As an island nation Australia is bound to attract illegal immigrants via boat. Under Liberal leader John Howard mandatory detention of all refugees stemmed the flow. Under Kevin Rudd, the Labor government has softened the stance. And that’s lead to an influx of refugees.

In total the numbers are quite small. More visa over-stayers are already in the country having arrived by long-haul jet. Yet the dramatic imagery of small boats on massive seas filled with desperate people is ripe for national television.

This week the issue escalated due to a running issue and a new problem.

Today 78 refugees remain aboard an Australian Customs ship docked in Indonesian waters. They refuse to leave for fear of persecution under Indonesia’s shaky human rights regime. Another boat has 255 people seeking asylum in Australia. This is the long-running issue. Refugees have been aboard boats for three weeks.

Yesterday another boat sank in the Indian Ocean on its way to Australia. Twelve people are known to have died and another 11 are still missing. Opposition minister Tony Abbott blamed the Prime Minister for the deaths:

“You look at this terrible tragedy that’s unfolding in the Indian Ocean at the moment and you’ve got to say this is a comprehensive failure and it’s all the Prime Minister’s fault,” Abbott said in a radio interview.

Talk Radio is filled with views supporting a tougher stance – and others crying out for Australia to take responsibility for these people. By docking Australian flag ships off Indonesia and hoping to disembark their problems, the government is seeking to transfer ownership of refugees to Indonesia.

Clearly a regional approach is mandated – and Australia must play a lead role in directing policy and resettling refugees. When Hungarian children were evacuated in the 1950s amnesty by that country’s Communist regime they were greeted as heroes. When Vietnamese fled after the fall of Saigon they were welcomed – The Smithsonian Institute has one of the boats on display. Jews fleeing war-torn Germany were similarly shuffled from country to country – with one boat returned to Nazi Germany when the USA wouldn’t accept refugees.

The debate will continue for months to come. And in that period refugees will continue to attempt the water crossing to Australia. After covering rough seas in shoddy craft I hope they’re greeted with a sound policy and a welcoming government.

ABC Radio National has an all news station - located at 630 AM here in Sydney. (For my Yank readers, ABC means Australian Broadcasting Corporation and is a national, taxpayer funded broadcaster.) At 10:30 am I was on the Harbour Bridge crossing to a meeting when the half-hour news flash played. Headline three for the bulletin was, “Australian sheepdog beats New Zealand rival on its home turf - for the second year in a row.”

Now I’m sure this was one hell of a dog. Clearly a prize winner. But Australian radio is not so desperate for news that they broadcast nationally the results of state fair competitions. (”And Bill Chadd’s prize Angus took the blue ribbon at the Wagga Wagga Beef Invitational today!”)

Instead Australians were indulging in a bitter national rivalry. Australia versus New Zealand. It’s the Hatfields versus the McCoys all over again. (These West Virginian families entered American folklore with a multi-generational feud.)

New Zealand is to Australia as Canada is to the United States - a nearby neighbour that we pretend to embrace while saying disparaging things when they’re not in the room.

The fact a sheepdog trial got national radio play shows the depths we’ll go to to show Australians are better than New Zealanders. It’s a bi-national sport!

I woke last Friday to three or four dozen congratulatory notes to mark the occasion. It was wonderful to be remembered by friends, cousins, high school peers and more. Over the course of the day I got virtual slices of cake, e-cards and lots and lots of comments. My sister sent two talking dogs who spoke through a script she’d written. (The terrier said “Dana” with a soft a in both spots – much like “Tada”!) My brother in Alaska made a Skype video call with the kids and sent a pre-recorded video card sent via Flip Cards. In an extraordinary gesture my Aunt Liz in Princeton sent me a long, personalized email. It was wonderfully overwhelming!

Of course I am pleased but a part of me remembers pre-social media birthdays. I’m one of those people who have a box with all his correspondence. I developed a close friendship with the late John Hoover when he lived in San Francisco and I was in New York. We used to write eight or nine page letters back and forth. While I didn’t keep every birthday card I kept the ones that mattered.

Maybe that’s the next digital application – a virtual treasure chest where you can permanently keep all your neat stuff. I have photos on Flickr and updates on Facebook and three years worth of blog postings. But nowhere do I have a consolidation of my life on-line.

Many say this is where social media is heading – a borderless world where we have one experience versus multitudinous accounts. And in that space I can have my Alaska video and my aunt’s email – and even the phonic-challenged dog (I worry his pronunciation will improve in the next upgrade and I want to save his current voice). I can limit which audiences have access to which parts. Current work colleagues are all joined in Linked In but none are invited into Facebook.

It won’t replace the mantelpiece full of Hallmark cards or the ribbon-tied bundle of letters. (And I’m not sure how the next generation’s Demi Moore will get misty-eyed as she spends a night going over her dead husband’s correspondence. Will that be on a Kindle?)

But what a Facebook birthday lacks in ever-lasting quality it sure makes up for in quantity. I miss the paper cards and letters. But I love the overwhelming number of people who made my birthday one to remember – even if I can’t put them in a box to linger over later.

