...We cannot do without science and scientists. The time has come to make a choice."
- John Quiggin
Here's his full piece:
It is a commonplace to observe that Australia’s scientific institutions and organizations, have played a central role in promoting Australia’s prosperity and in maintaining our country’s place as a leading contributor to the growth of knowledge. Read more »
It'd make a change from last year when he couldn't even bring himself to say "deficit"
So strong is Australia's emerging recovery analysts now believe Treasurer Wayne Swan may be on track to bring down a Budget surplus next year instead of in 2015 as officially forecast.
The dramatic turnaround identified by a range of forecasters who have spoken to the Herald flows from projected big gains in export prices, resurgent company profits and a jobs market which against expectations has piled on 200,000 extra jobs in the past six months. Read more »
Let's see. His company buys 50% of the broadcaster that owns Vega and Nova FM.
Then...
Vega gets axed, reborn as a contentless juke box called "Classic Rock FM".
Common, eh. Read more »
Millions and millions of hours of hidden underemployment are being unwound
Not that you would know it reading some coverage Read more »
The ABS has revised down January's 5.3%
But now with jobs growth almost steady it has inched back up to... 5.3%
Bloody good, I reckon:
Going backwards
Home lending since September:
NSW down 43%
Queensland down 39%
South Australia down 37%
Tasmania down 33%
Western Australia down 32%
Victoria down 30%
It was in the Herald Monday. Here's the text:
Barely a week goes by without another multi-billion dollar reminder of the gap between the supply and demand of credible information and analysis on China.
The information deficit is partly due to China's failure to improve the transparency and credibility of its statistics in line with the growth of its economy. Read more »
Probably.
Oscar voting used to be first-past-the-post.
This year for the first time since the 1943 they decided to use Australia's preferential voting system.
Voters will rank order the ten nominated films. If any film has a majority of voters picking it as top choice, it's elected. If not, the film with the fewest first place votes is eliminated and that film's supporters are counted as voting for their second choice. Repeat until some film has majority support. Read more »
Paul Syvret in the Courier-Mail
Neither Swan nor Rudd will be drawn on when - if ever - the Henry report will see the light of day, with Rudd maintaining last week that he was too busy trying to bandage the health system to worry about tax. The issue has been triaged, if you like.
Er, here's Swan on January 22:
It's a comprehensive report, it covers the entire taxation system, we said that we will release the report after we've examined it and we'll do that early this year with an initial response. Read more »
This will open your eyes:
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As if he didn't have enough on his plate
Treasury boss Ken Henry has taken a swipe at the work of his own department as well as others on valuing the environment saying much of it is flawed and fails to give proper weight to the importance of retaining Australia's unique biodiversity.
Fresh from producing the as-yet-unreleased Henry Tax Review and in the midst of preparing the 2010 Budget Dr Henry told an environment conference in Sydney that the part of his Intergenerational Report that had received the least attention was the section on environmental sustainability. Read more »
"Communications Minister Stephen Conroy should do more than just remove from the NBN legislation the option for it to be a retailer – he should put in a clause that it will never raise equity or be privatised.
The NBN can, and should, be fully funded by government-guaranteed debt.
Its prices should be regulated to provide a margin over the cost of that funding to pay for management and maintenance, and then that’s it.
And those misty-eyed nostalgics within the government who want to create another PMG or Telecom Australia should be taken aside, arm on their shoulders, and counselled: get over it, the world has moved on, and it wasn’t really better then anyway. Read more »
Treasurer Wayne Swan has signaled we're in for that rarest of political events - a tough election-year budget.
Welcoming figures that show an extraordinary turnaround in Australia's economic fortunes from a projected collapse during 2009 to near-trend growth of 2.7 per cent the Treasurer said he would be imposing a tight cap on spending growth from this year's May budget rather than waiting a year as a literal reading of earlier commitments would allow him to do.
