Wayne Swan:

David Lovejoy writes: Re. “A surplus of rhetoric as the government chases battlers” (yesterday, item 1). Politically unaligned economists say that insisting on a budget surplus as Wayne Swan has done will lead to stagnation, hardship and further social inequality.

But I think this cynical exercise in appeasing the Australian mouthpieces of the IMF and World Bank is also designed to be an ornament on the CV of Swan himself, who will be out of a job next year and looking for a cushy corporate career.

Arrrrr, pirates:

David Hardie writes:  Re. “Copyright cartel: want to cut filesharing by 40%? Here’s how” (yesterday, item 9). They are not “pirates”. To use the language of the right, they are “individual consumers attaching what they see as an appropriate value to their media consumption”.