Two million Aussies in poverty, report finds

August 30, 2007 01:29am
From: www.news.com.au

* Almost one in 10 Aussies below poverty line
* Only Ireland spends less on education
* Retirees hit hardest by living cost rise

EVEN though the economy is booming, almost two million Australians, or 10 per cent, are living in poverty, a report has found.

The Australia Fair campaign, which was established by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), today released a report comparing Australia to the rest of the developed world in 10 key areas.

The areas are community, education, environment, health, housing, reconciliation, rights, services, welfare and work.

Related story More jobs must mean less poverty, says PM »
Related story Fewer in poverty than when we started, says Brough »
Related story Families suffer as costs outstrip inflation »

The report came as new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that costs for working families and pensioners were rising faster than inflation.

The figures showed wage-earning households pay 18 per cent more for the same goods and services as they did five years ago.

Pensioners are paying 15.8 per cent more, according to the Bureau.

Australia's home ownership rate was 70 per cent but housing affordability was worse than any other developed English-speaking country, the report found.

Using an international measure that defines the poverty line as 50 per cent of median income, the Australia Fair campaign found the number of Australians living in poverty rose from 7.6 per cent to 9.9 per cent of the population between 1994 and 2004.

Poverty levels were even higher when calculated with the line used in the UK and Ireland.

One in five by UK measures

Under this measure - 60 per cent of median income - the poverty rate in Australia was found to be 19.8 per cent in 2004.

Using the more complex UN Human Poverty Index, Australia ranked 14th in the developed world, behind countries such as Japan and Canada, but ahead of the UK, US and Ireland.

ACOSS president Lin Hatfield Dobbs said governments needed to do more to ensure the benefits of economic prosperity were shared throughout the Australian community.

“There are too many areas where Australia is falling behind other OECD nations,” she said.

“Governments need to ensure the benefits of the economic prosperity are shared with all Australians.”

Education spending among lowest

The report also found Australian spent less on education as a proportion of GDP than all other developed English-speaking countries except Ireland.

Australia had the sixth highest rate of expenditure in health in the developed world but 40 per cent of Australians were unable to access dental care when they needed, the report said.

Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look at News on the Internet

From: www.ksg.harvard.edu
A report from the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy,
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Prepared by Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University


Executive Summary

This report examines trends in Internet-based news traffic for the purpose of peering into the future of news in America. In light of the continuing migration of Americans to online news, the evolving nature of Web technology, and the limits of our survey of websites, our assessments are necessarily speculative. Nevertheless, our examination of traffic to 160 news-based websites over a yearlong period revealed noteworthy patterns. The websites of national “brand-name” newspapers are growing, whereas those of many local papers are not. The sites of national “brand-name” television networks are also experiencing increased traffic, as are those of local television and radio stations. However, sites connected to traditional news organizations are growing more slowly than those of the major nontraditional news disseminators, including aggregators, bloggers, and search engines and service providers. Our evidence suggests that the Internet is redistributing the news audience in a way that is pressuring some traditional news organizations. Product substitution through the Web is particularly threatening to the print media, whose initial advantage as a “first mover” has all but disappeared. The Internet is also a larger threat to local news organizations than to those that are nationally known. Because the Web reduces the influence of geography on people’s choice of a news source, it inherently favors “brand names”—those relatively few news organizations that readily come to mind to Americans everywhere when they go to the Internet for news.

Although the sites of nontraditional news organizations are a threat to traditional news organizations, the latter have strengths they can leverage on the Web. Local news organizations are “brand names” within their communities, which can be used to their advantage. Their offline reach can also be used to drive traffic to their sites. Most important, they have a product—the news—that people want. Ironically, some news organizations do not feature the day’s news prominently on their websites, forgoing their natural advantage.



Contents
Introduction 5
Methodology 5
News Traffic on the Internet 6
Daily Newspapers 7
Television News Organizations 8
Radio News Organizations 9
Nontraditional News Outlets 11
Peering into the Future, Dimly 13
Endnotes 16
Appendix 18


PDF - 20 pages USA... more

Seriously Cool

Seriously Cool
Marketing and communicating with diverse generations
from mccrindle research

... The 21st Century consumer has more products of higher quality across more categories than any consumer in history. In spite of this – or probably because of it, they seek redefined community, regained power, and rediscovered meaning ...


