Top 10 at 10: Dubai's Southland dairy buying spree; Australian land tax?; Bodyguards for the 2 Marks; Dilberts

Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10am. I welcome your additions and comments below or please email your suggestions for Tuesday's Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz 1. Really? - A Maori trust has been on an acquisition spree in Southland, buying 28 dairy farms with backing from Dubai interests, rumoured to be the financially troubled Dubai World group, according to the Otago Daily Times on Friday. The story is frustratingly vague about the people behind this, but something substantial is going on.

The cost of the farm purchases so far is estimated at more than NZ$150 million. Inquiries by the Otago Daily Times have revealed concerns in the rural industry about the group's actions, from delays confirming the sales contracts to deposits not being paid as expected. Two of Southland's largest rural real estate companies, PGG Wrightson and Southern Wide, declined to deal with the trust, but the farms have been bought through other real estate agents. Group spokesman Wynn Murray said the trust was a serious buyer. It had financial backing, including from overseas, and sales contracts would be made final in late February or early March. The delay was because of dairy farmers wanting to see out the milking season and deposits would be paid when contracts were finalised, he said. He did confirm that an option was for milk from the trust's farms to be processed specifically for Dubai markets.

2. Due diligence - Then Federated Farmers got its red bands in a twist over the by saying farmers should be very careful before signing up to no deposit deals. The Greens are also worried.

"It goes against every commercial norm for major capital items to be sold on a 'no-deposit' basis, and farms are as big a capital item as you can get," said David Rose, Federated Farmers rural security spokesman. The Green Party also expressed concern that the trust was apparently negotiating with Dubai World - a subsidiary of the Dubai Government - to buy New Zealand farms to gain control of food supplies. Large areas of New Zealand land would effectively be controlled by a foreign government if the deal went ahead, said Greens co-leader Russel Norman.

3. Amazing charts - We love a good chart at interest.co.nz. This is an amazing visualisation of US unemployment done by the New York Times. It allows readers to pick out the different tracks for unemployment for different ethnic groups, ages and sexes. Worth a click. HT David Chaston via IM. The unemployment rate for black men from 18-24 without a high school diploma has risen from 33% in January 2007 to 48.5% in September 2009. 4. Poor dears - The squeeze is on those British banks where the government is in change. Royal Bank of Scotland has allocated 10 pounds per head for Christmas Parties this year. That's enough to pay for two pints of lager and one packet of chips, Bloomberg points out. More than enough for them to drown their sorrows.

RBS Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester complained Dec. 15 that the bank was being "politicized" by the British government and the European Union. The percentage of high achievers leaving the bank has doubled this year, he said, without specifying the number. HSBC, Europe's biggest bank, will contribute 20 pounds a head, according to spokesman Brendan McNamara. At Lloyds, which received 22.8 billion pounds of state aid, employees can spend as much as 35 pounds of company money a head, said a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified. Barclays Plc spokesman Jon Laycock declined to comment. The banks did not give a figure for previous end-of-year entertainment spending.

5. Over the ditch - There is talk the Australian government's Henry review of taxation could propose new taxes on land, resources and road congestion, News Ltd papers are reporting. Bill English and John Key have said they are watching what the Henry review is doing closely in New Zealand's own review of the tax system.

THE Federal Government's biggest tax inquiry in more than two decades is set to propose a national land tax, a new resource tax and a road congestion tax for the nation's clogged cities. The Henry Review, by treasury head Ken Henry, is also expected to canvass a federal clawback of GST revenues to fund the Rudd Government's proposed takeover of the public hospital system. Dr Henry's report, which is due to go to the Government at the end of this month, is also believed to favour a national payroll tax to replace state-based payroll taxes. The national land tax would also replace existing state-based stamp duties payable on the sale of properties. But while Dr Henry is believed to support the tax, Treasurer Wayne Swan could still rule it out as too politically dangerous.

6. New misery index - Moody's has come up with a new version of the 'Misery Index'. During the 1970s there was a misery index that combined inflation and unemployment. Now it is a combination of unemployment and fiscal deficits. The theory is that if you have both high unemployment and a high budget deficit then a country is in real 'misery' because it can't do much with government spending to dig itself out of the hole. The New York Times has a great graphic of it over time. We've produced one here that includes New Zealand in the comparison.

The new index could prove to be an indicator of the dilemma facing many developed countries in coming years. If economies do not recover quickly, there will a strong case for fiscal stimulus to bring down unemployment. But there are limits to the budget deficits that some countries can run, providing a counterargument against such stimulus. A lesson of the stagflation era "” one taught by Paul A. Volcker in the United States "” was that countries sometimes had to get inflation under control even if it did prolong economic pain and raise unemployment. It would have been much better, in the long run, if inflation had been attacked earlier. This new misery index serves to highlight the risks the world took by not being afraid of the inflation of recent years "” inflation not in consumer prices but in real estate and financial assets. Instead, gains in those areas were taken as proof of excellent economic policies. Now, the world is paying for that excess, and finding the price to be high.

7. 'Help I'm a finance company owner!' - Rob Stock from the Sunday Star Times reports on the curious business of being a bodyguard for a finance company owner such as Mark Bryers and Mark Hotchin. It seems they need a lot of protection from investors wielding Zimmer frames.

Hal October of October Security, which provides close quarter executive protection services, said prices varied with the degree of risk, but "ballpark, you are looking at 12-hour days and expenses of up to $1000 per bodyguard if it is a high risk job". Judging risk for someone like Hotchin or Bryers was hard, October said: "There is always the risk of someone who has lost everything, depression sets in and now feels they have nothing to lose. That's the one you would be worried about." For a grand a day, an executive would get ex-military minders, or minders with serious martial arts skills, said October

8. Number 8 wire mentality makes it big in New York - Fortune magazine has a big profile here on Farenheit 212, a Kiwi-run consultancy that produces big (Kiwi) ideas for big companies from Manhattan. HT Matthew Hobbs via email.

So just what is it about this tiny startup? Presented with that question, co-founder and CEO Geoff Vuleta leans back in his chair and waxes thoughtful about his native New Zealand. "There's a lawn at Oxford with a sign on it that clearly says, 'Don't walk on the grass,'" he says. "And at 18, every kid in New Zealand goes off to England and walks on that grass. We all do, and I certainly did."

9. An  enormous success story - People accuse me of being a big grump. But over the weekend I saw Avatar with my daughter. It is an amazing achievement for Weta Digital, a New Zealand business that has carved out a spot for itself in the weightless economy. It runs the world's third most powerful computer network able to run 40,000 processors at any time. Its 800 staff slaved for 4 years producing the 3 hour movie, which Michael Arrington at TechCrunch says will be the iPhone of Movies -- changing the way movies are made for ever. Every second of the movie took 2,400 hours of work. This is the sort of business we should be proud of an invest in.

Movies will never be the same after Avatar. Like the iPhone in the mobile world, this movie disrupts an entire industry. The amazing thing about Avatar isn't the story "“ it's simply a passable tale that's part Pocahontas, part Dances With Wolves. But it's a story played by ten foot tall blue people with tails who fly around on miniature dragons and generally kick ass. And suddenly the special effects in every movie you've ever seen seem trite in comparison. Jurassic Park type special effects, which seemed so awesome in the 90s, are now laughably dated.

10. Don't do drugs - This is a totally irrelevant video that was the second most watched video on YouTube this year after the Susan Boyle song. This boy (David) has just been to the dentist and his father has decided to make him a YouTube star by videoing him while under the influence. Thanks Dad.