What Australians really want
Miranda Devine – Wednesday, August 03, 11 (06:46 pm)
WHAT is the great Australian dream? What do Australians want most out of life?
My take on what is important is it doesn’t work to hold onto it, but to foster it. I believe that in worshipping God my family life will sort itself. Yes my loved ones deserve love and respect, but they don’t necessarily get that if I invest my hopes and dreams in their performance. Instead they deserve my love and support and I am confident they will return it as they can. It is related to what God promises me, what he has given me. He is my father and wants my prosperity and worship and through that his family grows. Hallelujah.
Not a lot of Australians agree with me on that, but far more than believe that ruining industry will stop the world from heating. I will share my world with Charles Spurgeon in a morning or evening. They can share their dreams with Flannery’s Gaia. My tradition is richer, older and more rewarding.
Wed 03 Aug 11 (07:14pm)
Thu 04 Aug 11 (12:48pm)
You live in a Fantasy World! I hope you have a soft landing when you eventually come back to reality - or maybe not, I guess you’ll never really know that Heaven and Hell were a long-term joke!
Thu 04 Aug 11 (02:47pm)
DD Ball, I will not disrespect your beliefs but you do need to read science books and get the facts.
Tony Abbott has a climate plan as well! Yes!
But his is frailed by just about every economist and scientist. Even farmers disagree with it.
What is wrong with replacing fossil fuels, which are running out, with new and clean initiatives?
No one will go broke.
Thu 04 Aug 11 (03:06pm)
DD Ball that is so disrespectful to put down another person because of their beliefs, even if you don’t agree with them there’s no need to put them down. It takes a lot of personal strength and conviction to follow through with a belief system and I have a lot of admiration for people who believe in a higher power. There is no proof that these higher powers exist, but there is also no proof that they DON’T exist, so don’t be so condescending.
Thu 04 Aug 11 (03:07pm)
sorry my comment was for MattfromOz
Thu 04 Aug 11 (06:56pm)
Lol the joke is on you Matt! Matt you ridiculing DD Ball’s faith & mine for that matter shows you are extremely intolerant & spiritually bankrupt, all is well though Jesus loves me more than you will ever know what love is, cheers.
Thu 04 Aug 11 (07:23pm)
Matt time will tell who the fool is. And history is likely to show you as such, not DD Ball.
Thu 04 Aug 11 (09:29pm)
Matt, did you have something to add? Interesting you didn’t address the global warming take. So are you a believer in global warming? Many atheists seem to be.
Thu 04 Aug 11 (09:56pm)
Interesting combination of beliefs there, DD - christianity and shockjock theology. Surely it is more Christian to feel some
sense of responsibilty for the natural world bequested to
you to care for and to pass on to future generations.
How can any of you say, hand on heart, that Australians can live the same profligate lifestyles for the next 100 years without
any impact on resources, environment, economy, trade balance, quality of life, etc.? If nothing else it is a mathematical improbability. Acting responsibly means thinking beyond the
narrow confines of your comfortable suburban dwelling.
I loathe the Australian inability to do so or to put themselves
in the shoes of others less fortunate
Fri 05 Aug 11 (11:13am)
I loathe the Australian inability to do so or to put themselves in the shoes of others less fortunate..
What a steaming pile of sanctimonious rot.
Come down off the cross Sam, other people need the wood.
Fri 05 Aug 11 (12:33pm)
Sam Spade, wonderful detective work you have made there, linking me to a shock jock. Any idea which one? I am curious. My well developed sense of responsibility tells me that it would be careless to damage industry when it will be industry which saves us from the problem, if that is what CO2 is. Right now it looks like nuclear power would be a good way of producing electricity and not producing that plant food in large numbers. But I still think it good that there is plant food, even in the third world. I can see a world with a population exceeding 100 billions and it won’t be overdeveloped. There will still be forests and parks and places for poets to remark on their love of the beautiful.
Tony the Chow, I have read many science books. I have yet to find one which disproves God’s existence. I have read some with grandiose claims. Do you know of Godel’s theorem’s of incompleteness? Those aren’t proofs denying God either.
Ann, you rock.
Ivan, The Word has a message for you.
