An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Tag Archive for 'Christmas'
We hope you all have a wonderful, safe and enjoyable day! xo
The telly news led with rhetoric suggesting the February retail figures showed that spending “dried up” after the December stimulus, and the opposition chimed in with their claim that “the money was saved” (which apparently is terrible, even though it frees up more money for spending…) But… Peter Martin links to analysis which contradicts the narrative of the day:
The ABS stopped calculating the trend (the dark line) in November because “it is not possible to determine the trend in retail turnover through the period affected by the Federal Government Economic Security Strategy Package and other influences associated with global economic conditions”.
But it is absolutely clear where retail was going. The December stimulus payments broke the trend and continue to do so.
Even with the 2 per cent fall in seasonally adjusted spending in February we are still spending far more in the shops than we would have without the payments.
An interesting thing happened on the way to Christmas last year — the $10.4 billion Economic Security Package not only worked, but worked nearly exactly as Treasury had forecast it would.
“The bonus cheques had an obvious effect,” said Commonwealth Bank economist Sara Hoeing. “If there were any doubts about the efficacy of government stimulus packages and consumers’ willingness to spend, this news is a clear rebuttal.”
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? And indeed since Christmas Eve? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
The New Farm festivities kicked off with a deeply spiritual mood before Midnight Mass (Italian style, described here) @ Casa Bahnisch. Surrounded by angelic presences we were! You can see the Holy Spirit church steps where we enjoyed pannetone and sparkling wine here at flickr.
You know we need one. Awful Carols etc. And I think the Brisbane City Council may have just gone a tad over the top with the bus decorations. I assume it’s the all Liberal (or is that LNP?) Campbell Newman council majority. Not wanting to be accused of grinchiness (given how awful they’ve been since Campbell got hold of a floor majority) and/or to fend off teh evil political correctness. But I think my fellow public transported citizens also felt this was more than a bit overdoing it…
Yesterday saw simultaneous LP Christmas drinks in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
We Quincelanders had an extremely pleasant and appropriately festive afternoon at Hotel Bravo in the Valley, I thought…
It is of course an internetty tradition to post a thread for post-grogblog reflections, so here it is. Perhaps some of the Sydney and Melbs folk will be along to update.
Aside from the LP drinks across the length and breadth of the eastern seaboard (well, that may be a slight exaggeration…) summer is here, work is supposedly winding down (though I haven’t noticed) and it’s time to … party! It might be a good time to have an open party experiences thread – share tales of doom from work functions, report on exciting gigs, tell us about your fancy dress themed events, etc, ad infinitum!
I’m not really one for parties as such (if defined as a stack of people crammed into a kitchen and on a verandah or drinks with colleagues at a dreary suit bar) but I have been going to more gigs recently… last night Mr Mark and I caught The View From Madeleine’s Couch at The Press Club. Great OzBrazilian jazz, and I can recommend gin, lime and soda for those sultry and humid Brisbanian summer nights!
… of course I am unstimulated, being neither a pensioner nor a family. But for what it’s worth, I bought Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy and Urban Legend at Rocking Horse, contributing to alt.music store sales and the retail sector employment prospects of rockers in skinny leg jeans.
Bernard Keane has a very informative piece in Crikey today wrapping up all the hysterical coverage of Kevin Rudd’s Christmas fiscal stimulus spendathon. Random vox pops on tv news shows and a News Limited online survey, naturally, prove that the payments will be saved rather than spent, thus confirming Malcolm Turnbull’s talking points, of course. Forget Treasury estimates that 70% of the stimulus will be spent.
What’s going on here? I think partly we’re seeing the 24 hour news cycle at work – anything that happens has to be pronounced instantly a success (boring) or a failure (exciting!) on the basis of scant anecdotal evidence and off the top of the head commentary. God forfend that we could wait for the December retail sales figures. But the media/politics/commentariat bandwagon will have moved far on by then. An alternative hypothesis from Keane:
Continue reading ‘OMG! Only 32 bucks in discretionary spending today! The economy is finished!’
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