The government has promised to restrain real spending growth to 2 per cent per year once economic growth returns to trend. Read more »
Strong disagreement more likely
If you can't make sense of what's happening to the economy you're in esteemed company. The Board of the Reserve Bank can't easily agree either. Read more »
For BusinessDay:
The Reserve Bank believes we're out of the woods.
Its statement released after today's board meeting says "labour market data and a range of business surveys suggest growth in the economy may have already been at or close to trend for a few months".
Wayne Swan doesn't buy it. Read more »
It will have been presented with the figures in its meeting, still under way.
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. "The Current Economic Landscape" - in pictures
Here it is - real data from real dating sites showing how most guys get it wrong - looking for love in all the wrong places so to speak.
The interactive graph, which I can't reproduce here, is evocative. Read more »
...the parking of the portable primary school for show children in the playground of my children's school:
Note the bags hung under the classroom. At lunch and recess the show kids play with the Canberra kids.
Wonderful, eh?
Australia gets some government programs wrong. Some seem very good.
Cars
A dramatic jump in spending by businesses on on "equipment, plant and machinery" is set to push up Australia's economic growth rate and tip the Reserve Bank into pushing up interest rates next week... but it's not all it seems.
The Bureau of Statistics reports private new capital expenditure jumped 5.5 per cent over the three months to December driven by an astonishing 12 per cent jump in spending on equipment, plant and machinery. Treasurer Wayne Swan hailed it as evidence that stimulus is promoting economic activity.
But much of it isn't what is normally thought of equipment or machinery. Read more »
Not much of a building industry
The scale of the Rudd government's stimulus-funded building spree has become apparent in new figures showing a record $4 billion of public money was spent on non-residential construction in the three months to December - a remarkable 62 per cent jump on the three months before. Read more »
Or at least not enough to satisfy the demand from our banks.
The Governor said it Friday, now Deutsche Bank warns that under forthcoming regulations..
"...the stock of commonwealth and semi government debt will almost certainly be insufficient for bank liquidity purposes. It is inevitable, in our view, that Supra and agency debt will be included in the pool of high quality liquid assets as a consequence. But even this will not provide a large enough pool of liquid assets for the banks, in our view, unless the liquidity buffer is kept relatively small." Read more »
Expect intense grilling.
You can watch and listen live here.
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Up on Westpac's tweet site late this afternoon:
As a concerned Simon Thomsen tweeted in response: Gail, step away from the window...
HT: Julie Posetti
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Greedy. Crafty. Ruthless. How the networks won.
There are five free-to-air television networks in Australia. All are now government funded.
How it came to this when any one of a number of private entrepreneurs would have been keen to enter the market on any terms and take their chances providing viewers with what they want says as much about the malleability of our leaders as it does about the essentially anti-television attitudes of the networks who claim to be its protectors. Read more »
Sponsor him at keenwalk.com.au
CBD has the story:
"Never one to shy away from the glare of the media, the University of Western Sydney's Steve Keen has launched a website to promote his forthcoming ascent of Australia's tallest peak, Mount Kosciuszko.
Keen is required to scale the hill as a result of losing his bet with the Macquarie economist Rory Robertson on the direction of house prices. Read more »
There are maybe 280,000 such visits per year
The Tax Office has been given a "tick of approval" for continuing to break into homes, cars and workplaces where it believes documents are at risk of being destroyed. Read more »
It could be because the Tax Office computer has been off
Things will start to look up for as many as half a million taxpayers from today.
They're caught in a backlog that began on the Australia Day long weekend when the Tax Office took the unusual step of turning off the aging computer system that processes tax returns and transferring all 27 million taxpayer records and 280 million forms to a new one. Read more »
My favourite quorte, from David Schnarch - instead of an aphrodisiac, being nice to your partner works better.
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Employing blokes
The stimulus has been credited with a surge in male employment that has pushed Australia's unemployment rate down to 5.3 per cent as the head of the Treasury has declared the financial crisis "behind us".