Lucky country tossing away its advantage
Piers Akerman – Thursday, August 04, 11 (06:49 pm)
ANY comparison with other Western nations demonstrates that Australia is the luckiest of countries - yet the Gillard Labor-Green-independent government seems hell-bent on destroying this legacy.
Australia under ALP is set to tax the 500 largest producers of plant food. This isn’t going to benefit Australians or Australia. It will probably startle the world. But it is minority government. It speaks volumes that they can do anything at all. If only one good person were a member of the parliament and ALP it wouldn’t happen at all.
Thu 04 Aug 11 (07:07pm)
Fri 05 Aug 11 (06:32am)
I think there’s hope in Craig Thomson case, do you have an insider news about the case DD?
Fri 05 Aug 11 (08:35am)
Aquarian....I agree, as long as due process can be expedited otherwise, it takes considerable time for these kinds of charges - against Thompson - to make it to court. His conviction will eventually bring down the entire government!
Our best immediate hope though, is with SOMEONE, ANYONE from the Labor Party to cross the floor on Carbon Tax Bill voting time when it is due in the house.
I would also expect that traitor Turnbull to join with Labor at vote time so we should probably hope for more than one disillusioned member of the government to ‘walk’.
Wishful hoping I know, but better than anything we have at the moment.
Fri 05 Aug 11 (09:17am)
I am not an insider, Aquarian. But I am confident that the loss of NSW is going to be a big thorn in the side of the ALPThere are corruption issues extant that will be seriously investigated and Mr O’Farrell is not going to rush it. He is going to do it right.
Fri 05 Aug 11 (09:31am)
There is more to the Craig Thomson case but it is history.
Shows exactly how he operates.
Fri 05 Aug 11 (09:33am)
DD, don’t hold your breath waiting for Labor to care about australians. The one hope on the horizon is that the Labor power brokers at least care about the future of their party. The signs are obvious, two more years of this incompetent idealistic nonsense from canberra and the Labor party can kiss its A… GOODBYE!
A number of people have sent me this video by Robert Reich that purports to explain “The Truth About the Economy” in under two minutes.
I stopped after 31 seconds when he said the economy has doubled in size since 1980 but wages are flat.
1. The deflators for GDP and wages are different. The one for wages overstates inflation–it does a bad job correcting for quality improvements. (The GDP deflator may also overstate inflation, but my point is that wages aren’t flat. My impression is that the GDP deflation ends up weighting computers differently but that’s an issue for another post.)
2. Wages aren’t what you want to use. You want to use compensation which includes benefits. Benefits have become a bigger part of compensation since 1980. By leaving out health benefits and using a deflator that includes health care inflation, you further bias the calculation.
3. There has been a great deal of immigration since 1980. The average immigrant is lower skilled than the average native worker. That pulls down the average and the median but doesn’t mean that the average worker is falling behind.
More here.
Don recently linked to an article I wrote that included my picture. One commenter, rbd, responded to the picture rather than the article:
One thing is quite evident: Russ needs to update his profile picture! He looks like he’s 37, or so.
I have to confess that I do look older than the photo. I’m 56 and there’s no way I look 37. In fact, I teased the editor about using that picture–she discovered it on the web and I told her it was out of date…
But Don responded to rbd:
Serving on the GMU Econ faculty is rather like swimming in the Fountain of Youth….
Of course he is right. So the puzzle is why do I look older than when I first arrived at GMU? And the answer is that if it weren’t working at GMU, I’d look even older than I do.
Brad DeLong points out that Hoover vetoed increased spending on veterans in 1931, then Congress overrode the veto. So Brad asks:
If Congress in 1931 passes a large benefit program for war veterans, and if Hoover vetoes it, and if Congress overrides the veto, and if the money is spent, does Hoover increase spending?
