Columnist Michael Pascoe

With November racing to a close and Christmas soon upon us, this is as good a time as any to ask: Whatever happened to all those resolutions about being more financially responsible? They were probably forgotten somewhere around Australia Day, or

Among yesterday's headlines on the financial pages was the story of AMP chief executive Craig Dunn spinning the idea that AMP taking over of AXA's Australian operations would be a good thing as it would stop the Big Four banks getting a

Something extraordinary and very pleasing has been happening in the often-dreary world of economic policy lately: the heads of the Reserve Bank and the Federal Treasury have been talking a great deal of sense and taking a welcome longer-term view of

On the face of it, today's Consumer Price Index numbers are a bit worse than expected and add to the case for the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates, but there's a case to be made for the RBA to ignore most of the CPI rise – but still to

Well done NAB for finally doing the right thing on bank fees, especially the outrageous penalty fees that have been lining bank profits for decades. And now it's up to us to make the other fee-gouging laggards follow the NAB's lead. Funny