stop when big banks and corporations, even nations collapse. Who signs off on the books? The auditors or the directors of the board? And who should tell investors when there’s something shifty going on? Who are the auditors answerable to? Reporter, Stan Correy.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3291026.htm
http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2010/the-hidden-history-of-the-financial-crisis RSA Thursday As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on greedy traders, misguided regulators, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers?
Bethany McLean, co-author of the The Smartest Guys in the Room, visits the RSA to tell the hidden history of the financial crisis, exploring the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders.
Her new book All the Devils Are Here exposes the hidden role of companies including AIG, Goldman Sachs, and Fannie Mae, delves into the powerful mythology of homeownership, and proves that the crisis ultimately wasn’t about finance at all; it was about human nature.
Speaker: Bethany McLean, columnist for Slate and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of The Smartest Guys in the Room (with Peter Elkind) and All the Devils Are Here (with Joe Nocera, Penguin Portfolio 2010)
Chair: Paul Mason, economics editor of the BBC’s flagship current affairs program Newsnight