Mr Macmillan was a believable sort of chap.

When Mr Howard plagiariased Mr Macmillan, on the other hand, Mr Howard had long ceased to be a believable sort of chap.

Perhaps Mr Howard has not yet accepted the fact that many people think of him as a liar.

If Mr Howard had accepted the fact that many people think of him as a liar, perhaps he would not have expressed the rather unoriginal sentiment that “You’ve never had it so good.”

Political careers are killed by this kind of miscalculation.

Perhaps Mr Howard isn’t a clever politician any more, either.

My friends, we all prize the financial security of our families. Let me say this, and it’s not just my view, but it’s a view frequently expressed to me as I move around this country talking to Australian families. Nothing threatens that security more directly than the prospect of rising interest rates. Rising interest rates dominates everything else when it comes to family security. Just a tiny upward movement in interest rates more than devours a few dollars of taxation relief or additional family benefits. There is no economic credential for office more crucial than a capacity to keep interest rates low.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3728000/3728225.stm

20 July 1957, apparently.

Has there ever been a time when a long-term incumbent government, witnessing voters losing interest in it, were jerked back to the party line with the cry “you’ve never had it so good�?

Macmillan was pretty new to the job when he uttered this line, but the Conservatives had been in power since 1951. He won big in the following election (‘59).

Sigh.

(1) The RBA say that the profit share is not at record highs. Are they not a credible source for this kind of stuff anymore?;

(2) Payments to CEOs and other executive employees detract from the profit share. Wages are not profits (to be fair, on a charitable reading you may not have made this particular mistake);

(3) Real wages growth has been observed on both a mean and median basis. There is no mathematical trick to this and the outlying high salaries do not skew the median. According to the latest Census data, median individual and household income (ie. not just wages) growth has occured for the entire term of the Howard government; and

(4) RBA figures show that the hours underutilisation rate (ie. hours of work that unemployed and underemployed workers are searching for as a per cent of total hours searched for or worked) is only marginally above the headline unemployment rate (around 5%).

To summarise, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

Cheers
BBB

Doesn’t the RBA report say that the profit share: “remained close to its 30-year high”, strongly suggesting that it is, in fact, below the 30-year high? How did you come up with “the RBA’s own numbers show this is at its highest level in 30 years”? In any case, it appears to flatly contradict your original assertion, made just hours ago, that the profit share was “at a record high”. How did you get it so wrong?

Anyway, the RBA material you’ve linked to has a great comparison of the current resources boom and similar circumstances between 1974-1986. If the mining sector goes through the same experience this time around, it seems that Rudd, and not Howard, will get the greater benefit of persistently high commodity prices and, perhaps more importantly, significantly higher production and export volumes, with obvious implications for our external trade position. Throw in a breaking of the drought, and it may be that Rudd’s timing turns out to be even better than Howard’s! Is Cossie as patient as he will probably need to be? Almost certainly not.

Cheers
BBB

Ken Phillips of the Institute of Public Affairs, hardly a nest of lefties, wrote an opinion piece in The Age just last month proclaiming the absence of wage-induced inflation at a time of record low unemployment.

And he attributed this to the impact of the government’s workplace relations changes. Recent changes to the laws had “neutered” old-fashioned notions of wages justice, Phillips wrote.

As to the profit share, the RBA’s own numbers show this is at its highest level in 30 years.

According to the national accounts, business profits grew by 6.3 per cent in the year to the December quarter. Annual growth in wages, meanwhile, has remained steady at around 4 per cent per annum.

Mr Greenfield, you would do well to stick to the facts rather than descending to infantile abuse.

Terrible marketing by Howard because with unemployment at record lows, the stock market at record highs (well, last week anyway), and the economy growing at a nice 3% clip, he should have walked this election.

Howard claimed ownership of the good times during his victory over Latham back in 2004. He said that he was protecting living standards from the ravages of ALP misrule.

It is thus utterly consistent for him to claim credit for what he promised to do way back in 2004.

The term “marketing” implies that Howard is in control of the message that he wants to broadcast to the electorate. It implies that Howard might, with equal facility, spin a different, even opposite message for the sake of maximisation of electoral return.

This is how we have come to understand Howard — the disciplined, maximising political machine. This is the essence of Howard’s image as a “clever politician”.

Howard’s recent behaviour, on the contrary, has come as quite a shock to persons commited to the view of Howard as a “clever politician”.

No, we are witnessing a very different Howard. He has either tired of spinning, or has lost the capacity to spin.

As Howard views the prospect of the end of his political career, finally, he wants to say something that he genuinely believes. And he genuinely believes that he has bequeathed Australia his legacy of sound management, stability and prosperity. Finally, he wants some credit for a genuine achievement.

And what an irony has greeted his latterday candour.

He finally speaks from the heart and he is derided as a mentally schlerotic, tone-deaf, accident-prone old git.

The truth has damned John Winston Howard.

Has there ever been a time when a long-term incumbent government, witnessing voters losing interest in it, were jerked back to the party line with the cry “you’ve never had it so good”?

BBB, that of course is the danger of symbolic politics – it’s good for winning elections, but not so good for delivering. Howard is finding that out now, and on one interpretation, he’s also demonstrated that it takes a long time for the deficit between rhetoric and reality to become apparent. But I’m not sure that’s the right lesson to draw, as each Howard election victory has rested in large part on fear of the alternative rather than an endorsement of what he’s done per se.

the media trumpets the lack of growth in average weekly earnings as a positive

Huh? There has been significant growth in AWE over the past ten years.

The profit share of the economy is at a record high

Huh?

Rudd would do well to urge people to go and see Michael Moore’s explosive new movie ‘Sicko’ on the rank injustices of the dog-eat-dog American healthcare system

You would do well to stop obssessing over the U.S. and gain some insight into the Australian political economy before you start deifying Mr. Moore. You would also do well to take an Adult Education class in “Deconstructing Michael Moore 101.”