An extra 52,700 Australians found work in January, two-thirds of them male . Read more »
Extra jobs since October, trend
Unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted
Victoria +41,900 5.3%
Western Australia +12,000 5.0% Read more »
Peter's post:
It'd cut the Coalition's ground from under it
The head of the Reserve Bank has held out the prospect of low interest rates as far as the eye can see, saying monetary policy should "remain more accommodative than otherwise" so long as Labor sticks to its pledge to restrain spending. Read more »
Monday's speech is here: Read more »
What the??
Christmas has come early to Australia's commercial television channels in the form of a $240 million gift from Communications Minister Steven Conroy.
This year he will give the networks a 33 per cent rebate on their annual licence fees of $287, and next year a 50 per cent rebate.
Although the announcement is headed "Government to protect Australian content on commercial television" the broadcasters will be required to do no more than meet the existing Australian content requirements in return for the rebates. Read more »
It had to happen
Christmas failed to arrive for big retailers in December with total sales well down despite widespread discounting.
The surprise finding in the eagerly-awaited December Bureau of Statistics report mirrors that of Myer which yesterday reported "negative" Christmas sales when compared with the year before and helps vindicate the Reserve Bank in its decision to keep interest rates on hold in February while it assesses the impact of its three successive rate hikes in the lead-up to Christmas. Read more »
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The West Australian's Shane Wright with a woeful but perhaps-typical tale of public administration:
"Brandy seems a strange place to start, but the way it is taxed highlights just how important it is to continually look at improving the tax system.
Brandy, you see, attracts a different rate of excise than other spirits. The lower rate costs you and I about $5 million a year in foregone revenue.
That’s not a lot of money, but $5 million is money that could be used in a health promotion campaign or to arm a few Australian soldiers or even provide a grant to some company to break into an overseas market. Read more »
At least three more times, then perhaps more
Interest rates are set to climb in the months ahead with the Reserve Bank penciling in several more hikes despite deciding to keep rates on hold at its Tuesday meeting.
The surprise outcome saw the Australian dollar plunge more than one US cent, helped push up the share market almost 2 per cent and left the online bookmaker Centrebet red-faced after having refused to take bets on a rate rise it felt was certain. Read more »
This just up in the National Times:
Who's to thank for interest rates staying on hold?
The Reserve Bank has come close to thanking Westpac, along with the other banks that imposed outsized mortgage rate increases.
Its statement this afternoon says "with the risk of serious economic contraction in Australia having passed, the Board had moved at recent meetings to lessen the degree of monetary stimulus that was put in place when the outlook appeared to be much weaker". Read more »
When blogging about the South Australian election.
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It'll be here
The Reserve Bank is considered certain to increase interest rates for a record forth consecutive time this afternoon adding a further $47 per month to the cost of servicing a $300,000 mortgage on top of the $135 to $185 added since October.
The announcement, due at the conclusion of the board meeting at 2.30 pm has been so well anticipated that the bookmaker Centrebet refused to take bets, declaring there was "not a hope in hades" of rates staying put. Read more »
I am not denying there will demographic changes - I am just saying we will easily deal with them, as we always have
Swan's report, Australia to 2050: Future Challenges will be out at 12.30 AEDT.
His speech will be broadcast live on ABC TV at 12.30 local time in all states. Read more »
Not for long, and always as part of another job, mainly being the ABC's Tokyo Correspondent.
My reports were NEVER like this:
HT: Mark Colvin
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Gee, not compared with our peers
Here's the Harvard Business Review graphic.
Each circle on the map represents a nation'a GDP. The bailouts and the stimulus are displayed as a percentage of GDP in red and blue.
Click here to enlarge and explore. Read more »
...owner-occupied housing, at $31 billion
Superannuation comes a respectable second, at $24.5 billion
It's here. Read more »
The Treasurer has booked the Press Club.
Here's the first (2002) and the second (2007)
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Counterintuitive, but that's what the evidence assembled by Andrew Leigh suggests.
He uses it to argue that the true cost of drought is higher than commonly realised.
