The 2020 budget reflects the old and unimaginative view that the economy is about making things, moving things and digging things up.
We have a (growing) services economy whether governments like it or not
Category: Australian Economy
Paul Keating was on Fran Kelly’s ABC radio show on Friday. He’d picked up a peculiar thing from the GDP release. The headline number was horrific. Australia’s economic growth had shrunk by 7%, the largest drop on record, wiping out four years of growth and sinking the nation, officially, into its first recession in 29 years. Keating seized on the bright spot though, or at least what he thought was a bright spot. Buried in the National Accounts data and apparently picked up by nobody, yet, were the figures for GDP per hour worked. It was an increase. Yes, an increase, and not a trifling increase either. Growth in GDP per hour worked was up from 0.6% – the average over four previous quarters – to 4.1%. It represents a fantastical rise in productivity – a seven-fold surge in productivity. Businesses have shed millions of workers so wage costs plummeted by 9.3% and wages are usually the highest cost in a business.
What Covid Plan? Paul Keating seizes on the “good news” but Australia’s economy is changing for good – Michael West
India was once the production house for 37% of the global economy the British no, a Capitalist invention Multinational Corporation the East India Company put an end to that and reduced them to 3%. The company owned Britain, the West Indies, and a Colonial Empire as well. Trading textiles, spices, tea drugs and slaves out of tax free ports. It destroyed the worlds biggest textile industry which at the time was India. It then whitewashed the history of the Colonial Empire (ODT)
His country already has a $60 billion trade deficit with China and there are concerns lowering tariffs, and allowing the flow of cheap Chinese products into India, would further increase that deficit.
“The fundamentals are good” economy makes global news for tanking. (ODT)
via Australia’s alarmingly weak economy makes global headlines
RELEASE of the second-quarter GDP figures showed the Australian economy facing its lowest annual growth since the global financial crisis, calls from RBA & general public for the Morrison Govt to engage some sort of stimulus program exp independentaustralia.net/politics/polit
1:47 PM · Sep 20, 2019Twitter Web AppIN A RECENT SURVEY conducted by the Australian Financial Review, every single economist who participated had the same message for the Morrison Government: the Reserve Bank should not have to rescue the economy on its own.
However, despite the mounting evidence of domestic economic slowdown and the growing risk of a potential global recession, the Morrison Government continues to reject calls for a stimulus. Instead, the Government insists that its tax cuts and “superior economic management” will kickstart the economy and that everything will be fine.
Productivity has tanked under this Government and Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, is floundering. Result? Australia is providing a classic study in how not to build a productive economy. Alan Austin reports.
The way forward
The critical issues Australia must address in light of its glaring productivity failures include:
Australia a classic study in how not to build a productive economy – Michael West
Forget the culture wars for a moment ask what this government has been doing for the past 6years. Ask why Vic is still the most progressive State and still the 2nd best most livable city after 7 years at the top. Morrison Dutton News Corp have been talking us down reporting that “Crime” was out of control in Melbourne when in fact the rate has been falling. This government works soley for itself is failing despite News Corp,Ch9,and the IPA (ODT)
Why we’ve the weakest economy since the global financial crisis, with few clear ways out
ALL THE WAY WITH DONALD J SAY MORRISON ECONOMIC MANAGER
Australian two-way trade with China in 2017-2018 was 24.4% ($194.6 billion) of total trade. In contrast, Japan was our second largest trading partner, accounting for 9.7% ($77.6 billion). China was Australia’s largest export destination — with about 27% of all exports, valued at $123.3 billion.
If Australia were a business, it would be marked down for its high risk-profile through its inordinate reliance on one customer — known in economics as monopsony.
In terms of reliance on China, Australia places 11th on the league table, ahead of such “stand-out” economies as North Korea, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Solomon Islands, Eritrea, Angola, Oman, Myanmar, Mauritania and the Republic of Congo, according to the CIA World Handbook.
The only other significant nation that comes close to Australia’s 27% export figure is South Korea (25%). New Zealand is at (19%), Singapore (12%) and Indonesia (11%). Trading figures fall away after this.
via Australia’s monopsonistic relationship with Beijing could tip it into recession – Michael West
An investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes can reveal that a criminal syndicate known as “The Company” used Crown-linked bank accounts and high-roller rooms to launder its funds, with Crown licensing and paying syndicate members to generate turnover in its Melbourne and Perth casinos.
via
Ranking the worst quarterly growth achievers:
John Howard romps in in 1st, 2nd and 4th positions with the worst quarterlies
Harold Holt comes 3rd and 5th
Labor’s Paul Keating is 6th.Consecutive negative quarters – and bearing in mind the definition of recession is two negative quarters in a row – this time ranked by annual negatives:
Mr Howard is the winner with four quarterly negatives in a row (and the worst annual result at negative 2.943 per cent)
Mr Holt had three in a row (and an annual negative 1.237 per cent).
Mr Keating had four in a row (and an annual negative 1.147 per cent)
via Hospital Pass: Josh Frydenberg and the Coalition as, ahem, superior economic managers – Michael West
Investors haven’t been this pessimistic since the global financial crisis of 2008.
