Australia Will Find It Difficult to Deliver on Surplus: Pros

At the Cock'n'Bull pub in the heart of Bondi, Irish tricolours were flying and the Guinness was flowing. A fiddler belted out a Celtic tune to revellers soaking up the atmosphere. Such was the happy crush that it seemed a substantial proportion of the tens of thousands of Irish people who have come to Australia to find work in the past year had found their way to the bar.

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog, Switzerland is the place that has traditionally stood above all the rest in its reputation for financial stability. Why? Because the currency was well-managed, the banking system was sound, and the country had a long tradition of treating capital well. Over the last few years, however, these advantages have collapsed.

Alberta justice officials say they are pressing the federal government to prevent a woman who drowned her two young sons from travelling back to her native Australia. Allyson McConnell is scheduled for early release Thursday after serving two-thirds of a 15-month jail term for manslaughter. The depressed and suicidal woman killed her children in the town of Millet, just south of Edmonton, in 2010. She later drove to the city, jumped off a busy overpass and was rushed to hospital.

PROS Holdings, Inc. (PRO) Q1 2013 Earnings Call May 2, 2013 4:30 pm ET Executives Charlie Murphy - EVP & CFO Andres Reiner - President & CEO Analysts Scott Berg - Northland Capital Markets Chris Koh - Stifel Greg McDowell - JMP Securities John DiFucci - JP Morgan Presentation Operator

This week's Free exchange column discusses attempts to measure the consumer surplus generated by the internet (summary here). We are inviting experts in the field to comment on the piece and on related research.

PROS Holdings, Inc. (PRO) Q4 2012 Earnings Call February 12, 2013 4:30 PM ET Executives Charles Murphy - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Andres Reiner - President, Chief Executive Officer and Director Analysts Chad Bennett - Craig-Hallum Nandan Amladi - Deutsche Bank John DiFucci - JPMorgan Chris Growe - Stifel Nicolaus Jesse Hulsing - Pacific Crest

Australia's economy continues to struggle to find its legs. The mining-driven economy got slammed as soon as its emerging market export partners like China slowed down. And despite a pick up in China, Australia has yet to see the benefits. It's "a credit bubble built on a commodity market built on an even bigger Chinese credit bubble," wrote strategist Dylan Grice in a note last year.

Firefighters battled scores of wildfires Tuesday in southeastern Australia as authorities evacuated national parks and warned that hot, dry and windy conditions were combining to raise the threat to its highest alert level. Temperatures soared to 45 degrees Celsius in some areas.