Thankfully the child was found later asleep in a cardboard box in the crawl space above the garage. Sadly, his parents appear to have concocted the stunt to garner publicity. As parents Richard and Mayumi Heene dragged their son Faclon from talk show to talk show the stress caused the boy to vomit. Twice.

From 1999 to 2004 I ran communications at Ford Credit. One of the biggest business risks was the rising number of personal bankruptcies. Ford Credit undertook to raise the level of financial literacy among high school students so they would become better money managers. One year we conducted a poll and asked teens how they would fund their retirement. More than 50% said, “with the winnings of a reality television show.”

It appears that’s exactly what the Heene family was thinking. (If they were thinking at all.) Now police have swooped and the parents face six years in prison. The stunt was to bolster their own television ratings, as they’d already appeared on “Wife Swap” and were hoping to launch a show about their family. (Did I say launch?)

Sadly the stunt has backfired and now Falcon - America’s Balloon Boy - may spend a chunk of childhood without parents. That’s the worst reality possible.

So imagine my upset having passed up an opportunity to buy a Dow Jones 10,000 baseball cap on eBay. (Not bought because my head looks deformed in a cap.) This was sold in the heady days of 1999 when the Dow Jones passed the 10,000 mark for the first time in March of that year.

(Do you remember those euphoric times? Our homes had equity…Circuit City was our weekend destination…our jobs were secure…we could eat and pay the bills simultaneously.)

Since then the Dow Jones has passed the 10,000 mark on decent, on ascent, on descent, on ascent. It’s been like a theme-park adventure ride. (The 10,000 barrier was broken upwards in March 1999, December 2003 and October 2009.)

The Dow Jones Index is a portfolio of shares in America’s leading companies. Their composite value is the Dow Jones Index. This was designed to showcase the relative health of a representative sample of America’s top companies. Over the years some major companies have been struck from the Index, while newcomers have taken their place. It’s a PR nightmare to deal with a CEO whose firm is being de-listed from the Dow Jones Index. They’re rarely as upbeat as the newcomers.

So break out the home equity line of credit applications - the Dow Jones is back up, glod is strong and economists predict The Great Recession is over.

Me? I’m going to keep scouring eBay and try to find my historical souvenir - that baseball cap from March 1999 is mine!

Trivia Challenge (scroll past cartoon for answers)

1. Name the company in today’s Dow Jones Industrial Average with the longest tenure?
2. Which company is the newest kid on the block?
3. When was it founded?
4. Name the founder.
5. When did the Dow Jones close above the 1,000 barrier for the first time?
6. How many years did it take to go from 1,000 to 10,000?
7. During the dot.com boom, a book predicted the Dow Jones would ascend higher - what was the forecast projected high?
8. What was the highest close for the Dow Jones Index?

  Courtesy of The Huffington Post

Trivia Answers - Thanks to Wikipedia

1. General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed in the average
2. Travelers - the insurance giant - added on 8 June 2009
3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was founded May 26, 1896
4. Founded by Charles Dow
5. On November 14, 1972 the average closed above the 1,000 mark (1,003.16) for the first time
6. On March 29, 1999, the average closed above the 10,000 mark - 26 years, 4 months and 2 weeks later.
7. Authors James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett went so far as to publish a book entitled Dow 36,000.
8. On October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at the record level of 14,164.53.

Your Score

•  
  •  0-3 - Don’t worry you’re job at Treasury is safe
  • 4-6 - An average American with a Schwab account - go day trading!
  • 7-8 - Thanks for reading WallyDownUndy Mr. Buffet!
  • Still debating accuracy of answers - The 24 year prison sentence for Enron does give you time, right Mr. Skilling?

On Monday, 12 October I started a new role here in Sydney with Fleishman-Hillard, one of the largest global public relations consultancies. I’ll manage the Sydney office and have a triple-barrel title (SVP & Partner, GM - Sydney). I’ll have to get a longer business card.

For two years I managed my own consultancy, Perception Counsel. It was coincidental to launch a new business in the lead-up to The Great Recession. (Cool to see it with capital letters like 1930’s The Great Depression.) The upside - as all business owners know - is the flexibility and freedom that comes from reporting to yourself. Yet what I missed most was the interaction with like-minded colleagues. And in a single stroke I entered a wide and varied network. FH has 80 offices and I’ve had welcome notes from Atlanta, Seoul, Tokyo, Dallas, New York and St Louis (Global HQ firmly in the Midwest).

In addition, FH is part of Omnicom Group - one of the world’s leading diversified communications companies. Partner firms are in advertising, branding, direct mail, social media, etc. It’s exciting to have an insider’s pass to such an extensive network, especially as I love design but make an awful Pictionary partner (”It’s Lassie. No! It’s Liza!”).

The upside of the new job is there wasn’t that much surprise on Day One. Fleishman was exhaustive in the recruitment process. And while most candidates assume the inquisition is one-way, the firm wanted to ensure I knew what I was getting myself into. I walked in with my eyes wide open.

What have I found?

