Kevin Rudd could teach Giscard d'Estaing a thing or two. Read more here

What do we owe a Prime Minister? At the very least, to take what he says seriously. Mr Rudd, in his recently published essay on "The Global Financial Crisis" (The Monthly, February 2009), does not make that easy. His method consists of caricaturing his opponents, assaulting straw men, ignoring all contrary evidence, and then failing to explain his own philosophy with any clarity or detail. Nonetheless, the claims he makes, however unsatisfactory their expression, are important, all the more so as they represent his strongly-held views. They deserve to be treated as if the best case, rather than his case, had been made in their favour.... Click here to read the article.

Termination charges toward newer entrants are often set asymmetrically to exceed efficient costs for telephony traffic. Such practices are said to be beneficial to consumers as well as providing competition a “leg-up”. However claims of consumer benefit are dubious at best, while infant industry arguments are no more likely to apply to telecommunications than they apply anywhere else. Appropriate forms of termination regulation are then considered.