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Budget fails the future and compassion tests

If you won the lottery tomorrow you'd want to spend a bit and help out your friends and family; but if you have any sense you'd invest the rest for your future.

The Howard Government is riding on the back of the greatest resources boom Australia has seen - we have never had higher prices for our coal and minerals. Saul Eslake, the ANZ Bank's chief economist, calculates that the mining boom has delivered a budget windfall of $398 billion over nine years.

It's perfectly right to return some of those enormous tax revenues to the taxpayers who have created them, but it's also important to invest for the future.

This budget is a missed opportunity when it comes to lifting Australian productivity. The Government hasn't invested seriously in education or in broadband and the budget papers show productivity growth will fall from the end of next year.

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Top auto brands foray into second hand car market

There has been a great deal of noise about some of the leading players of Indian industry entering the retail market. What seems to have gone relatively unnoticed is the entry of the top names of the automobile sector into the second hand car market. Starting from scratch only a few years ago, the big boys have already cornered 22 per cent of this Rs 10,000 crore market, which was earlier completely unorganised.

Maruti sold 84,500 pre-owned cars in the financial year 2006-07, earning revenues of Rs. 1,483 crore. The company's pre-owned car business has been doubling every year for the past three years. Maruti entered the use car business in 2000 as a part of its strategy to be the 'end-to-end' player in the car industry.

Arch rival Hyundai Motor India was a relative latecomer, entering the business only in April 2006.

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Al-Gharaballi: Global Islamic Fund of Funds invests in local and ...

Global Investment House "Global" announced today that it has launched "Global Islamic Fund of Funds," an open-ended fund of funds investing in local and international Shari'a compliant funds.

Mr. Sameer Al-Gharaballi - Executive Vice President at Global said, "The fund's objective is to provide long term capital appreciation with reduced risk by investing in a diverse basket of Shari'a compliant funds and instruments." He added that the fund's strategy is to invest the majority of its assets in a core of "carefully selected Islamic funds that complement each other in risk and return." The fund will also invest in low risk instruments to reduce the overall volatility of the portfolio. The rest of the fund will be invested opportunistically in new tools or funds that materialize in the future.

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Breaking News: The Principal Financial Group Promotes Disability ...

Market Gainer is quickly emerging as the one stop shop for international small-cap investors looking to stay a step ahead of the markets. Today's activity on the markets has brought these companies to the attention of our research team. On the NYSE exchange Principal Financial Group (NYSE:PFG), is responding to the attention of investors. Our goal is to create a community of international investors who consistently and effectively capitalize on the enormous gains the small-cap Canadian and American exchanges offer. Principal Financial Group (NYSE:PFG) announced, just 36 percent of all full-time employees have access to long-term disability insurance through their employers, and fewer than 6 million individual disability policies are in force in the United States(1) - compared to more than 112 million individual life insurance policies(2).