Fleishman-Hillard has been in Sydney since 2001 and has been a quiet achiever. There’s a considerable track record of high-profile clients and assignments. Today the office has a solid quartet of practices - Healthcare, Consumer Marketing, Technology and Corporate-Finance. The team today is solid and experienced. And like most firms there’s room to grow and time to trial new tactics.

 So wish me luck as I adjust my new computer to all my favourite settings, import my contacts, find where the files are stored and adjust to a new routine.  

Jim Croce knew what he was singing when he recorded “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” in 1973:

“You don’t tug on superman’s cape

You don’t spit into the wind

You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger

And you don’t mess around with Jim”

Today Kraft Foods is facing the music after playing with Australia’s national snack spread – Vegemite. Following a marketing campaign to name a new, lighter Vegemite variant the company announced the winner yesterday. iSnack 2.0 is the name selected for the new Vegemite. It appears the selection was made following a whiz-bang marketing meeting involving creative geniuses paid by the hour. In other words, consumers hate it.

Writers from far afield as London have deplored the choice, as “Word of Mouth” at The Guardian comments:

“But to consider calling the Vegemite cheese spread “iSnack 2.0″… yes, that’s right … can only be the biggest steaming honker of an egregious publicity stunt in recorded history.”

Call me “Ishtar” but I do believe there were bigger failures – but you’d have to reach back to Edsel and “New Coke” to find one worse (Great article on New Coke: “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time“). Said Coke’s recalcitrant boss:

‘We did not understand the deep emotions of so many of our customers for Coca-Cola.’

— DONALD R. KEOUGH, Coca-Cola president (1985)

But that was so…1985. Back then we had to write ‘Letters to the Editor’ and mail complaints to Atlanta, Georgia. Maybe we opened a can in front of a grocer and let it run into the gutter – in front of local television news. Things moved slowly then.

Kraft came out with iSnack 2.0 on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. Already blogs are on fire with disappointment, and the company has been forced to defend its choice. Talk about good PR gone bad!

In today’s age of immediacy it doesn’t take long for creative types to rubbish the product on blogs, mass-email friends, Twitter on the name and post hate videos – like this one.

“I think we will get above US90c when the RBA starts to tighten, and depending on the pace of that, we could be at parity next year.”

Parity means one Australian dollar has the same value as one US dollar.

This is a long way away from the days the Australian dollar bought US$0.60. Then our currency was called the “Pacific Peso”. That’s making a comparison between the purchasing power of the US dollar in Mexico with the equivalent power in Australia. Needless to say we had a lot of American tourists here. Sadly we were unable to provide souvenir sombreros or high quality agave tequila. Do an Akubra and Bundy count?

Today further signs of life emerge. Business confidence is at a six year high. Stocks rallied. Gold closed above US$1,000. The Australian Business section has a banner headline nearing screaming confidence:

It’s all up: stocks, gold, dollar

But reminders of past panics are never far behind. Just under the banner headline The Australian Business features a photo of a middle-aged man in T-shirt, jeans and tractor cap. One year later – it’s Dick Fuld, former CEO of Lehman Brothers. And while expects the 15 September anniversary to put him back in the headlines, I believe attention needs to turn to the real villain. US Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. made the decision to let Lehman Brothers go under. In retrospect it was a mistake of global proportions. We’re all familiar with the aftermath:

Last year, as the credit crisis deepened, the US government and the Federal Reserve arranged life-saving mergers for investment banks Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, propped up the giant insurer American International Group and bailed out Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

But on September 15, they let the 158-year-old Lehman die in what was then the biggest bankruptcy in the US history.

The collapse drained what little confidence was left in global financial markets, triggering a meltdown.

Stocks plunged, credit markets froze and governments worldwide were forced into a massive round of bailouts and backstops for companies, particularly banks. (Source: The Australian)

Still, Paulson didn’t receive salary and entitlements exceeding US$500 million. Even if he did or did not get punched in the face at the Lehman Fitness Centre, we still need a scapegoat. His employees all “signed” a portrait of him and added comments that are far from kind

Happy Anniversary Dick Fuld – we’ll buy your gift with Australian dollars are we’re now getting more back for our buck.

It pains me to have friends visit from America. They’re full of bad news and disparaging comments about the economy. Real bites have been taken out of the workforce, retail sector, manufacturing, home ownership – you name it. And friends from Australia visiting the USA report discouraging signs – “For Rent” – in lots of storefront windows. It seems America is still in the throes of a historic recession.

Down here in sunny Australia we have yet to enter recession. This week the June GDP figures were released. Australia grew at a paltry 0.6% - however it grew. Next week the G20 finance ministers meet in London. Of the 33 developed economies in the world, only one never entered recession. For the next year growth of 3.25 is forecast.

(Back in June 2009 I wrote about first signs of our economy’s incredible performance: Like Keanu, Australia Dodges Recession).

It’s hard to summarise the reasons for this world-beating performance – unless you’re Michael Stutchbury. He’s the Economics Editor of The Australian and today he provides a masterly overview of why we fared so well.

If you want to understand why the nickname “The Lucky Country” still applies today, read this great article: “How We Beat The Recession“.