“Australia’s wheat farmers stand
to lose about $800 million a year in export deals after Iraq yesterday
suspended its relationship with the disgraced monopoly wheat exporter,
AWB,” reports The Oz.
“The decision immediately cost Australian farmers about $230 million,
cutting AWB out of Iraq’s latest tender to supply a million tonnes of
wheat, which will instead go to US farmers.”

Interest rates are going nowhere. As we report in our review of yesterday’s monetary report statement, there is good news and bad news:
the RBA cut their inflation forecast, wages are to squeeze profits and
household debt burden is at an all time high, making interest rate hikes
a dangerous weapon.

Also there’s a lovely photo of the Big Mac in The Oz,
talking up the share boom (replaced by spooky Aviva ad in the virtual
edition.) Peter Costello has been warning anyone who will listen that
Australia cannot afford tax cuts – certainly not the big ones that
would go with real tax reform – as the resource boom goes on. He’s
surely right about this, but then there is the time when the resource
boom goes into reverse. And the strategy could be announced in this
year’s budget.

Read on at Henry Thornton…