Precipitation, Profits, and Pile-Ups
Andrew Leigh, Centre for Economics Policy Research Discussion Paper 629 Read more »
How it unfolded:
A funny thing happened on the way to preparing the biggest-ever review of Australia's system of tax and government handouts.
The answers changed from under the committee.
The final report of the Henry Review, with the government since December, is 10 centremetres thick printed on A-4 paper. It'll look neater when it is bound and printed.
It would have also looked very different had it reflected the thinking of Ken Henry and his four-person team nearer the time they were appointed. Read more »
Not now, but soon: Ken Henry
Treasury boss Ken Henry has dashed expectations that his tax review will pave the way for lower tax declaring that over time Australians will have to pay more.
Addressing the annual conference of the Australasian Tax Teachers Association Dr Henry said the tax system had to be prepared for the probability that "in order to finance the government-provided goods and services demanded by the community, revenue needs will grow strongly in the longer term". Read more »
And probably back as far as the question was asked
Rapidly improving job prospects and recovering share market wealth are propelling us to spend as we haven't in years despite three consecutive rate hikes and the prospect of more on the way.
The latest Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey finds 59 per cent of us agreeing that "now is the right time to buy a major household item", well up from last year's range of 42 to 55 per cent and the best result since mid 2007. Read more »
It depends on where you live:
It's quite fast for us Australians.
Brian at Larvatus Prodeo outlines the new study in Nature.
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That's how it will probably play out when this board meets on February 2
If the Reserve Bank board paid attention only to Australia's official inflation rate due for release next week it'd put up its feet and leave interest rates alone.
But the December quarter CPI, now expected to come in at just 0.1 per cent and 1.7 per cent for the year to December will scarcely figure in its calculations. Read more »
I've been critical of trend lines before.
The ones used by the ABS have particular problems.
But try this one on for size:
Note that the "trend line" ends the series going down.
But squint and look at just the purple line and it is apparent the series is broadly going up. Read more »
It'd make a change from last year when he couldn't even bring himself to say "deficit"
So strong is Australia's emerging recovery analysts now believe Treasurer Wayne Swan may be on track to bring down a Budget surplus next year instead of in 2015 as officially forecast.
The dramatic turnaround identified by a range of forecasters who have spoken to the Herald flows from projected big gains in export prices, resurgent company profits and a jobs market which against expectations has piled on 200,000 extra jobs in the past six months. Read more »
Well, actually just 200 people.
Telstra's high-speed internet service, which offers speeds of up to 100mbps has only been taken up by about 200 customers since its launch last year, throwing the viability of the NBN into question. Read more »
The headline on the story in the The Australian overstates things.
None of the direct quotes in the story back it up.
But if the ABC Chairman was calling for "balance", well...
...it would take things back to the 1970's when, as I mentioned earlier Keith Fraser was the Controller of News.
Historian Ken Inglis had access to the ABC's internal files and writes in This is the ABC (at page 285):
Read more »
In the UK it's visual and interactive.
One day it should happen here.
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Hockey says Swan will never deliver a surplus budget. They way things are going he'll do it while Hockey is still Shadow Treasurer
Australia's jobs market has turned white hot with newspaper job ads being placed at a rate not seen since the onset of the financial crisis and as many 1 in every 5 employers planning to take on staff as business confidence climbs to an eight-year high. Read more »
Paul Syvret in the Courier-Mail
Neither Swan nor Rudd will be drawn on when - if ever - the Henry report will see the light of day, with Rudd maintaining last week that he was too busy trying to bandage the health system to worry about tax. The issue has been triaged, if you like.
Er, here's Swan on January 22:
It's a comprehensive report, it covers the entire taxation system, we said that we will release the report after we've examined it and we'll do that early this year with an initial response. Read more »
"The truth is there’s only so much activity that can take place. And if we want to have all this mining investment and mining output, which is happening, basically the other parts of the economy for the moment have to be restrained somehow because the economy can’t do all these things simultaneously" - Ric Battellino
Rory Robertson: Read more »
No queues, instant approval if you're across the ditch
The New Zealanders are back. After the best part of a year of being unusually cold on the idea of moving across the Tasman, New Zealanders are heading west as they used to before the economic crisis. Typically measured in the thousands per month New Zealand migration slowed to just 1140 in the worst month of last year allowing China for the first time to displace our near neighbour as our biggest source of migrants. Read more »
Cheap and effective
A blitz on the black economy has seen the Tax Office approach 109,000 small businesses in just eight months collecting $127 million.