Contents
A. Laying the groundwork – an introduction 4
B. Surveying the social terrain 5
C. Defining the generations 7
D. Marketing in the 21st Century 10
E. Generational segmentation 12
F. Generational marketing 18
G. What we buy and why 22
H. The top five drivers of 21st Century consumers 25
I. Communication styles – bridging the generation gaps 29
J. Engaging with the ever-changing consumer 33
K. Marketing messages – what works best today 37
L. A final word 41
M. Endnotes 42
N. About the authors 44
O About this publication 45
P. More resources 45
Q. Notes 46


more ... >>>

Buy equals ... ?

Image from a presentation on www.iasummit.org

You can view the whole thing here, though this slide says it all.

New Online Tool Unmasks Wikipedia Edits

From www.smh.com.au
August 16, 2007 - 6:20AM

What edits on Wikipedia have been made by people in congressional offices, the CIA and the Church of Scientology? A new online tool called WikiScanner reveals answers to such questions.

As the Web encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wikipedia encourages participants to adopt online user names, but it also lets contributors be identified simply by their computers' numeric Internet addresses.

Often that does not provide much of a cloak, such as when PCs in congressional offices were discovered to have been involved in Wikipedia entries trashing political rivals.

...

Those episodes inspired Virgil Griffith, a computer scientist about to enter grad school at CalTech, to automate the process with WikiScanner. (It's at http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr but intense attention has knocked it out of service many times this week.)

...

Griffith wrote on his site that he hopes "to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike."

Whatever comes of it, WikiScanner has a fan in Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. "It is fabulous and I strongly support it," Wales told the AP. ... more >>>

© 2006 AP DIGITAL

ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability

About ICLEI
From www.iclei.org

ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability is an international association of local governments and national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development. More than 630 cities, towns, counties, and their associations worldwide comprise ICLEI's growing membership. ICLEI works with these and hundreds of other local governments through international performance-based, results-oriented campaigns and programs.

We provide technical consulting, training, and information services to build capacity, share knowledge, and support local government in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level. Our basic premise is that locally designed initiatives can provide an effective and cost-efficient way to achieve local, national, and global sustainability objectives.

ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. The council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York. ... more>>>

Public Spaces and Public Life Studies - Gehl

Public spaces – public life in the 21st century
Professor Jan Gehl

Wednesday 9 May 2007
To view the three pdfs will take about 10 minutes:
Public spaces - Public Life in the 21st Century Part i
Public spaces - Public Life in the 21st Century Part ii
Public spaces - Public Life in the 21st Century Part iii

Taken from: www.airah.org.au
Referred to on: www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au where you can also download the podcast

An in depth report from Gehl for the City of Adelaide, 2002
From: www.adelaidecitycouncil.com

The Public Spaces and Public Life studies have been the main area of work for GEHL Architects during the last 15 years. The surveys and recommendations included in the study reports serve as guidelines for politicians and planners to agree on future common goals. The studies consist of three parts, which provide substantial knowledge of how the city is used and how it can be improved.

» PDF Icon 2002 Public Spaces and Public Life : City of Adelaide (83 pages)[3Mb]

www.pps.org provide a profile on Gehl ... more >>>

In Dusty Archives, a Theory of Affluence

By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: August 7, 2007
from: www.nytimes.com

For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence.

Historians and economists have long struggled to understand how this transition occurred and why it took place only in some countries. A scholar who has spent the last 20 years scanning medieval English archives has now emerged with startling answers for both questions.

Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, believes that the Industrial Revolution — the surge in economic growth that occurred first in England around 1800 — occurred because of a change in the nature of the human population. The change was one in which people gradually developed the strange new behaviors required to make a modern economy work. The middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save emerged only recently in human history, Dr. Clark argues.

Because they grew more common in the centuries before 1800, whether by cultural transmission or evolutionary adaptation, the English population at last became productive enough to escape from poverty, followed quickly by other countries with the same long agrarian past ... more >>>

It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World

By LOUISE STORY
Published: August 6, 2007
From: www.nytimes.com/

It is only a matter of time until nearly all advertisements around the world are digital....

Greater production capacity is needed, Mr. Kenny says, to make enough clips to be able to move away from mass advertising to personalized ads. He estimates that in the United States, some companies are already running about 4,000 versions of an ad for a single brand, whereas 10 years ago they might have run three to five versions. And he predicts that the number of iterations will grow as technology improves ...