The title of DeLong’s post is “Fiscal Policy During the Great Depression.” Which is what I’m interested in. I’m interested in what happened to overall spending, not in cherry-picking one episode where Hoover vetoed one particular spending increase. Brad is right in that Hoover is not completely responsible for what happened to spending during his watch. It would be interesting to see how eager he was to increase spending. But there is the independent question of what happened to spending at the onset of the Great Depression. The myth is that spending went down. What actually happened is that spending went up between 1929 and 1933. As I wrote before:
Here are the levels of federal government spending (from here, Series Y 457-465) between 1924 and 1934 in billions of dollars
1924 $2.9
1925 $2.9
1926 $2.9
1927 $2.9
1928 $3.0
1929 $3.1
1930 $3.3
1931 $3.6
1932 $4.7
1933 $4.6Hoover took office in March of 1929. FDR took office in March of 1933. The data on spending are fiscal years, that ended in June 30 for this period. So Hoover’s budgets are roughly 1930 through 1933. Of course you have to correct for inflation. Or deflation as the case may be. In those years it was deflation. Prices of government purchases of goods and services (from here, Table 41) fell between 1930 and 1933 by roughly 10%. So Hoover actually increased spending by over 50% in real terms.
I wrote loosely. I should have said government spending increased 50% in real terms during the Hoover Administration. He did not single-handedly raise spending. He needed Congress to do that, and as DeLong points out, sometimes he opposed spending increases.
Brad uses this chart to look at Hoover and fiscal policy:
The implication of the chart is that there was fiscal stimulus in 1931 despite Hoover–the red line shows what happened and the blue line what would of happened if Hoover’s initial veto had not been overridden. There are two problems with the chart. The first is that no source is given for the data so I cannot uncover why the numbers conflict with the numbers I give above. Second, the numbers are in nominal terms, they are uncorrected for changes in the price level. As I pointed out above, there was serious deflation.
I cannot help but note this wise observation about bloggers who don’t correct nominal numbers for inflation (or deflation).
And as I have written in the past, I am happy to find out that the numbers I cite aren’t the right ones for some reason and will post any corrections that show, corrected for changes in the price level, that fiscal policy was contractionary (according to the standard interpretations of government spending) during Hoover’s Administration. But the numbers I see show the opposite.
DOW DOWN
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (07:22 am)
Australian market reaction will be fascinating:
US stocks plunged this morning in the biggest sell-off since the financial crisis, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 500 points, as investors appeared to lose faith in the ability of the world’s policy makers to revive the global economy and stave off a rolling debt crisis in Europe …
It was the measure’s biggest single-day loss since December 1, 2008, when the Dow plunged 679.95 points at the height of the financial crisis, one of the market’s worst days ever.
“Stock market tanks,” writes Jennifer Rubin. “Obama ‘recovery’ is a fantasy.” Everything’s suddenly looking veryDetroit. Further from Roger Simon.
UPDATE. Wild ride ahead:
10.15am: The local share market has fallen more than four per cent in opening trade this morning after the local futures market dived …
The ASX200 has opened [at] its lowest point since July 2009.
WHO WILL TELL US HOW TO DO THINGS?
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:01 am)
A crisis looms:
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has ridiculed the opposition for hinting it might axe the Climate Change Department if it won the next election …
“(They’re saying) we’re not even going to have any professional public servants to provide advice about how to do things.”
Imagine just how terrible that will be. Without the $90 milion Department of Climate Change providing crucial how-to-do-things advice, we’ll be returned to the Dark Ages of pre-2007.
UPDATE. According to Lateline video, Gillard said “advice about how to do this”, rather than – as AAP’s copy has it – “advice about how to do things”. The ABC transcript:
Where this leaves the Liberal Party is that their policy proposition for the Australian people is, “We’re going to have a big slush fund. We, the Liberal Party, are going to have a big slush fund, we’re going to give that big slush fund to polluters and we’re not even going to have any professional public servants to provide advice about how to do this.”
Presumably, Tony Abbott’s just going to sit down with Joe Hockey and a big bucket of money andchuck it wherever they think they can.
Isn’t that what the government intends to do with the carbon tax?
KNOW YOUR TROLL
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (05:59 am)
James Delingpole identifies the seven types of troll. In a good week, we’ll see all those types make appearances here.
BIG WHEELS
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (05:57 am)
There’s plenty wrong with China, but at least they don’t listen to Al Gore:
China is falling in love with big, fuel guzzling SUVs, a new trend that is likely to cause further pollution and environmental damage. Here is are some facts on car use in China:
In 2009, China surpassed the US as the largest auto manufacturing and consuming country in the world.
In 2010 China’s automobile output and sales volume both exceeded 18 million, setting a new world record.