Tax Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo told a Melbourne conference yesterday the money had been extracted using a new system of "benchmarks" that identifies roughly how much tax a small business should be paying in each industry and then flags unusual cases and sends out queries asking whether are being careless with their bookkeeping or deliberately withholding tax.
Since July it has sent out the letters at the rate of 440 per day. Read more »
Statement by Glenn Stevens, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision
At its meeting today, the Board decided to raise the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.0 per cent, effective 3 March 2010.
The global economy is growing, and world GDP is expected to rise at close to trend pace in 2010 and 2011. The expansion is still hesitant in the major countries, due to the continuing legacy of the financial crisis, resulting in ongoing excess capacity. In Asia, where financial sectors are not impaired, growth has continued to be quite strong. The authorities in some countries are now seeking to reduce the degree of stimulus to their economies.
Global financial markets are functioning much better than they were a year ago and the extraordinary support from governments and central banks is gradually being wound back. Credit conditions remain difficult in some major countries as banks continue to face loan losses associated with the period of economic weakness. Concerns regarding some sovereigns remain elevated. Read more »
Someone has staked $30,000 on the outcome, due at 2.30 pm AEDT
Millions of Australians stand to suffer if, as expected, the Reserve Bank lifts interest rates by a further 0.25 points this afternoon. But for one big-spending punter the pain will be extreme.
The Sydney man, a Centrebet regular, has staked just short of $30,000 on the Reserve Bank sitting on hands.
If at 2.30 this afternoon the Bank announces its board has decided to keep rates on hold he will walk away with a profit of $21,000. If it puts rates up he will say goodbye to $29,500. Read more »
Winners and losers in 2010-11
NSW + $1070 million
Victoria + 872 million
Queensland + $545 million Read more »
Try the latest VCE and HSC exam papers: Read more »
"The expansion could continue for an extended period"
The IMF has issued a plea to countries considering unwinding their economic stimulus measures - don't do it quickly and most probably don't do it now.
In a staff paper entitled "Exiting from Crisis Intervention Policies" released early this morning Australian time the Fund says the key lesson from earlier crises is that premature withdrawal of stimulus measures can be "very costly, particularly if the financial system is weak". Read more »
It's well-appointed.
As Jessica Wright notes in the Canberra Times, according to the listing ''the love and attention to detail will become evident once you have inspected this home ... our instructions are to sell''.
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Nearly. I've a softer spot for Barnaby
The Reserve Bank Governor has declared himself at odds with Coalition finance spokesman Barnaby Joyce and questioned his fitness for the job, telling a parliamentary committee he had "yet to meet a finance minister who has ever mused any possibility about debt default of his own country."
The Shadow Finance Minister claimed this month Australia was "going to hock to our eyeballs to people overseas" and was "getting to a point where we can’t repay it". Read more »
I was working Sunday February 7 when Conroy made the strange announcement, and frankly felt a bit of outrage might be in order.
The ABC's Mark Scott, whose tweets I follow, actually seemed pleased with the announcement:
Read more »
We'll hear more from Governor Stevens Friday
The Reserve Bank has reached a pivotal point in its program of rate rises, declaring the bulk of the work behind it.
After three successive rate rises at the end of last year the board's February minutes say rates are "no longer exceptionally accommodative," merely remaining "somewhat below average". Read more »
You were wrong
Consumer Price Index +0.5%
Employee living cost +0.7%
Age pension living cost +0.6%
Self-funded retiree +0.6% Read more »
"Treasury were involved in developing the costings"
Well, yes. But...
