Four big questions we really need to ask

Rather than sending kids to school, it may be better to encourage them to be curious. Photo / Getty Images

There's much to ponder beyond trivia of modern life.

When did it suddenly become normal to do the splits? I went to the gym for the first time in a year, and during the hamstring stretches, from memory something that used to involve bending over, half the class actually carried on stretching and did the splits. Didn't that used to be a rare trick for show-off girls?

There is just too much to keep up with these days, what with coconut oil, Apple watches and lifestyle shaming and all the other stuff that makes you feel like a let-them-eat-macarons-Marie Antoinette-level douche. Oh, I agree! Who cares anyway!

But in the midst of modern life it is always the smallest things that provoke the most anger. First girl: "I'm totally buzzed!." Second girl: "No, I'm totally buzzed!" Third girl: "I'm just totally totally buzzed!" That was a verbatim conversation. (Disclaimer: I was in LA). I'm a prime culprit: I'm always clogging this column up with my personal trivia. (I bought some Louis Vuitton leggings, no help with the splits, face palm). But in a feeble attempt to make amends here are four big boring things that I know I would be much better off being interested in if I could just get past our shiny-thing driven focus on Chrystal Chenery and real estate prices.

1. Why have we not taken more notice of the Libor scandal?
You might have forgotten about this one; it only affects about, pfft, US$350 trillion. Not a big deal when we have more important acronyms to think about like your RBF (Resting Bitch Face). The Libor (London Interbank Offered Rate) is an average interest rate calculated by submissions from major banks in London. Two years ago it was discovered banks were falsely inflating or deflating their rates to profit from trades or to "give the impression that they were more creditworthy than they are". For the previous 20 years. An MIT professor says this dwarfs by magnitudes any financial scam in the history of markets. Ever. Banking regulations have since been changed but no banks have ever been charged with fraud.

2. Why is the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement so super secret squirrel?
Okay, I understand you probably can't let the journalists into the actual negotiations (er, why not? Edward Snowden?) but the head of a major news organisation here said he looked at going to last week's talks in Hawaii to cover them but decided it wasn't worth it. Help! The negotiation of the TPP is the biggest financial story since the last biggest one. It is estimated the successful conclusion could boost our exports by $6 billion and the countries involved represent 40 per cent of the world's trade. But as Haydn Jones said on Seven Sharp (purveyors of astute financial analysis), we will hear all about it once the deal is signed. Whew.

3. How much corruption must there be in China, really?
I know there are probably heaps of stories about this hiding in plain sight (I offer an awkward shamed flourish to Fran O'Sullivan) but possibly not half as many as those about foreign property investors. Where do all the millions to buy property in New Zealand come from? Chinese authorities seized assets worth at least US$13.4 billion from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang last year. (And then that was said to have happened only because he protested the ousting of another top official who was jailed for life for corruption.) And this week the ruling Communist Party has expelled a former top military leader, second in command of a piddly two-million-strong army, for taking bribes. Maybe he'd like to buy a house here.

4. Is our mainstream education system stuffed?
I know, we need schools for parents, to keep your kids busy so you can go to work and add to the GDP. But do kids need them? What they seem to learn at primary school: sugar is bad, don't litter, watch out for cyber-bullies, be compliant. Oh, and kids, the world is deeply munted. Yes, I know we mock the things we can't understand. But maybe someone needs to remind teachers the internet only tells us what we already know. It doesn't answer the questions no one has even thought up yet. All our educators might be advised to read Brian Grazer's book A Curious Mind. Rather than sending kids to school it might be more use to encourage them to be curious. Life isn't about finding the answers, it's about asking the questions. "Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form" (Vladimir Nabokov).

Anyway, time to get back to the rubbish: celebrity chefs, Rugby World Cup, dyeing your armpit hair. Yes, ladies, apparently it's a thing. I will get on to it once I have mastered the splits.