Retail sales rose a stronger-than-expected 0.5 per cent in July, after modest falls in both May and June. Economists had been forecasting a 0.3 per cent increase.

A separate report showed firms planned to spend a record $149 billion for the year to June 2012, led by the mining sector which alone intended to invest a staggering $80 billion.

The dollar rose to a session high of $US1.0723 from around $US1.0670 before the data, while interbank futures fell across the board, sending their implied yields higher as markets pared rate cut expectations.

Markets now imply a mere 19 per cent chance of a 25 basis point rate cut next week, when the Reserve Bank of Australia meets. Last month, markets had fully priced in such a move.

Chris Berg writes that our ceaseless self-reflection and an addiction to the Twitterverse has blinded us to the truth: our little nation has such promise!

Our economy is doing well. We have none of the endemic problems of Western Europe. We're not facing a fiscal cliff like the United States.

Yet the Australian response to the Global Financial Crisis – after an initial flurry of policy – has been a collapse into self-reflection.

Navel-gazing is Australia's fastest growing industry.

Trolling on Twitter, parliamentary standards, criticism of the prime minister: that these are the issues which dominate Australian public discussion surely says something about how self-absorbed we have become.

But what if Australian public debate is getting better, not worse? That the cacophony which greets every political announcement is good? And what if, yes, parliament is full of insults, procedural tricks, and partisan talking points, but this is nothing to worry about?

Put it this way: Australia's century has seen mass street protests and vicious industrial disputes. Political parties have split. Prime Ministers have been dismissed. Now we are consumed by debates about civility, tone … etiquette. It’s bizarre.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4254712.html?WT.svl=theDrum

see toon at top... Chris Berg of course is a ritewingnutter who is unable to source the problem: a) the Merde-och press and b) Tony Abbott who both rot the political landscape beyond belief...