Alan Kohler

The online takeovers keep coming, with founders seemingly deciding they need to get big or get out.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has unveiled his own plan to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions by 5% by 2020.

The real reason why Malcolm Turnbull is in so much trouble is that he agreed to a bad emissions trading deal which pleased nobody, except the Rudd Government who used the legislation to drive their opponents into the dust.

How does your site rate with product related search results?

A survey by Boston Consulting Group has revealed a surprising number of consumers would be willing to pay for online media content, but before the Rupert Murdochs of the world get too excited, that's about where the good news stops. 

Australian power players, including banks and analysts, are now ringing the alarm bells over what would happen if the carbon trading legislation was passed in its present form – and it's truly scary stuff. 

First Digital Media launches today, forming a single sales network for four of Australia's leading business news and commentary websites - SmartCompany, Business Spectator, Eureka Report and Crikey.

Do the new forecast downturns mean it’s getting worse or are they signs of earlier than expected market corrections?

The new members of this year’s Rich list come from a diverse range of industries.

Nicholas Bolton, who attempted to wind up BrisConnections only to do a deal to vote against his own resolution, has hit back at claims he sold out fellow investors.

Forecaster and IBISWorld chief Phil Ruthven has admitted Australia can no longer avoid a recession, but says it will be very minor and shallow.

Sadly I hear of many stories of people being ripped off and taken advantage of.

Despite the White House denials, the nationalisation of a big chunk of US and European banks is being considered as so many global banks are insolvent because of the losses they are concealing. Australian banks shudder at the repercussions that might have for our local banking industry and our major corporate borrowers.

The Obama Presidency, with its wonderful rhetoric, gave world markets an expectation that we could minimise the fallout from the global financial crisis. The markets knew that there were vast sums on the sidelines waiting to snap up the toxic bank assets and begin the recapitalisation process. In other words; this was a problem that could be solved. The sharemarket believed – or more accurately hoped – that Obama was the man to do it.

I started last week’s blog with “we had a bad week”, and unfortunately I could use that same intro this week. We saw nearly 4000 jobs disappear in just two companies on Thursday.

Here’s a shock: Despite a slowing economy, spreading job losses and news that retail prices are about to go through the roof, consumers are actually a little happier.

The desperate global fight to keep the economy from slipping into recession continued overnight, with the US central bank cutting official interest rates there by 0.5% to just 1% and China’s central bank cutting commercial loan rates by 0.27% to 6.66%.

It's not the easiest time to be an investor but it is a time that great fortunes can be made by those skilful enough to capitalise on the massive discounts and price anomalies now appearing across the investment market.

By itself, the fact that General Motors and Ford are in deep trouble should not have caused last night's late session Wall Street falls.

This morning the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index has slumped a massive 4.2% in early trade, dropping 194.9 points to 4423.8 points at 11:45am AEST, after posting a 78.3 points gain on Tuesday following the interest rate rise.