Monday 23rd of December 2024

party at the office...

swancrow

Economists are relieved the Federal Government is abandoning its push for a surplus, labelling it a sensible, pragmatic and realistic decision.

For months, they have been concerned the Government's penny-pinching to keep the surplus dream alive had the potential to slow growth and jobs.

On Thursday, Treasurer Wayne Swan bowed to the inevitable and all but ditched his commitment to deliver a surplus this financial year.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-20/economists-glad-to-see-surplus-promise-abandoned/4439016

 

joe's jingle bells...

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says he cannot promise that the Coalition will go to the next election with a promise to bring the budget back to surplus.

Yesterday Treasurer Wayne Swan dumped the Government's long-standing commitment to a 2012-13 surplus, after new figures showed a $4 billion write down in cash receipts during the first four months of the financial year.

"Obviously, dramatically lower tax revenue now makes it unlikely that there will be a surplus in 2012-13," he told reporters in Canberra.

The statement was welcomed by economists but savaged by the Opposition, which called it "humiliating" and a "betrayal of trust".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-21/hockey-wont-commit-to-budget-surplus/4439404

the turkey we were meant not to have...

FOR you and I this potential deficit means three parts of nearly nothing.

It will not impact the taxes we pay or the services we receive (in fact on the latter front they are less likely to be cut).

At best it may take some of the gloss off the Australian dollar (yet financial markets basically yawned at the news yesterday).

It will also take some of the pressure of the Reserve Bank to use monetary policy to combat a grumpy economy.

That's good news for the growing numbers of net savers in Australia, and perhaps not so good news for mortgage holders hoping for rates to plumb even deeper lows.

Really, though, the headline is that this is the deficit we had to have.



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/wealth-and-welfare-should-wax-and-wayne/story-e6frfm1i-1226541269347#ixzz2FeiIfJsl

"we were only wasting YOUR money..." JWH.

 

AUSTRALIA'S most needlessly wasteful spending took place under the John Howard-led Coalition government rather than under the Whitlam, Rudd or Gillard Labor governments, an international study has found.
The International Monetary Fund examined 200 years of government financial records across 55 leading economies.
It identifies only two periods of Australian "fiscal profligacy" in recent years, both during John Howard's term in office - in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/hey-big-spender-howard-the-king-of-the-loose-purse-strings-20130110-2cj32.html#ixzz2HbeLxikK

Paul Keating called Peter Costello — the Howard man — a "lazy treasurer..."