Digitas executives say that consumers end up with a better experience — even a service — if the ads they are shown are relevant and new.

“We now know how many times they’ve seen this ad, so stop annoying them,” said Mark Beeching, executive vice president and worldwide chief creative officer of Digitas. “The more you can standardize and automate in terms of making different versions, hallelujah. That money should be spent creating more content.”
...
Along with automation, low-cost workers abroad will help create more versions of ads. The Publicis Groupe’s new employees in China, gained through the CCG deal, are paid well by Chinese standards, said Neil Runcieman, former chief executive of CCG and now chief executive of Digitas Greater China ... more >>>

It came from the sea

From www.theage.com.au

A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.

"We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."

A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."

The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

Reuters

Scandals put paid to made-in-China multinationals?

By Joseph Chaney - Analysis

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tainted pet food, toxic toothpaste, unsafe tires and toys -- the list goes on.

Scandals involving Chinese products in recent months have caused the "made in China" label to mean defective, dangerous, and -- in the case of poisoned cough syrup in Panama -- deadly.

Fret not, experts say, brands such as PC maker Lenovo Group Ltd.(0992.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) or Brilliance China Automotive Holdings (1114.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) (CBA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) could still capture global market share and become multinationals like Japan's Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) or South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. (005380.KS: Quote, Profile, Research).

However, that process could take years.

For now, image problems will force savvy players to shape up for a global marketplace and weed out weaker firms, while the massive domestic markets of the world's fourth-largest economy cushion short-term pain.

"In terms of their own management and operating policies, they will be raised to a much more international standard," said Jonathan Chajet, Asia-Pacific strategy director for Interbrand.

"It's how much (they) play 'this is from China' in the branding. That's the part that will probably be set back a little bit." ... more >>

U.S. geographic indifference extends to shopping

from www.reuters.com

BOSTON (Reuters) - Even as some economic commentators fret about the rising trade deficit, U.S. college students remain big fans of U.S. products like LG mobile telephones, Adidas sneakers and Lego toys.

Or so they think.

South Korea's LG Electronics Inc., Germany's Adidas AG and Denmark's Lego are among more than a dozen well-known consumer brands that U.S. college students misidentified the nationality of, according to a survey released on Friday.


...


"People have come to accept that these products are manufactured all over the world," he said. "And then there's indifference and lack of geographic knowledge."


... more >>

Reuters Photo

Reuters Photo

GOD - the concept

http://www.goodsofdesire.com/

The Concept
With the rise of Asia as a significant economic force, the world will also show increasing interest in Asian lifestyle and culture. G.O.D. intends to capitalize on this phenomenon by providing an eastern derived lifestyle concept, as an alternative to the established Western way of living. By exploring age-old Oriental traditions and up dating them with modern consumers in mind, G.O.D. wants to demonstrate that the techniques and wisdom of past generations in the east still has a place in the future world.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Name
G.O.D. is the phonetic sound of the Cantonese slang "to live better", because to live better is a basic human desire in Hong Kong, Asia and the world.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Company Mission
To Define a New Asian Identity Asia's climate, diet, space and culture are different from the west, why shouldn't Asians live differently? The exciting challenge for today's Asian designers is to define a new identity for their community.

The Ethics of Economic Rationalism

Book has published lead ins on Google books (where the image is taken from); provides some basic definitions and terminology for economic and philosophical discussion.

The Ethics of Economic Rationalism
by John Wright - 2003 - 224 pages

Perhaps you can borrow it from your library.

Preschoolers prefer tucker dished up McDonald's style

Article appeared on theage.com.au
By Jill Stark
August 7, 2007 - 6:00AM

Junk-food advertising's influence on young children has been confirmed by research revealing vegetables taste better to preschoolers if served in McDonald's wrappers.

In a study prompting renewed calls for restrictions on fast-food marketing, four out of five children preferred hamburgers, chicken nuggets, fries, milk and even baby carrots served in McDonald's packaging, over identical food in plain wrappers.

Childhood obesity experts said the results of 300 individual tasting comparisons, with 63 children aged three to five, were alarming.

Seventy-seven per cent preferred fries served on a wrapper with the golden arches logo, compared with 13 per cent who liked them better in plain packaging.