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has described as "entirely appropriate" his decision to meet with Channel Seven chief Kerry Stokes at a Colorado ski resort shortly before handing to the networks fee rebates worth one quarter of a billion dollars. Read more »
From the British Psychological Society's Research Digest Blog
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Maggie Koerth-Baker has made a flipbook:
HT: Boing Boing
It reminds me of the following observation...
(Warning: Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy quote)
...it'll only make sense if you're familiar with Beyoncé
..'cos we're goin' to learn
what it really feels like with a degree...
If you learned it, should have got an 'A' on it...
Oh Oh oh...
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Westpac's consumer survey:
How much pain an mortgage holders bear? Quite a lot it seems. An extraordinary 93 per cent of householders expect interest rates to climb this year; a surprising 60 per cent expect them to climb four more times.
"I was flabbergasted," says Westpac economist Bill Evans who tacked on a question about interest rate expectations to the latest Melbourne Institute consumer confidence survey. Read more »
Peter's post:
Continued...
Published in today's SMH and Age
Graphic: From here
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Westpac's consumer survey:
How much pain an mortgage holders bear? Quite a lot it seems. An extraordinary 93 per cent of householders expect interest rates to climb this year; a surprising 60 per cent expect them to climb four more times.
"I was flabbergasted," says Westpac economist Bill Evans who tacked on a question about interest rate expectations to the latest Melbourne Institute consumer confidence survey. Read more »
For a fortnight
For a brief shining fortnight NSW has been officially the biggest wine-producing state in the nation.
Its ascension over the long-term leader South Australia passed almost unnoticed until Monday when the Adelaide Advertiser took the Bureau of Statistics at its word and reported the state had "lost its long-held position as the nation's largest wine-producing state for the first time since early last century." Read more »
It was roomy here in December
Australians flooded departure lounges as never before during the summer holidays, heading overseas in unprecedented numbers.
New official figures show a record 731,000 of us left the country in December, an astonishing 3.3 per cent of the population or roughly 1 in every 30 Australians .
A record 141,000 of those trips were to New Zealand which has become by far our most important tourist destination. Read more »
And thanks for saying thanks
Australia's banks have been warned they will face the "wrath of the Australian government " if they push up mortgage rates in the face of a decision announced Sunday to stop guaranteeing their overseas borrowings. Read more »
That's if we're lucky
Australia's two biggest states are set to be left behind as the next resources boom gathers pace with nearly all economic growth taking place in the mining-rich states of Western Australia and Queensland in what the Reserve Bank calls "a reallocation of productive resources within the economy." Read more »
"Firstly on the Reserve Bank’s Statement on Monetary Policy, there is a very clear message to the Rudd Bank from the Reserve Bank, Stop spending so much money."
Where Joe?
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. Wind back the stimulus? Where's the love?
Anyway, I thought increasing taxes to cover a deficit was fiscally conservative.
HT, and many thanks: Joshua Gans
SLATE: The weird genius behind Carly Fiorina's "demon sheep" ad
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The government is sitting on the recommendations of the Ken Henry tax review.
The Opposition is sitting on the recommendations of the Henry Ergas tax review: Read more »
7 News, after yesterday's rate decision:
HT: Bill Mitchell
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He says in his climate policy it'll enable the planting of more trees.
But I reckon...
(A) Trees can grow pretty well below overhead wires. They do in my street.
(B) Trees can't lay down good roots where there are underground cables.
Just saying.
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"With the risk of serious economic contraction in Australia having passed, the Board had moved at recent meetings to lessen the degree of monetary stimulus that was put in place when the outlook appeared to be much weaker. Lenders have generally raised rates a little more than the cash rate over recent months and most loan rates have risen by close to a percentage point."
"At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 3.75 per cent. Read more »
The private health insurance rebate that the Coalition wants to keep unmeanstested isn't even a rebate for "insurance".
The Oxford describes insurance as a thing providing protection against a possible eventuality.
Health insurance would ensure you against getting sick.
I already knew that in fact Australian health insurance pays for routine bills, even in some cases gym shoes.
