Stay grounded. House prices haven't hit the floor

So you think the slump in real estate is over? You are in good company. On Tuesday the research chief at Australian Property Monitors declared house prices might have "finally reached their floor". A day later real estate agent Ivan Bresic said the market looked "set to come back strongly in 2005". They must be talking to the agents I've...

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Lessons must be learnt if we are to keep teachers

I grew up in a family of teachers. Around the kitchen table the shop talk used to be about the unending teacher shortage. Many of my own teachers had been flown in from Canada, Britain and the US in a bid to plug the gaps. Others were retirees, barely able to cope, drafted back part-time. My dad had been a lathe operator, drafted without...

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Dismal failure to count the true cost

The tsunami can only be seen in a positive light by ignoring human values, writes Peter Martin.It didn't take long after perhaps the greatest natural disaster of modern times for an economist to say what would otherwise be unthinkable.Fred Bergsten runs the Institute for International Economics in Washington. He is a former assistant secretary...

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