Currently, there are more than 72 million private cars on the road in China, and a total of 217 million vehicles.
Let’s see how this relates to Julia Gillard’s great planet-saving strategy:
“By 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year. That’s the equivalent of taking forty five million cars off the road.”
That’s the same number of cars China will put on the road, at 2010 rates, within just 30 months.
(Via s_dog)
UPDATE. Here comes the sickness:
In a recent statement, [Western Sydney Labor MP David] Bradbury warned that climate change would result locally in an outbreak of serious disease.
“Without taking action, Australia is expected to experience higher rates of infectious and vector-borne diseases as well as food and waterborne diseases,” he said …
Ironically, Mr Bradbury was speaking at the time to protest against what he described as the Coalition’s “scaremongering” tactics.
And Labor wonders why people turn against them.
CLEAN ENERGY TODAY
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (05:24 am)
Maurie S. emails:
Hey Tim,
Received my copy of Gillard’s Carbon, Clean Energy Future, Windmills Are Us brochure in the mail today.
Was disappointed to find that the Government decided to ‘carbon offset’ the production of my copy - without my permission. As evidenced by my attached photo, I have rectified the issue.
Kind regards,Maurie
SCIENTISTS SUSPECTED
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (05:17 am)
The public verdict is in:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 69% say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs, including 40% who say this is Very Likely. Twenty-two percent (22%) don’t think it’s likely some scientists have falsified global warming data, including just six percent (6%) say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 10% are undecided …
The number of adults who say it’s likely scientists have falsified data is up 10 points from December 2009.
As a warmenist might put it: “How long do we have to shout ‘no’ to make sure you listen?”
(Via Benny Peiser)
GIFT KEEPS ON GIVING
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (05:11 am)
Now that our sad leftist friends at New Matilda have agreed to become Super Puppy donors, they’ll be receiving emails like this until the end of time:
Dear New Matilda,Welcome to your latest edition of Dogetales.
It’s been the perfect weather for the Super Pups - they love nothing more than getting wet and muddy - they tell me it’s great for their fur coats.
Lots has been going on lately. Top Dog has come out of running retirement to run with the pack, leading the way in this years fun run events, we rescued two pound puppies who are now in training as Super Puppies and all the dogs are getting their wet noses together to organise what they’re going to do for Dogtober.
This relentless puppy happiness is possibly distinct from the usual morbid commie grief oozing from New Matilda‘s inboxes. Maybe it’ll cheer them up.
HUSH LITTLE LEFTISTS
Tim Blair – Friday, August 05, 11 (03:33 am)
Column* from me in the latest Spectator:
It ought be nearly impossible to move through the streets of any Australian capital at the moment, what with them all jammed to the shopfronts by furious Leftist protesters. Anyone in charge of a large-scale papier maché operation — no Leftist protest is complete without a giant puppet head — might expect to be running triple shifts.
After all, we’re presently overrun with the sort of issues that previously drove the Left into a frenzy of indignant street chanting. The federal government has just signed a deal to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia, a nation that is not a signatory to the United Nations’ refugee convention. The government’s planet-rescuing carbon tax excludes agriculture and petrol, which renders it a token measure capable only of damaging the local economy while doing nothing about alleged global warming. The government is cosying up to Big Coal, promising that this demonised industry has a viable future.
Please do read on.
*Contains bonus typo!
And Gillard’s plan is to make us even weaker?
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (12:19 pm)
Julia Gillard didn’t need this to prove her leadership is dead and her carbon dioxide tax a monumental folly:
THE Australian sharemarket slumped 4 per cent in early trade today after offshore markets tumbled on heightened concerns the global economy was heading towards a double-dip recession.
Investors were especially troubled by ongoing weakness in the US and worries that the Europe debt crisis was spreading.
Oxygen administered to Turnbull
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (10:45 am)
Former Liberal Senator Nick Minchin is right - but unhelpful in writing this letter to The Australian:
MALCOLM Turnbull seems utterly preoccupied with Liberal Party conservatives ("Malcolm in the middle warns party against arch conservatives”, 4/8).
His preoccupation reveals a man who can’t get over losing the Liberal leadership in 2009, and is desperate for someone to blame for taking it away from him—hence his repeated attacks on conservatives.