But I had at least assumed it paid out when things got bad, like fire insurance does in the case of a fire.
Here's an extract from the excellent Background Briefing repeated on Sunday. Read more »
By 2050 our buying power will be almost twice as high
Health spending will double as a share of GDP and the chunk of the Budget set aside for health, aged pensions and aged care will hit 50 per cent in dramatic projections in the Intergenerational Report for the year 2050 that have spurred the Treasurer to launch a $43 million dollar package of grants and programs to encourage elderly Australians to stay in work. Read more »
I had thought that kind of thing could happen only in the UK:
IF PRE-BUDGET speculation leaves you feeling out of the loop, you're in good company. According to former Downing Street aide Derek Scott, the Prime Minister has been none the wiser, either.
In his book Off Whitehall, Scott reveals how Tony Blair was forced to beg Gordon Brown for a "hint" of what was in one of the Budgets. Blair, writes Scott, was reduced to pleading: "Give me a hint, Gordon." Read more »
Australia's new 24 hour news channel
Here's how it happened as I remember it, and I was at ABC TV at the time and following things closely:
Telstra and NewsCorp set up a jointly-owned company called Foxtel, and later brought in other owners.
In 1995 they were looking for a 24-hour news channel as part of their offering.
The ABC put in a tender which was verbally accepted.
But it wasn't an ABC-only tender. It was the ABC in partnership with Fairfax which produces the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and other newspapers. Read more »
Created by Russ Roberts - resources here
Download the MP3, use it to teach.
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The newspapers we read at breakfast are cheaper too in real terms
Craig James trawls the CPI so you don't have to:
"There are 90 expenditure groupings in the CPI (or as the ABS says “groupings of like items”). So it’s not surprising that some of the more interesting changes get lost. Read more »
From Iain Campbell
1.Don't abbrev.
2.Check to see if you any words out.
3.Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
4.About sentence fragments.
5.When dangling, don't use participles.
Here's the full, list.
Related Posts Read more »
What's in
Voluntary simple tax returns
Longevity insurance
Medicare-style disability levy
Resource rent tax
Road congestion charges
What's not
Taxing the family home
Axing real estate stamp duty
Axing payroll tax
Boosting the 9% super levy
Tax indexation for capital gains
Voluntary simple tax returns, longevity insurance, a Medicare-style disability levy and incentives to keep Australians in work head a list of recommendations from the Henry Tax Review focused on aging alongside those designed to deal with increasingly mobile capital including a 40 per cent mining resource rent tax. Read more »
The Henry Tax Review has recommended scrapping the state-based royalty taxes applying to mining projects and replacing them with a uniform national resource rent tax set to raise billions more.
The tax, most likely to be set at 40 per cent, would be modeled on the existing Petroleum Resource Rent Tax that is levied on petroleum products including crude oil and natural gas mined in Commonwealth waters other than the North West Shelf and the jointly-developed area between Australia and East Timor.
Treasury calculations suggest that if the PRRT formula had been applied to resources such as iron ore and coal and to companies including BHP Billiton and Woodside Petroleum over the past three years it would raised an extra $14 billion...
Read more »
It isn't about you
You've got to hand it to Australia's Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. It knows when to stop.
After enjoying its biggest-ever pre-Christmas sales bonanza as buyers from all over the country who could even loosely describe themselves as businesses raced against the clock to take advantage of the government's 50 per cent business investment tax break, it said "thanks" but no more. Read more »
Probably back as the question was asked
Rapidly improving job prospects and recovering share market wealth are propelling us to spend as we haven't in years despite three consecutive rate hikes and the prospect of more on the way.
The latest Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey finds 59 per cent of us agreeing that "now is the right time to buy a major household item", well up from last year's range of 42 to 55 per cent and the best result since mid 2007. Read more »
I've got a bad feeling about this...
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. What's cheaper? Milk and chocolate.
. Less alcohol in the beer, less cocoa in the chocolate...
It's here at the Financial Times. You might need to register.
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From Strange Maps
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