Peter Martin

http://arttobuild.ru/ Мир архитектуры и строитель...

2009-11-08T19:00:32.979+11:00

http://arttobuild.ru/ Мир архитектуры и строительства.
Сайт посвящен: современная архитектура, архитектура и история,
галерея с 5000 фотографиями зданий, архитектурный форум и многое другое

Aldi does. But not everyone shops there. They sh...

2009-11-08T18:18:02.933+11:00

Aldi does.

But not everyone shops there.

They should - I do.

Doesn't Aldi have uniform national pricing making ...

2009-11-08T17:50:43.826+11:00

Doesn't Aldi have uniform national pricing making these kind of comparisons a bit pointless?

But do you have any alternative policy proposals C...

2009-11-07T22:52:50.922+11:00

But do you have any alternative policy proposals Carbonsink?

Meanwhile from my Cairns based perspective I can only make the following observations on arrivals / departures .....

1) Both arrivals and departures during the GFC have been much more resilient than in recent past shocks such as 9/11, the Asia crisis, the mild early noughties US recession, Iraq, internet bubble collapse and 2003 bear market.

2) The trend turnaround between arrivals and departures, along with other graphs posted, correlate with other key trends such as currency, commodities and terms of trade related to China and emerging economies etc etc. Although any small impact from boosted immigration arrivals doesn't show up in the arrivals.

3) International arrivals were stalling long BEFORE the GFC!

Note here that the international arrivals for Cairns in the more recent past, as far as I am aware, show a far more severe downturn (ex transits) than apparent in arrivals nationally. Some events very specific to Cairns have impacted locally to drive regional unemployment to the highest nationally.

Four of these graphs are profoundly depressing - ...

2009-11-07T09:59:21.458+11:00

Four of these graphs are profoundly depressing

- Population Growth
- Change in US Dollar
- Departures vs Arrivals
- Mining Investment

They all point an overcrowded Australia that does nothing but dig up rocks and spends the proceeds overseas.

I'm not going to enjoy that. Will you?

Stevens has become a cheerleader for quarry Austra...

2009-11-07T09:42:56.178+11:00

Stevens has become a cheerleader for quarry Australia.

I have yet to hear him comment on any risks ahead for the Chinese economy, when plainly the risks are huge.

Scary.

Will Swan & Co entertain progressive change, or pi...

2009-11-07T08:40:12.928+11:00

Will Swan & Co entertain progressive change, or piroette, Costello & Co style, and place public on ignore*?

ACOSS - Key benchmarks for reform:
- removing the 50% discount for capital gains
- replacing tax breaks for super contributions with a simple Government Co-contribution that favours low and middle income earners
- removing opportunities to shelter income in private companies and trusts.

*Place public on ignore:
"As previously announced, the Government considers that it would be inappropriate to change existing arrangements relating to capital gains or negative gearing. The Government has improved incentives to save and invest by introducing an internationally competitive capital gains tax regime. The Government will therefore not be conducting a review of the tax system with respect to housing or changing the capital gains tax provisions."

In other words, property portfolios before people. Thank the 'Liberals' for regressing the social economy.

Also, agree with comment re index tax thresholds.

The gist of the ACOSS submission appears to be: ri...

2009-11-06T19:47:24.644+11:00

The gist of the ACOSS submission appears to be: rich people need to be taxed more and steal money from the rest of us.

I actually agree with some of what they are saying. Our tax system is in need of reform, but simply making the income tax system more progressive won't fix it. What will end up happening, as usual, is the middle income group taking it in the shorts.

Why don't we start off with making the top marginal rate, the company rate and a CGT rate all the same. Let's say, somewhere between 25 and 35%. We then raise the tax free threshold to double or more of it's current value to make sure that low to middle income earners aren't paying too much. We also get rid of most of the deductions that distort the system and allow people to take a simple, standard deduction every year (I believe Ken Henry has suggested it), which reduces compliance costs. Finally, please can we have "married filing jointly" status like the US?

One other suggestion: can we please have the tax brackets indexed to inflation or rises in income. Bracket creep really irritates me. Either that, or flatten the existing brackets further.

Not quite Rog. According to the IMF, Norway's GD...

2009-11-06T19:28:19.874+11:00

Not quite Rog.

According to the IMF, Norway's GDP/capita was USD53k in 2007 vs USD37k for Australia. They have the lions share of North Sea hydrocarbon reserves (around 54% of oil and 45% of gas). Were it not for that, they'd be still catching fish for a living and maybe driving ships around. They are also not part of the EU (though they are part of the EEA), which means their cost of government is lower than that of many other countries.

Norway has a little under 5M inhabitants to divvy ...

2009-11-06T16:38:36.584+11:00

Norway has a little under 5M inhabitants to divvy up the proceeds with a higher cost of living - GDP per capita is twice that of Australia.

Dear A, The spendathon did help bring about the e...

2009-11-06T15:26:29.970+11:00

Dear A,

The spendathon did help bring about the economic recovery.