Having himself taken the leadership from Brendan Nelson, Turnbull has only himself to blame for the failure of his year-long leadership of the Liberal Party. It was his deficiencies as a leader—not those terrible conservatives—that led to his demise.
He should concentrate now on supporting Tony Abbott and being a committed team player, rather than publicly attacking those he wrongly blames for his failed leadership.
Nick Minchin, Adelaide, SA
Turnbull is right:
Responding to the scathing letter, Mr Turnbull appeared uninterested and tweeted: ”Yawn. Would have thought with financial markets plunging, there was more to talk about than the Oz letters page.”
If the Government hadn’t covered up, it wouldn’t be so exposed now
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (10:37 am)
Big surprise:
Big dilemma. If the Government doesn’t send these “children” back to Malaysia, it will invite yet more “children” to exploit this loophole. But if it does send these “children” back, it will be accused of cruelty by the wilfully blind Left.
If only it had admitted earlier that we were being conned and then cracked down. After all, the evidence was clear, asI’ve warned for at least eight months.
A spotter’s guide to trolls
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (07:15 am)
James Delingpole identifies the seven types of trolls:
There’s an argument which goes that we bloggers need our pet trolls almost as much as they need us. I’m not sure I value them that highly myself but I do find them a fascinating case study. What intrigues me is their psychopathology. I mean, it takes a certain sort of mentality actively to seek out columnists with whom you disagree and lurk below their blog being spiteful and angry and disruptive. Maybe I’d respect them more if they weren’t cowering behind the mask of anonymity, or if ever for once in their sad, deficient lives they actually strove to engage with the arguments made. But they never do, for such is the nature of trolling.
In the early days, I admit, I used to get quite upset by the horrid things trolls said about me… What I’ve since learned to appreciate is that the problem with trolls is not my problem: it’s theirs. These are psychologically damaged creatures, eaten up with an awful lot of rage and sense of their own inadequacies. Below are some the varieties of troll I have identified. I’m sure you’ll have fun deciding which avatars best fit into which category.
(Via Tim Blair, who has a fine collection of trolls himself.)
$20 million to study a Greens pie in the sky
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (07:06 am)
Why is the Gillard Government wasting $20 million on a study into something so obviously unfeasible?
JULIA Gillard yesterday warned that a proposed high-speed rail line along the nation’s eastern seaboard would be expensive and take many years to finance and build.
The Prime Minister yesterday welcomed the release of a $20 million feasibility study on the proposed 2000km rail link, saying it would inform a national debate on the issue.
At an estimated cost of between $61 billion and $106bn, she said the project was “a long way in the future”.
The mystery was explained by former Labor Minister Gary Johns a year ago, before the election:
In April, the Greens Leader Bob Brown announced his desire for a major “concept study” into a high-speed rail link between Sydney and Melbourne. It ticks the right green boxes; substituting for air travel, combating increasing urbanisation, and reducing transport emissions.
THE Gillard government will announce funding to locate a route for a high-speed rail link between Newcastle and Sydney, as a first step towards the much talked about Brisbane-to-Melbourne link.In a speech today, the Transport and Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, will promise $20 million for a feasibility study that will determine the route, the land corridor needed, how many passengers would have to use the link to make it viable and how much it would cost.
But as Johns warned, studies had already warned this was a bank-breaking idea:
The Very Fast Train was seriously considered by the Hawke government in 1991. It was abandoned when the cost and benefit study proved it was not viable.
In December 2008, the Rudd government took an interest in a Very Fast Train along the Sydney-Melbourne corridor, but the $25 billion of infrastructure spending announced in the federal budget of May 2009 did not include fast rail…
The evidence against the VFT is strong. Alan Davies, the Melbourne economic consultant, argues that a VFT is too risky in competing against air travel when airlines have scope to price out new entrants…
And, for the practically minded, while rail and plane can both be closed down by station-terminal incidents, the entire VFT rail line can be stopped by blockages from mechanical breakdowns, accidents and hoaxes. In contrast, while one flight might be delayed or cancelled, passengers can take a later flight or use an alternative carrier.
That’s how casually the Gillard Government has wasted another $20 million.
