Context: This week has seen every move of the Beaconsfield mining disaster/miracle reported, signalling the inevitable pending bidding war between the commerical television networks for an exclusive interview with the miners. I heard a tip last week that they would be offered a minimum of $500K each. This comes as this week the Reserve Bank raised interest rates 0.25% to 5.75%, tightening the squeeze on Australian battlers. As well as this, fuel prices are at their highest price in history, at around $1.40 p/Litre, as well as childcare costs almost doubling, regular products like bread, milk and fruit have also gone up this week; and as if that's not bad enough - Banana prices have gone up too! Where will the pain end!?