By Kim on August 18, 2011
We learned last week that Joe Hockey plans to cut $70 billion from government spending (as he has to do to fund Tony Abbott’s Direct Action and parental leave policies, and to make up for all sorts of foregone revenue [...]
Posted in Economics, Featured, Policy, Politics | Tagged Australia, Capitalism, debt, deficit, Economics, fiscal policy, GDP, GNI, gross national income, investment, Joe Hockey, Julia Gillard, Keynes, Philip Pilkington, profit, resources boom, resources super profits tax, social democracy |
By Kim on August 8, 2011
On one hand, this whole global financial crisis (is that what we’re having again?) thing is horrendously complex. On the other, it’s quite simple. Let’s focus on the simple. The meltdown that followed the end of the credit and housing [...]
Posted in Economics, International, Politics | Tagged animal spirits, credit, debt, demand, Eurozone, financial markets, G20, GFC, gordon brown, international economics, Journey, Kevin Rudd, Keynes, Keynesianism, market rationality, New Labour, regulation, stock market, Tony Blair |
By Kim on August 18, 2010
Apparently, there’s more to it than reciting “debt and deficit” like a mantra. Yesterday, in his address to the National Press Club, when he could wean himself off talking about talking to “real Australians” at Rooty Hill and similar places, [...]
Posted in Economics, federal election 2010 | Tagged Andrew Robb, bonds, debate, debt, economic management, economy, Federal Election 2010, infrastructure, national press club, Policy, public private partnerships, super, Tony Abbott |
By Kim on July 20, 2010
As I said on a previous post, the best way to get a handle on how most voters are perceiving the campaign is to watch the first ten minutes of a commercial tv news bulletin. By way of illustration, Channel [...]
Posted in Elections, federal election 2010 | Tagged Andrew Robb, Channel Nine, debt, deficit, Federal Election 2010, Joe Hockey, Julia Gillard, Paris Hilton, savings, Tony Abbott, Wayne Swan |
By Mark Bahnisch on May 13, 2010
Tony Abbott really squibbed his moment in the spotlight tonight. According to the government, he needed to identify at least $15 billion in spending cuts to fund the promises he’s already made. According to just about everyone, he needed to [...]
Posted in Economics, Federal Elections, Howardia, Politics | Tagged budget 2010, budget reply, debt, deficit, economic management, Federal Election 2010, fiscal policy, howard government, Joe Hockey, Kevin Rudd, Rudd government, Tony Abbott, Treasury |
By Mark Bahnisch on February 25, 2010
I don’t think Barnaby Joyce likes to think he might be wrong. He’s followed up yesterday’s ‘net gross debt’ clanger with an incoherent op/ed in The Australian today. It’s described by Dennis Shanahan in what appears to be a news [...]
Posted in Economics, Politics | Tagged Barnaby Joyce, capital, Coalition, debt, default, Dennis Shanahan, economic policy, Glenn Dyer, opposition, private debt, sovereign debt |
By Mark Bahnisch on January 23, 2010
When disaster strikes, there’s always a reflex to suggest that politics is a dirty word, that humanitarian considerations trump any sort of consideration of the context of the impact of horrendous events. There’s something of the ‘act of God’ and [...]
Posted in Activism, Developing world, Disasters, International, Media, Politics, Sociology | Tagged agency, Aristide, Ben Ehrenreich, debt, disaster, disaster capitalism, earthquake, facebook, global sociology blog, haiti, History, humanitarian response, Hurricane Katrina, IMF, Katrina, Medecins San Frontieres, Media, Naomi Klein, Peter Hallward, Rebecca Solnit, representation, Saskia Sassen, Slate, Slavoj Žižek, social context, Sociology, US, USA |
By Mark Bahnisch on June 18, 2009
I think there are quite a few self-inflicted political problems for Queensland Labor in the presentation of the budget handed down on Tuesday afternoon. But Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser certainly aren’t helped by the ubiquity of the ‘debt is [...]
Posted in Economics, Media, Politics, Queensland, State/Territory Elections | Tagged ALP, Andrew Fraser, Anna Bligh, credit rating, debt, deficit, economic management, Economics, George Megalogenis, infrastructure, investment, John-Paul Langbroek, Labor, Lawrence Springborg, Liberal National Party, LNP, Media, Nationals, Peter Beattie, privatisation, public services, public spending, QR, Queensland, Queensland budget 2009, Queensland Budget papers, Queensland politics, Queensland rail, stimulus, The Borg, unemployment |
By Mark Bahnisch on February 22, 2009
Various newspapers described Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser’s budget outlook review on Friday as providing a “trigger” for an impending poll. That’s something of a misleading formulation. But the budget position does give state Labor – perhaps paradoxically – a political [...]
Posted in Economics, Queensland, State/Territory Elections | Tagged ALP, Andrew Fraser, Anna Bligh, debt, deficit, economy, global financial crisis, Graham Young, infrastructure, jobs, Labor, Lawrence Springborg, LNP, political strategy, Polls, Queensland election 2009, queensland government, The Borg |
By Mark Bahnisch on November 20, 2008
The stock market has lost 51% of its value since its peak, a decline we’re told now exceeds the destruction of value seen in 1987. On the ABC News tonight, Alan Kohler grimly pointed to an index (tradeable, I think, [...]
Posted in Disasters, Economics, Markets, Sociology, USA | Tagged Alan Kohler, ALP, ASX, bear market, black monday, consumers, consumption, credit card, Crikey, debt, deflation, economic policy, equities, Glenn Stevens, global financial crisis, inflation, Kevin Rudd, Keynes, recession, reserve bank, Rudd government, stock market, unemployment, wages, Wayne Swan, working hours |
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