Dr currie:"How many can say that!"

Me for a start and I'll bet I've had to work a whole lot harder and accept a whole lot more "abuse" and "unfairness" than you've ever seen. The other difference is that I don't whinge about it or pretend that it makes me somehow "special".

You've chosen to work in a field in which the dominant paradigm is by nature a conservative one. It's also exceptionally well-rewarded. the corollary to accepting the king's silver is that you take the king's orders. Don't like the orders, stop taking the silver. The king probably won't care much either way unless you try to cause disruption among the rest of the soldiers. It's not as if you have some special skill that he lacks in others.

Dr currie:"There is no doubt in my mind that universities have deteriorated to the point of academics being more concerned re their security than their invaluable contributions to their science."

On that we're in complete agreement. A large part of that is the socialist paradigm that has become entrenched in the academic workforce.

You say "For years I studied and ended up with six degrees" and "in search of freedom I accepted a Commonwealth Scholarship.". And in a fit of pique because there was a quid pro quo, you've spat the dummy.

About 6000 people spat the dummy to Worksafe Victoria last year about bullying and at least 5940 of them were found to be describing behaviour that is not bullying at all. I expect you'd have made it 5941.

BTW, the link to your website at the bottom of the article doesn't work.

Hmmm ... interesting watching people bullying one another about bullying. There is no place free of human self interest and so I suspect, no place free of bullying. The impact on global finance (and probably global everything else) is unfortunate.

Dr Currie - what country was this article written for and in? as far as I know cash flow statements have been mandatory for reporting companies under Aus now international accounting standard since the early 90s.

Two banks to its knees? worst financial crisis? the worst financial crisis in Austrlia was far and away the late 80s-early 90s which swept all the old state banks off the board, among other effects.

This crisis, Aus banks were for a time virtually the only ones with any money.. a point recognised even in comic strips (the Alex cartoons in the AFR).

So I strongly suspect that most of this is about American conditions.

As for the bullying - sure, you get commercial pressures, and it is often hard to stand up to the nonsense which is endemic.

I must admit Ruthie that I too am a little surprised by the venom in some of these replies.

The article seemed to me to be a reasonably and fairly stated opinion born from personal experience. I'm not sure how one can deny that experience without denying there are serious and at times criminal repercussions to workplace bullying.

One would not like to think that OLO has become of forum for simple personal projections or hysterical knee-jerk reactions (although there will always be a few).

"I was bullied into supplying all my data, so that someone could rerun my experiment and refute my results."

And here I was thinking that replication was an essential part of science, and that researchers should be grateful for the fact that someone else will take the time and trouble to check their findings.

But I'm sure Dr. Currie can find plenty of equally outraged supporters -- among the AGW elite, for instance.