Here's the RBA's estimate, at p39 of today's quarterly statement:

"The peak effect on growth of these discretionary measures is estimated to have been in the June quarter – at almost 1 percentage point in that quarter."

Even the Opposition agrees.

It has not released its estimate but the Shadow Treasurer has conceded:

"If you throw enough money at a problem, some of it will stick."

The fiscal stimulus didn't help the sun come up but it did help boost economic activity.

Do you think it did not?

"I really don't care. Given that one helped cause ...

2009-11-06T13:26:29.694+11:00

"I really don't care. Given that one helped cause the other, the two seem pretty much the same to me." - It is comments like this that have made me cease taking you seriously on anything, Peter. Any fool can make an assertion, but where's your evidence? Your statement is of the same value as the following statement: "The sun came up today, therefore the cause must have been the fiscal stimulus..." Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Yes, let's boycott Fiji, Zimbabwe and Burma. Sanct...

2009-11-06T12:09:29.393+11:00

Yes, let's boycott Fiji, Zimbabwe and Burma. Sanctions on small countries are a good way to show our concern for human rights without the need to make any real sacrifices. But let's not mention China.

Agreed, we cannot assume the boom will last foreve...

2009-11-06T10:35:39.494+11:00

Agreed, we cannot assume the boom will last forever.

Indeed, all of this is predicated on a China boom that can't continue without resumption of consumption growth in the US, Europe and Japan.

China needs to develop a domestic consumer economy and that simply isn't happening. Just because the Chinese have engineered a massive investment bubble this year (which is sucking in Aussie rocks at a great rate) doesn't mean it will continue.

China may well make the transition to a modern consumer economy, but that will take decades. Equally they may not. Their bubble economy may burst like it did in Japan in the late 1980s followed by two decades of stagnation.

We are assuming that China will grow forever and that's a very dangerous assumption. The urgency to save the proceeds of the boom is far greater than most realise.

Nice idea. It certainly would change my opinion of...

2009-11-05T21:31:28.518+11:00

Nice idea. It certainly would change my opinion of Australian economic management if it did happen. But seriously? What are the chances. The two-party system in this country has a mostly negative effect on decision making with petty point scoring and hypocrisy the order of the day. Such bipartisanship is not likely.

I like tap water, I drink tap water. NOM NOM NOM....

2009-11-05T18:05:03.116+11:00

I like tap water, I drink tap water.

NOM NOM NOM.

Or, alternatively, raise wages in third world coun...

2009-11-05T10:41:31.459+11:00

Or, alternatively, raise wages in third world countries. Difficult when trade unions are outlawed (I'm looking at you, China).

Garbage. this was all decided back Mar-Apr 2008 ex...

2009-11-05T01:07:31.482+11:00

Garbage. this was all decided back Mar-Apr 2008 except maybe the AMOUNT below which accounts would be guaranteed. Remember it was to be $20K and Truffles wanted $100K and finally it was unlimited with it reduced to $1m a bit later.

If we didn't buy imported goods then every retail ...

2009-11-04T20:34:22.451+11:00

If we didn't buy imported goods then every retail clerk would be out of work. People's ignorance is a thing to behold when they say we shouldn't buy anything but Australian.

Of course if they recommend that Australian wages should be equivalent to that in China and India then we would have lots of Australian made goods.

People's answer aka Workchoices is lower Australia's standard of living to that of the third world on behalf of big business.

Oh God, that's a relief! I'd hate to think we'd s...

2009-11-04T16:33:14.615+11:00

Oh God, that's a relief! I'd hate to think we'd stopped borrowing money to splurge at the mall on imported goods. I mean, it would be positively un-Australian to do otherwise!

"savers are a legitimate part of the community" O...

2009-11-04T15:58:46.100+11:00

"savers are a legitimate part of the community"

Oh come now, that's an absurd notion. The Australian way is to reward speculators, sorry "investors", with all kinds of tax concessions and bribes, especially when the investor has borrowed money to speculate. While savers have every dollar of interest taxed at their top marginal rate.

"... We are slugged with an extra $46 or more per ...

2009-11-04T11:38:55.891+11:00

"... We are slugged with an extra $46 or more per month in repayments on a $300,000 mortgage ..."

You and I are thus slugged; a lot of others, particularly the young and the old, are not. If this country is to develop a savings culture, we might start by remembering that savers are a legitimate part of the community.

I think there's much in what you say. At the very...

2009-11-04T10:54:24.301+11:00

I think there's much in what you say.

At the very least there's none of the more usual pressure from the Treasurer's office to have Treasury consider brighter possibilities.

Brilliant!

2009-11-04T10:36:15.678+11:00

Brilliant!

They're just doing a Keating. You deliberately ha...

2009-11-04T10:34:55.638+11:00

They're just doing a Keating. You deliberately have really gloomy figures for your MYEFO (because the punters in the street rarely hear about it) in order to have huge pleasant "surprises" in your Budget (which makes page one everywhere).

PJK did it most years - it didn't raise his well-known low opinion of both journos and financial markets that it worked so well.

Plus, of course, this upcoming Budget will be an election one so it's all the more important to have those pleasant surprises.