The 180 degree turn around by the Media is as remarkable because we had just as much to worry about when Abbott delivered his first budget. Yet the media in the main were puffing up Frydenberg and Morrison as the primo money managers of our economy. Interest cuts won’t have the retired spending their savings and that’s the cash they are after Superannuation because the middle class and working class workers are in debt and it’s growing (ODT)
The Government has turned to do what Wayne Swann did to fight the GST handed out money but not quite as universally across the board. More to those that don’t need it and less to those that do. Ins some cases over x10 times more to those at the top and they refuse to budge saying it’s all or nothing rigid management. Blame the opposition as Tony Abbott did (ODT)
The national accounts released on Wednesday were, by any measure, poor. A 0.4 per cent lift in the March quarter, half of which was statistical noise, took annual growth to its lowest level since the GFC.
Yet Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cannot show any sign of panic given just three weeks ago they were telling voters the economy’s fundamentals were sound under their watch.
Hope households use their engorged tax refund cheques and the cut in interest rates to spend up, pumping money into the economy.
Scott Morrison’s economic plan may need revising as the economy tanks
Ch9 has Gittons Murdoch McCrann wider than the Wealth and income gaps as economic truthsayers (ODT)
Remember this: a strong, healthy economy is one where demand is always threatening to push inflation above the target zone. Our inflation rate’s been below the target for three years.And this amazing fact: the world real long-term interest rate has been falling for years and is now at zero or below. That’s a sign of strong growth?It’s time Treasury and the Reserve stopped kidding themselves – and us.
via Strong economy? No, but maybe it will be eighth time lucky
Conditions aren’t being helped by the crude trade policies being pursued by the US, which are damaging its major trading partners with flow-on effects to the rest of the world, while hurting segments of its own economy in the process.
The Fed has now backed off on its attempt to use what had been benign conditions in the US – where the economy was growing strongly, if perhaps unsustainably, in response to the debt-funded Trump tax cuts and spending – to normalise its policies.
Australian households are among the world’s most indebted when compared with their income. And we’ve spent most of it on real estate.
Politicians are promising, but not delivering
Low wages, job insecurity and a sense the game is rigged tends to quickly follow through to the political arena.
Is it any wonder the LNP do what ever Newscorp asks they just might print the facts (ODT)
Annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the December quarter was a dismal 2.34%. The quarterly rise was just 0.18%. The latter ranks an appalling 32nd out of the 36 OECD members. It ranks 77th out of the 92 countries worldwide which record growth quarterly. Lowest ranking ever, by far.
With an election looming these numbers should remove any lingering doubt regarding the Coalition’s incompetence in economic management.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg hailed this week’s growth data with the mix of half-truths and blatant falsehoods we now expect from this Government:
‘With the unemployment rate at its lowest level in seven years … our economic foundations are in good shape’
Again, quite false. Australia’s jobless rate is at 5.02% is the same as it was back in 2011, when the whole world was in the worst global financial crisis in eighty years. Australia’s jobless rate then ranked sixth in the OECD. Now, after five years of strong global recovery, Australia ranks 17th.
GDP per capita shrank in the third quarter and on some forecasts it will shrink again in the fourth quarter — which technically would be a recession of sorts.
The maths is pretty simple.
Australia’s population grows at around 0.4 per cent a quarter (1.6 per cent a year). Quarterly GDP growth of 0.4 per cent delivers no growth on a per capita basis.
Population growth may be terrific for the headline aggregate number, but on an individual household level its impact is diluted by, well, the impact of more people.
The consensus call from market economists is for 0.4 per cent growth in the fourth quarter, although many say it could be worse — or “the risks are on the downside”, as they say — after a spate of soft economic data in recent weeks.
Morrison seems to be on a different page to the experts. In 6 years the managed to double our debt that took almost a Century to build. (ODT)
Low wages growth is undermining financial stability, curtailing economic growth, driving people into dangerous indebtedness, deepening inequality and undermining the Australian social compact built on the principle of a “fair go”.
Economic truth the LNP don’t want you to know and Trump hides wit the help of Murdoch. Our current economic reality and comparitive standing in the world today. Just over 5years ago Wayne Swann and Julia Gillard had us place 2nd today the the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government has us 20th telling us how ‘grear‘ that is and all Australians have benefited from their boom time.(ODT)
World’s best economy 2018: Iceland by an Arctic fox’s whisker
IF the Government thinks the nation’s credit card can afford $144 billion in personal income tax cuts and $65 billion in business tax cuts, why can’t it afford:
to raise Newstart and unemployment benefits;
to raise Old Age Pension and Aged Care services;
to properly fund Disability and Carer pension and services;
to increase Public Housing;
to fund more homeless shelters and homeless services;
to give tertiary students a break on HECS;
to make TAFE free;
to fund more domestic violence shelters and family violence services;
to fund more public education;
to fund more public health, particularly in areas of need;
to fund proper Veterans’ services (not just memorials for pollies to prance around on ANZAC day);
to fund more public transport; and
…the list goes on, feel free to add yours in the comments below.I say, if we truly do believe in a fair go in this country and our government wants to screech “class warfare”, well, you don’t need to be ALP or Green, just a decent human being to say:
BRING IT ON!