Chicken nuggets in a bag branded with the logo were favoured by 59 per cent while more than half (54 per cent) thought baby carrots in a branded french fries bag tasted better than in a plain bag.

Forty-eight per cent liked the hamburger with the fast food company's logo compared with 37 per cent who preferred it in a plain wrapper. Even milk tasted better, with 61 per cent preferring it in a McDonald's cup.

The study found that the more televisions there were in a preschooler's home, the more likely they were to prefer foods and drinks from McDonald's.

The results from the Stanford University (California) research, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, come a week after federal Labor's health spokeswoman, Nicola Roxon, revealed a Kevin Rudd government would ban the use of licensed characters such as Shrek to market junk food to children.

Obesity Policy Coalition spokesman Craig Sinclair said the study strengthened the need for restrictions. "It's a real concern when kids at such a young age are creating a perception in their own minds based on advertising," he said.

McDonald's spokeswoman Christine Mullen said they used Shrek to advertise their Pasta Zoo Happy Meal, which has less fat and more calcium and protein than other options.

Search site cashes in on eco-guilt

Taken from smh.com.au
By Asher Moses
August 1, 2007


The Sydney-based makers of a so-called eco-friendly version of Google claim they're helping to rescue the planet, but all that's really been saved is the piles of money they're banking in the process.

Hundreds of thousands of searches a day are conducted by Blackle.com users, who use the search engine instead of Google because they believe they're doing their bit for the environment.

Its creator, Toby Heap, said Blackle.com - a custom version of Google with a black rather than a white background - could save thousands of watts of power a year because it took less juice for a monitor to display black than white.

But that claim is now being disputed by those who have tested the theory and say the power saving benefits are negligible or non-existent.

Far from an altruistic venture, the site, like Google itself, makes money from sponsored links that run next to search results.

Heap would not give exact traffic figures or say how much he was making in ad revenue, but he said the site had grown "exponentially" and was now servicing "hundreds of thousands of searches a day".

The site's growth since its launch in February this year is illustrated by a graph on the traffic monitoring website Alexa.

An industry source familiar with search engine marketing estimated Blackle, given such high traffic figures, earned thousands of US dollars in Google Adsense revenue per day.

"It [revenue] is definitely growing and I think if it keeps growing the way it's growing then I think it will become quite a healthy profit, so I hope that's what's going to happen," Heap said.

One of the technology enthusiasts to test whether or not the site's claims had any scientific grounding was Darren Yates, an Australian technology journalist who reviews computer hardware for computer magazines.

He found only tube-based CRT monitors, which have been phased out in favour of newer LCD-based models in most countries, showed any real difference in power consumption between Blackle and Google.

But even with a CRT monitor the drop in power consumption when searching through Blackle was a meagre 7 watts... more >>

The misdirected rage of middle America

Jarvis Ryan reviewed What’s the Matter with America? The Resistible Rise of the American Right by Thomas Frank
26 September 2005
Article excerpt and image from: www.australianreview.net/


"... So how is it that the Republicans—the traditional champions of big business—have become the preferred party of so many working-class Americans? This is the question Thomas Frank sets out to answer in What’s the Matter with America?
BACKLASH POLITICS

Frank’s starting point is what he calls the Great Backlash, a 30-year reaction against the gains achieved by the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s. The backlash has profoundly redefined the national political debate, particularly traditional notions of class, causing a fundamental realignment in political loyalties. The focus of debate has shifted away from economics (wealth redistribution, public versus private ownership, and so on) towards culture and social values. The Republicans have retained their commitment to free market economics but transformed their image, using the language of populism to recast themselves as the party of the little guy, defending the values of ‘ordinary Americans’ against a decadent ‘liberal elite’ which they claim has lodged itself in key posts in the media, the courts, government bureaucracies, schools and universities. The leaders of the backlash charge this elite with presiding over a ‘moral decline’ in American society.

...

But those who vote Republican in the hope of preventing the nation’s moral decline are being hoodwinked, Frank argues: moral values are an elaborate Trojan horse disguising the Republicans’ real agenda of aggressive free market capitalism.

The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate. Values may ‘matter most’ to voters, but they always take a backseat to the needs of money once elections are won … Abortion is never halted. Affirmative action is never abolished. The culture industry is never forced to clean up its act (p. 6).

Instead the Republicans harness the anger whipped up by the backlash and channel it towards pro-business policies ... " more>>