SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Stu Jay Raj puts us all to shame.  He speaks 29 languages. Fifteen fluently. Amazingly, he is Australian.

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SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Now that Sarah Palin’s brief and spectacularly ephemeral star has, for now at least, burnt out brilliantly in the international night sky, a small sigh of relief has been exhaled around the world.

But the relief is just as palpable for reasons other than having someone who can’t distinguish between nations and continents at the helm of the world’s most powerful nation. I’m a brunette with a fringe, you see, and I wear spectacles. For reasons entirely to do with slackness and nothing to do with fashion, I very frequently like to pile my hair up on top of my head, albeit for a lot less than a $10,000 a month stylist. For the past two months I’ve had to think twice. I’ve cringed as I’ve walked out the door wearing a red jumper, only to have some wit gafaw at my hair and ask me if I can pronounce “nuclear.”

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Has i-banking permanently lost its sheen?

LONDON, UK — Current market conditions and mass lay-offs are making students re-think joining the ranks of investment banks. Newspapers in both the US and UK have reported this and, although the evidence seems anecdotal, it is a story that instinctively makes sense.

However, it’s not only job security leading to the hesitation of students, but the view that bankers have now been exposed as contributing so little to society. Structuring and trading complex banking products (in this case collaterised debt obligations or CDOs) reminds me of building a room full of mirrors, then disappearing with the cash. CDOs are the very reason why sub-prime defaults are linked to, and therefore have crippled, the wider global economy. Sure, structured finance bankers have lost their jobs and done little for the world, but will there really be a sustained trend away from joining i-banks?

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They say that success is demonstrated best by how you respond when you get knocked down, and election night 2008 is how America responded

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA — November 4, 2008. The student lounge began filling up at 3.00pm, as the first polls around the country began to close on the East Coast. The flyers advertising the event said that no alcohol would be provided, but nonetheless, cases of beer and bottles of wine had been procured — though hopefully they would be used to toast to victory rather than drown our sorrows.

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STANFORD, CALIFORNIA – As an international student, I keep a close eye on exchange rates. The majority of my savings and investments are denominated in Australian dollars, but the majority of my expenses flow out in U.S. dollars. Therefore, fluctuations in the AUD/USD rate affect my purchasing habits. And the fluctuations that have happened over the last three months have been nothing short of breathtaking. Breathtakingly bad.

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Race is still a white hot issue in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA — Circa 1987, the flavour of the month for ethnic Malays was the soaking of traditional daggers with the blood of fellow countrymen (Chinese, sweet and sour). The idea of the “Kris drinking Chinese blood” was plastered across placards in a particular rally as the speaker poured gasoline upon a crowd burning with racist hate. As the country hovered on the brink of another racial crisis, a kris was unsheathed, lifted and waved around with gusto — for an Oscar-worthy effect — by the speaker on the podium.

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In a world increasingly conscious of cultural relativism, some things remain absolute

L’VIV, UKRAINE — There are very few absolutes in life. Having spent a lot of time at university, I once thought that there were no absolutes. This is the disease known as post-modernism.

But I always knew this was wrong. Even when I was most vehemently arguing that everything is relative, I knew that some things aren’t.

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SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Newspaper endorsements are an intriguing aspect of elections.  They reveal how well the opposing parties have curried favour with the fourth estate and who the media barons want to cozy up to in order to expand their empires.  Check out this super-charged bubble chart for a visual map of endorsements in the US election.  Like the Intrade prediction markets, where Obama is currently priced at an 85% probability of winning, Obama slaughters McCain in the number of newspaper endorsements: 233 to 105.

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Brief impressions of what Bay Area California is like in the lead up to the elections

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA — I was at the annual Bridge School Benefit concert on the weekend. Organized by Neil Young and held in Mountain View, California, the concert is aimed at raising money for special needs children. Nonetheless, with the presidential elections looming, they couldn’t resist emblazoning, between the various acts, the word “VOTE” on the video screens. Candidates’ names were never spoken by any of the artists that took the stage, but it was blatantly obvious they all shared the same opinion. When Young himself took the stage at the end of the concert, the camera zoomed up on a tiny badge on his jacket. “Hippies for Obama,” it declared, the closest thing to an endorsement all day. “Vote on November 4,” Young declared, and people cheered. Clearly, the audience shared his opinion, too.

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SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — For one of the first articles on The Backbench, I don’t like writing about bad stuff.  Particularly when it’s about the “R” word.  The reality is, though, Australia will be incredibly lucky if we avoid a recession.  This is despite Australia facing the global financial crisis with 3 strong-looking levies: (1) a relatively strong banking system; (2) a $20bn commodity fueled budget surplus; and (3) China.  However, as the credit crunch continues to corrode the global economy, more and more pressure is being applied to these levies and their resilience is increasingly being tested.

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Welcome. After a two year absence, The Backbench is back!

When we ended the bi-monthly publication back in 2006, it was always intended as a temporary hiatus as other pursuits took us elsewhere.  Over this time, the ideas have continued to brew and opinions have continued to form and morph.  But given the current state of the world, we think it’s high time for an independent and eclectic voice to be heard once again. This is Backbench 2.0, if you will.

In the past, Backbench has had a uniquely Australian voice on international and local issues.  The previous incarnation covered topics ranging from religion in China, to sex education in Guyana and GIs in Djibouti.  Not to mention pieces on Sudan, Israel, Thailand, England and the US.

This international focus will continue growing in this new edition.

We now have writers based in all of the major global hotspots.  In the credit-wasted West, we’ll have voices in Silicon Valley, London and Canberra. The new upstarts, the so-called “Emerging World”, will also have on the ground coverage - particularly from capital rich China and muscular Russia.

The current global financial turmoil makes for an electric juncture in world history.  Has the credit crisis (or having Dubya as President) hastened the decline of the US empire or will a bright new leader be able to rescue the great nation from its plunge?  Is this the dawn of the “Asian century”?  Will Russia’s rise be peaceful?  In particular, what is Putin’s angle in appealing to the gay magazine set by constantly taking his shirt off and flexing his muscles?  These are all questions and more, we hope to answer.

We also aim to air some eclectic pieces symbolic of Generation Y, including travel diaries from war zones or foreign-aid missions, and tales of experiences others can vicariously enjoy.

Finally, we are always on the lookout for new contributors, so if you’ve got an opinion to vent or a story to tell, we’re happy to hear it.  Our sole requirement is that the tale you weave or the opinion you voice be interesting, and that, in today’s tumultuous world, is an easy hurdle to vault.