Author Archives: Louise Bedford

The Best Way To Help The Poor Is Not To Be One Of Them

UNITED NATIONS — Without too much fanfare, the United Nations admits in its newest report on the progress of the so-called Millennium Development Goals that wealth creation and not wealth redistribution is the main driver behind reduced levels of extreme poverty around the world. Of course, the UN, being an organization that spends most of…

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Finally something interesting and worthwhile happens in a country whose name ends in stan.

Here We Go Again….

We have yet another country going down the gurgler – this time its Italy. And I’m surprised that everyone else is surprised since if you have ever been to Italy you will know that it is not the most well run place. In fact you get the distinct impression that running a hot bath would…

Why We Screw Up?

Psychologist: Why we screw up when the heat is on Psychologist Sian Beilock has investigated what happens in the brain when our performance crumbles under pressure. She talked to Tiffany O’Callaghan about what it takes to stay on form under stress, and why being smarter can be more hindrance than help What made you want to research…

Certainty

The need for certainty is innately human. Unfortunately, markets cannot provide this certainty so we attempt to craft it by imposing a set of predicted outcomes upon a market that cares little for our predictions. As our predictions are proved incorrect, we adjust them to suit the market thereby never having to admit that we…

Stereotypes

Whilst I accept that BMI is a partially flawed measure these are interesting statistics. These findings regarding children and adolescents are more worrying since they point to an intergenerational problem.

Its Friday

Superannuation

I was recently reading the Cooper report on superannuation in Australia and several things jumped out at me from this report. Several are quite telling in what they reflect about peoples capacity to make long term informed decisions and several about the investment industry itself. According to the Cooper Review the average superannuation balance in…

A Quiz?

And the question of the day is. What’s the one thing we will probably never build in Australia in my lifetime? If you answered a high speed rail network you win the internet. However, the good thing is that Australian Governments don’t have a monopoly on short sighted cretinism. The same debate is occurring in…