How Labor’s green alarmism caused this financial disaster
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:55 am)
A perfect illustration of green Labor in action:
VICTORIA’S troubled desalination plant is a full-blown financial disaster for its builder, who will now seek a deadline extension after it revealed its expected earnings have fallen by nearly $600 million since April.
Construction giant Leighton yesterday reported that bad weather and industrial strife were causing delays and had ‘’severely impacted’’ on the Wonthaggi project, Australia’s largest desal scheme…
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union state secretary Bill Oliver ... said above average rain and poor management decisions were the main reasons for the problems faced by Thiess…
The public-private partnership has been mired in controversy ever since, a situation worsened by steady rain, rising dam levels and revelations that the price tag to the public would be a budget-busting $24 billion (over 28 years).
Here are the relevant ingredients:
- A Labor Government that becomes convinced by global warming alarmists that it may never rain heavily again.
- A Labor Government that becomes convinced by green extremists that it would be a sin to dam a river, even one with a reservation for a dam that could provide three times the water of this desal plant at a quarter of the price.
- A Labor Government that does not take on union power,
- A Labor Government that’s resolution to be careful in future with taxpayers’ money does somehow not apply to anything dubbed green.
In power united
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:50 am)
Powerful people are drawn to other powerful people:
2GB’s Alan Jones: I have not met Therese Rein but I hope she doesn’t mind if I call her Therese.
Rein: G’day Alan. How are you?
Jones: Well this is more than a surprise! How is your husband?
Rein: He’s doing so well post surgery. He’s been up, he’s been walking.
Jones: When I had my fourth cancer operation and I was recovering I got a phone call and they said the prime minister’s on the line. And I said what on earth does the prime minister want? And there was Kevin Rudd on the phone and he asked how I was and wished me well. So when I knew he was in hospital in Brisbane I sent some flowers. And I sent the message saying: in politics we may be divided but in good health we’re united.
Rein: And that’s why I’m ringing you to thank you for your kindness in sending those flowers.
Jones: Well that’s very kind of you. We may be divided in politics but in good health we’re united.
Rann’s rabble
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:43 am)
This is a circus, but Mike Rann is betting the faction bosses have lost confidence in Rudding him:
MIKE Rann dared Labor factional powerbrokers to challenge him in a bloody partyroom coup when told they had chosen Education Minister Jay Weatherill to replace him as premier of South Australia, it can be revealed.
Senior Labor sources said the long-serving Premier had questioned the courage of the factions after union boss Peter Malinauskas and Treasurer Jack Snelling told Mr Rann the dominant Right had agreed to back Mr Weatherill, the leader of the Left…
”Challenge me, I dare you to challenge me,” Mr Rann said at the meeting in his office last Friday...
If they can’t even talk to each other…
Mr Weatherill said yesterday the Premier was ignoring his calls and text messages, thus he could only make assumptions about what Mr Rann might do.
And if the plotters don’t even respect the advice of the man they want to make their leader…
This came as momentum built yesterday among a rogue group of MPs in Mr Weatherill’s Left faction to force a leadership spill if Mr Rann did not announce next week his intention to resign before parliament resumed on September 13…
Mr Weatherill had called into Adelaide’s ABC radio breakfast program earlier to urge “frustrated MPs” to be patient. “It’s not really a proper approach and I’ll certainly be making that clear to Mr Sneath,” he said.
But (Legislative Council president Bob) Sneath said there was a growing group of MPs who “don’t always take notice of what Jay or anybody else says”.
This rabble is leading the state?
Markets plunge, yet Gillard still keeps talking up her new tax
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:35 am)
So this is how the markets judge the “success” of Barack Obama’s deal to raise the US debt:
THE Dow Jones Industrial Average has sunk 512.61 points, its steepest drop since 2008.
The blue-chip index closed down more than four percent to 11,383.83, erasing its yearly gain amid a torrent of concern about the nation’s lingering employment weakness.
The slump is expected to spark carnage when the Australian market opens at 10am.
I know, I’m no economist, but is this honestly the right time to be bringing in a new tax to make our electricity more expensive, so it’s tougher for business to keep going?
UPDATE
Are we totally insane to be spending billions to close down our cheapest forms of power generation - and just when the economy looks like it’s about to go over a cliff?
