Tim Treadgold

"Oh please, hit me again!" That's what management at the ANZ Bank ought to be saying after a conservation movement attack yesterday backfired to the tune of a $908 million profit for the bank's owners.

If Pankaj and Radhika Oswal have set out to deliberately infuriate most Australians then they are doing a damned fine job, though it seems more likely that what we're watching is a carefully planned public relations campaign.

As the Middle East collapses into its latest bout of instability there are lessons to be learned by investors and managers. Investors should be buying gold and energy stocks, managers should be reviewing business succession plans.

Complaining about the $35.9 billion National Broadband Network has become a pointless exercise. The real question, now that it is being built, is how will we pay for it, and the nasty answer is a compulsory levy.

Hang on to your hat and watch your savings because if last night's sharp rise in the price of gold is an accurate guide, a long-predicted wall of inflation is about to break over the world.

Officially, if you use the New York Stock Exchange as your measuring stick, the global financial crisis ended last night.

Tragic as the Queensland floods have been, the real lesson we are about to learn with the proposed flood tax is that government, and its inability to curb spending, not the weather, is the greatest threat to the future.

The price of antimony has doubled, an event which might cause some people to yawn, if not for the fact that it is a perfect pointer to a new way to make money.

Tired of fertiliser jokes? Then relief is in sight because soon we will see through the ammonia cloud hanging around Burrup Fertilisers and get to the critical issue - where's the money.