Economic Facts put Australian History into perspective when LNP want to reward the rich with 12.5 bill in tax cuts (ODT)
In 1989, there was one billionaire. In 2002, it reached ten. There were 29 in 2010. Today, it is 76. In 2017, the wealth of the richest 200 grew by about $50 billion or 21% to $282.7 billion. This 21% growth is ten times the growth of wages.
By contrast, between 1989 and 2016 average weekly wages have grown threefold, or thereabouts, over the same period of time.
It is time for workers to reclaim their unions, and to strike for big wage increases and a fair and just society. That and that alone will wipe the smile off the faces of the rich-listers, and begin the process of redistributing the wealth back to those who create it — workers.
via 2018 AFR Rich List: A sad indictment of Australia’s rampant neoliberalism
Australia ranks 12th in the Open Budget Index, and scores 74, much higher than the global average of 42 and the OECD average of 68. But Australia’s budget could still be more transparent if it included more on the budget’s impact on welfare and tax and by gender.
The Open Budget Index is published every two years and ranks countries using a transparency score, which is based on a survey for each country about publishing of budget documents, budget oversight and public participation.
via New Zealand, US and UK outrank Australia in scores on budget transparency
Drawing on a loose interpretation of international data, Treasurer Mathias Cormann is once again trying to convince us that corporate tax cuts are a path to “jobs and growth”. The reality is that our companies already have plenty of funds to invest – funds they are presently handing back to shareholders and to overpaid corporate executives, writes Ian McAuley.
via Cormann’s Tax Cut Con And The Media (Censoring) And Misreporting It – New Matilda
should the rise in prices be driven mostly by essentials such as utility prices, rents, health and education as has been the case for some years now, this lack of a growth in wage rises will also mean that households will continue to feel the effects of cost of living rises, even as overall inflation remains historically low.
ADF spends over $10 billion on US arms in four years
Posted | Updated
Australia spends more than $10 billion every four years on weapons and military equipment from the United States, with high-tech flying bombs and attack helicopter upgrades among the big-money items.
At a time of record low wage growth, when stressed working families struggle to pay the bills, we hear the same old tune – tax cuts for big business will lead to workers getting pay rises.
But a third of big businesses aren’t paying any tax, big business profits have increased massively, and yet workers’ wages remain at record lows while the casualisation of the workforce is accelerating.
via Trickle-down economics is the only song they know, and we’re sick of hearing it
From rooster to featherduster thank you Tony Abbottfor thr push downhill
via World’s best economies: Congratulations Singapore! Commiserations Australia
Ever thought about throwing it all in, selling up and moving overseas?
Source: What Melbourne’s median house price could buy you around the world
How the worm – and the world – turns. When the Abbott government came to power just four years ago, it claimed its arrival signalled the “end of the age of entitlement”. Don’t laugh, it’s happening – but in the opposite way to what treasurer Joe Hockey had in mind.
How about Rt-Wing Commentators at News Corp for whom reason has been Jettisoned. Andrew Bouldn’t bother to listen to this. ( Old Dog)
Essential finds only 12 per cent of respondents (including 14 per cent of Coalition voters) are “bothered a lot” by “the feeling that some poor people don’t pay their fair share”, whereas 53 per cent (40 per cent of Coalition voters) are bothered a lot by “the feeling that some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share”.
Source: The most arrogant people in Australia are business people and we’re sick of them
August 2017 has been atrocious for the wellbeing of most Australians. Treasurer Scott Morrison and his cabinet colleagues must be jubilant that other calamities are drowning out mainstream media reports on the failing economy.
Source: August economic news: Marvellous for the moguls, miserable for the majority
Surveys show most people say they need a little bit more than their getting for a comfortable life. Trouble is, they say that no matter how much their income rises.
Source: Revealed: the minimum income for a healthy life and how the dole falls way short
So, the Australian Bureau of Statistics told us this week, the rate of unemployment fell a click to 5.6 per cent in July. Trouble is, most people know the official unemployment rate understates the extent of the problem.
Source: The truth of the matter about the extent of our unemployment problem
Inequality is rising but we can learn from an earlier, more egalitarian Australia and reclaim the “fair go”.
Under current government policy we are penalising the sector of the economy where there is the largest proportion of existing employment and the best prospects for future growth.
Source: The government is backing the wrong industries, as our economy changes: Productivity Commission
Inequality in wealth had “become more pronounced in the past few years because of the of the rise in assets prices – people that own those assets have seen their wealth go up,” he said.
Source: Inequality increasing, says Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe
Builders are going broke at an alarming rate. And the nation’s net assets are rapidly diminishing, last week’s construction data from the ABS reveal.
Source: Abbott, Turnbull governments also screwed up the construction economy