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson named three leading corporate advisory firms to help the Gillard government negotiate a billion-dollar closure of a brown-coal electricity generator as it seeks to cut carbon emissions.
Moran quits working for the mob
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:31 am)
I’m not sure working for the madhouse that is federal Labor has been a very happy experience for Moran:
JULIA Gillard will lose her most senior public servant when the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Terry Moran, retires next month…
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd appointed Mr Moran to the post in March 2008… The two fell out towards the end of Mr Rudd’s reign, as the government became mired in dysfunction and division over issues including a proposed super-profits tax on the mining industry. It is understood Mr Rudd and Mr Moran barely spoke in the months before Mr Rudd was ousted by Ms Gillard in June last year.
Last night, the Prime Minister lauded Mr Moran’s performance… She said Mr Moran had told her of his intention to retire in January but she had prevailed upon him to serve for another six months to finalise “critical projects”, including the proposed carbon tax and a health reform deal with the states, which was signed this week....
Despite the tribute, Mr Moran has not been universally popular, with Transport Minister Anthony Albanese clashing with him earlier this year over his management of a conflict with the new NSW Liberal government over road funding.
The Australian revealed in June that Mr Albanese and some other ministers had pressed Ms Gillard for Mr Moran’s removal.
Productivity Commission: Gillard’s work place laws hurt the economy
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:20 am)
The Productivity Commission attacks the industrial changes that Julia Gillard personally designed, saying they have hurt our productivity - and crippled investment in new jobs:
LABOR is under fresh pressure to change its workplace laws after the Productivity Commission urged Labor to examine retailer concerns the workplace system was constraining flexibility and increasing costs…
Concern highlighted by the commission in yesterday’s inquiry findings included increases in penalty rates that retailers said were undermining the ability to trade profitably at the hours many consumers preferred to shop…
The report—commissioned in response to an industry campaign against a tax-free threshold benefiting offshore online retailers—urged the government “to lift restrictions that inhibit new competitive retailers from coming in here and lift restrictions stopping existing retailers from responding and adapting to that new competitive environment"…
The report found employers believed minimum award wages were high in Australia, by international comparison, and were constraining the ability of employers to restructure worker remuneration in ways that could enhance productivity. Businesses complained that award requirements that casual employees be engaged for no fewer than three hours had also constrained workplace flexibility. “If the Australian retail industry is to become more competitive in the face of international online retail competition, it is critical that employers, employees and unions work constructively to implement productivity enhancing workplace arrangements, including those focused on operational and trading hours flexibility and improved customer service,” the commission found.
“That said, participants have indicated that provisions in the Fair Work Act governing the making and approval of enterprise agreements, in particular the ‘every worker must be better off overall’ test, are increasing the cost and complexity of negotiating enterprise agreements and making productivity improvements more difficult to achieve."…
“The Australian government should, within the context of the current system and consistent with the maintenance of minimum safety net provisions for all employees, examine retail industry concerns about the operation of the Fair Work Act,” it found.
The Governments it’s changing nothing. To do so would be to concede that Gillard doesn’t know how to run an economy.
Why has the Left given Gillard a pass?
Andrew Bolt – Friday, August 05, 11 (06:00 am)
It ought be nearly impossible to move through the streets of any Australian capital at the moment, what with them all jammed to the shopfronts by furious Leftist protesters. Anyone in charge of a large-scale papier maché operation — no Leftist protest is complete without a giant puppet head — might expect to be running triple shifts.
After all, we’re presently overrun with the sort of issues that previously drove the Left into a frenzy of indignant street chanting. The federal government has just signed a deal to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia, a nation that is not a signatory to the United Nations’ refugee convention. The government’s planet-rescuing carbon tax excludes agriculture and petrol, which renders it a token measure capable only of damaging the local economy while doing nothing about alleged global warming.... And, by the way, we still have troops in Afghanistan, and the Labor Prime Minister is such a fan of the US that she almost cries just talking about it.
Yet the protests that were so much a part of John Howard’s time as PM are barely visible under the reign of Julia Gillard ...
What protests there would have been had Howard threatened a media inquiry into news organisations that criticised his policies. Had his Nationals partners threatened to force owners of newspapers to sell off their papers for being too “biased”.....
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