Sympathy for those on $150,000, but...

One thing I despise about public life in Australia today is the way power-chasing pollies and self-promoting media personalities seek to advance themselves by encouraging people living during the most prosperous period in our history to feel sorry for themselves. Apparently, the soaring cost of living is absolutely killing us. So forgive me but, just this once, we're going to worry about other people's problems, not yours. Years...

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This time it's a recession we don't have to have

Though nothing is certain in the unpredictable world of the national accounts, it's highly unlikely we'll see a second, successive quarter of ''negative growth'' when the figures for this quarter are released in early September. Which, in a way, will be a pity. Why? Because even if the hiccup caused by our natural disasters had spread itself over two quarters - after the 1.2 per cent contraction in the March quarter - not even...

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GDP hot air gives Hockey hiccups

See how long it takes you to figure this one out: if something falls by 50 per cent, then rises by 100 per cent, where is it? Answer: just back where it started. If you had to think about it you need to be careful what conclusions you draw from this week's national accounts showing the economy - real gross domestic product - contracted by 1.2 per cent in the March quarter. Thanks to economists' obsession with growth, we focus...

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Mouse is mightier than the stores

Well-mannered newspapers don't spend a lot of time talking about themselves. Even so, you've no doubt heard that the future of newspapers - though not news or journalism - is under great challenge from the arrival of the internet. Much classified advertising has moved to the net and now some display advertising is going. Some readers are moving to the net, smartphones and tablets such as the iPad. As you may imagine, these...

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Coles and Woolies loom as Big Tobacco's rivals

What do the big foreign-owned mining companies have in common with the big foreign-owned purveyors of cancer sticks? A lot of money to con punters and pressure pollies, and a lot of weak arguments. One argument the two industries have in common is that the resource super-profits tax and the plain packaging of cigarettes lack any proof they will work and have never been adopted anywhere in the world. Great argument: it has not...

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East moves west - more than a miner miracle

You'd need to be living under a rock not to have heard that the world's centre of economic gravity is moving from west to east - towards us. But most of us are yet to appreciate the full ramifications of this change in the globe's economic geography. The shift is occurring because of the re-emergence of China and India as major economic powers. Why re-emergence? Because in the 18th century - before the West's industrial revolution...

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Stop crying poor and fix the climate mess

Like most people, I'm an instinctive optimist. In any case, I see no margin in pessimism. If you concluded the world was irredeemably wicked, or destined for certain destruction, what would be left but to curl up and die? Since we can never be certain the end is nigh, much better to keep living and keep plugging away for a better world. I confess, however, I've needed all my optimistic instincts to avoid despair over the hash...

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Labor's lick and promise to beached job-seekers

You have to feel sorry for pollies in government. While economists (who have a built-in bias against government intervention) are forever pressing them to cut government spending, and the punters are perpetually refusing to pay more tax, everyone is urging them to do something about an endless number of genuinely worthy causes. How can they win? They can't. Unfortunately, rather than limiting the number of problems they know...

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Adapt or die: the high dollar is here to stay

The big ''known unknown'' facing the economy is how long commodity prices and the Aussie dollar will stay so high. That's why some people worry so much about the Chinese economy coming unstuck. But while the new secretary of the Treasury, Dr Martin Parkinson, acknowledges the risks facing China's economy, his ''central scenario'' is that commodity prices and the Aussie will stay high for a long time. This means that, though...

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Tough love or kindness - a taxing dilemma

Something very important is at stake in this year's budget and the opposition's response to it: the shape of Australia's welfare state. Will it continue to be needs-based, or will we progressively make benefits universal - available to everyone regardless of income? Historically, people on the conservative side of politics have strongly supported means-tested benefits, whereas people on the left have been attracted to the idea...

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Gillard's budget critics run for cover

One reason governments aren't nearly as "tough" as economists and others urge them to be is their knowledge that when the going gets rough - when the losers from that toughness start vigorously objecting - the urgers will be missing in action. The reaction to last week's budget offers a good example. On budget night every petshop galah was complaining it wasn't tough enough - a "missed opportunity", the last Julia Gillard will...

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Lousy budget? Don't be fooled by harsh critics

If you listen to the economists and commentators complaining the budget wasn't tough enough - a "missed opportunity" - and involves budget deficits higher than earlier expected, you could easily conclude it's a weak effort that does little to keep the economy on the right track. But you'd be misled. It's true the budget's estimate of an underlying cash deficit of $49.4 billion for the financial year just ending is about $8 billion...

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Despite apparent contradictions, Swan shows courage

Julia Gillard and her government may be suckers, but they deserve an even break. Every budget contains things to criticise but, overall, this one is good. We were warned it would be tough and it is - especially on the better-off.It could have been more excruciating - economists are hard to please when it comes to inflicting pain - but it's tougher and more courageous than all but the first of the 12 budgets the now-sainted Peter...

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Stevens sells his moral authority

Everyone who's seen The Godfather knows how the Mafia works: it's more than happy to do you a favour, but once it has it owns you forever. Our coterie of grossly overpaid chief executives and directors operates much the same way. They're a mutual pay-raising society - you raise my pay and I'll raise yours - and more than a year ago they induced the governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens (a most estimable fellow in every...

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Sack the Treasury head, make Victoria look good

ARE you very trusting of the way politicians handle taxpayers' money? Do you fear a lot of government spending is wasted on vote-buying, frippery and gimmickry? Do you want to pay higher taxes? Do you worry about pollies running big budget deficits and racking up too much government debt? Do you think state politicians are more fiscally responsible than their federal counterparts or less? Do you really believe Labor is hopeless...

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Make people employable

Australia is sitting pretty. We avoided the worst of the global financial crisis and now the return of the resources boom means the world is paying extraordinary prices for our coal and iron ore. Those prices will ease back but, even so, huge investment in new mines and natural gas facilities is likely to keep the economy growing strongly for at least the rest of the decade. The other developed economies would kill for prospects...

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