Blogotariat

Treasurer Joe Hockey has grabbed the MSM by the scruff of the neck today. The AFR is typical: Treasurer Joe Hockey has warned that no group will be safe from cuts in the May budget as he extended his warnings about age pension changes to ­possible pension rate cuts and explicit warnings of tighter assets [...]

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Two commentators between them today sum up the state of housing, Australian rebalancing and monetary policy. The first is David Bassanese at the AFR: The Reserve Bank has prematurely shifted the emphasis of its jawboning strategy from the exchange rate to house prices, with potentially disastrous consequences for the economy in the months ahead. With household [...]

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From Westpac: ― The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment edged up 0.3% in Apr from 99.5 in Mar to 99.7. The essentially fl at result leaves sentiment fi rmly around ‘neutral’. ― The flat result was a little disappointing given last month’s reading was clearly impacted by high profi le lay-off announcements. Positive news [...]

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The LNP government in Queensland is launching a massive and expensive campaign to persuade voters to accept the sale of publicly owned assets. This follows an earlier campaign by the Bligh-Fraser Labor government (remember how well that worked out!) and looks likely to make the same claims, with the additional (self-contradictory) claim that the Labor government, whose policies the LNP is now adopting, drove the state to dangerous levels of debt. In particular, the LNP campaign repeats the central error of Labor’s, namely the claim that selling assets provides a way to fund public expenditure without taxation.

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This is from late Friday but is worth repeating. From Bloomie: Chinese developers raised 49 percent less through trusts in the first quarter as the collapse of Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate Co. highlighted default risks. Issuance of property-related trusts, which target wealthy investors, slid to 50.7 billionyuan ($8.16 billion) from 99.7 billion yuan in the fourth [...]

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Late Friday news broke that: Investors have shown interest in a highly unusual $6 billion equity deal this morning that is being spruiked by junior miner Padbury Mining. Despite starting the week with a landlocked, marginal iron ore project, and a market capitalisation below $70 million, Padbury has today told the ASX that it has [...]

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Here are the iron ore price charts for April 11, 2014: Not much fun in paper markets with rebar futures down as well. Physical was worse for both iron ore and steel and the Baltic Dry capesize component fell another 4%: It’s still at moderate levels but falling fast. Chinese port stocks also rebounded last [...]

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Global Macro / Markets: Only the ignorant live in fear of hyperinflation – Financial Times Bitcoin Price Drops 10% as Chinese Exchanges Stop Bank Deposits – Coin Desk Bitcoin Mining Boom Sputters as Prospectors See Real Cash Losses – Bloomberg Are Speculative Bubbles Good? – New Yorker North America: U.S. budget deficit narrows sharply in [...]

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Let’s play a game!

It’s well documented that the Bogotariat have little in the way of original thought or imagination, and thus have a tendency to repeat things they have heard other bogots saying.  The bogot does this without ever questioning the veracity of what they are spewing forth onto the internet or how nonsensical it sounds to normal people.

We’ve collected some of the most predictable, common, ignorant and moronic comments and topics raised by the average bogot in full rant, and now we want to see just how predictable the Bogotariat is.

GhostWhoVotes relates that the monthly Nielsen poll in tomorrow’s Fairfax papers has Labor leading 52-48, after trailing 51-49 last time. The primary votes are 40% for the Coalition (down four), 34% for Labor (down one) and, remarkably, 17% for the Greens (up five). The latter is three points higher than the Greens have scored in any Nielsen result going back to the 2010 election (UPDATE: It turns out 15% is their previous record in Nielsen, and 16% is their record in Newspoll). Stay tuned for leadership ratings and state breakdowns.

I have just come back from a fantastic rally for refugees in Canberra with up to 3000 people there according to the ABC.

Recently the Federal Court upheld the Department of Immigration decision to sack a woman working for them for criticising, anonymously, on social media the racist refugee policy of the Labor, and now the Liberal, governments.

Evidently for public servants your own time is not your own time. The government owns you outside work hours too and can control your dissent.