The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Sunday, July 22, 2012

What does ASIS do?

As I have written several times before, economic espionage, or the non-legal collection of non-public commercial and financial market intelligence, is at the heart of all foreign intelligence services, including our own. The ASIS Director-General kindly obliged with this characterisation:

Intelligence in our particular realm can be defined as secret information gleaned without the official sanction of the owners of that information...These reports cover everything from political developments, economic growth, defence modernization, and social cohesion in a particular country, to terrorist and insurgent planning and much more.
at 8:05 AM