A NYT editorial has slammed Goldman Sachs for its role in the financial crisis, Ten must work out what to do with Australian Idol in 2010, how the media downturn will affect higher education, newsreaders get emo, and more.
Egos stimulated, but what about the national interest?
|
And the best of all this bad bunch — Billy Bragg, “Ideology”
Ideology is back, they’re saying. “They” being the politicians and the media. The Liberals are dangerous market fundamentalists, says Labor. Labor are dangerous Whitlamite tax-and-spenders, say the Liberals. The media cheers them on. After years of me-tooism and accusations of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, we’re back before the end of the Cold War, back before Hawke, back to the days when ideology mattered. That’s much more fun to report, especially if you’re a dedicated ideologue working for News Ltd. Perhaps they’re right. But be very sceptical of what you’re being sold here. The respective positions of the parties are, for all the son et lumiere show this week, not that far apart. The Opposition also supports a smaller stimulus package, albeit composed by bringing forward tax cuts and reducing business superannuation costs. The actual size of Malcolm Turnbull’s preferred package isn’t clear, but Nick Sherry has pointed out his proposed reduction in superannuation costs for small business would be in the range of $20-40b. Other Coalition MPs argue we need to keep something in reserve, presumably leaving the option for further stimulus open. Nor is the Government’s package some wild ideological frolic. It is in the middle of current economic orthodoxy. Alan Wood, that raving leftie, suggests today that $42b may not be sufficient stimulus. The projected deficits, as a proportion of GDP, are far below the deficit left to the Hawke Government by John Howard. The arcane debate over whether tax cuts or handouts are more readily spent is likely to have minimal real-world significance. Still, it suits everyone’s purposes to pretend that we’re back to a good old-fashioned left-right divide. Warwick McKibbin today declared that there wasn’t any economic crisis. Coming from a member of the Reserve Bank board that has put interest rates into freefall to combat the financial, um, crisis, it was a peculiar statement indeed. Australians who are losing their jobs might feel that if it isn’t a crisis, it will do until one comes along. But he did make the far more sensible remark that “if this government was serious about dealing with an economic crisis, it would sit down with both sides of politics and work out a solution.” Indeed. If this is the sort of crisis that Kevin Rudd has repeatedly said it is — and indeed it is — then the Government should be putting aside partisanship and attempting to construct a commonly-agreed framework to handle it. However, as Rudd has demonstrated on a number of other occasions, he is happy to talk about bipartisanship, but singularly uninterested in pursuing it. Malcolm Turnbull, too, likes to call for bipartisanship, and urge it on the Prime Minister, but his idea of bipartisanship was amply demonstrated in relation to the first stimulus package, when he “supported” it but let his colleagues repeatedly criticise it. There’s the issue of ego, of course. The House of Reps chamber is about the only room in the country big enough for the heads of Turnbull and Rudd. The idea of them working together is anathema to both. But it’s also about an unwillingness to pass up opportunities for political advantage. The Prime Minister has decided to use the crisis in order to totally discredit his political opponents, with the idea of destroying them politically. Turnbull has decided exploiting the crisis is his only chance of victory in 2010, which will be his one shot at the Prime Ministership. In both cases their parties back them. Coalition MPs have been spoiling for a fight. The national interest appears a distant second in their reasoning about blocking the package. Labor MPs would love to obliterate the Coalition. The politicking continued in the Senate committee considering the package. The efforts of Coalition MPs in committee last night were laughable. Eric Abetz spent some time trying to determine whether the printer who produced the package documentation had to work overnight. Ken Henry noted that it had been a very long time since anything sent to the printer hadn’t required overtime, and he wasn’t referring just to life under Rudd. Barnaby Joyce, who appears to be wholly economically illiterate, was asking about the country going trillions of dollars into debt. Treasury officials were unflustered even as Coalition senators baited them. Today, they tried many of the same questions about modelling and the impact of tax cuts on PM&C officials, who politely suggested Treasury were the relevant authorities with whom to discuss such matters. Joyce got red-faced and cranky, which he does very easily, at PM&C’s failure to conduct its own economic modelling. Many of the questions were designed to elicit some sort of concession or admission from officials that could be turned into a hook for a press release. “So you can confirm there’s nothing for pensioners in this package?” Steve Fielding demanded of a FAHCSIA official, as if the Government hadn’t given a cent to pensioners since it arrived in office. The politicking isn’t merely partisan, it’s also to enable individual senators to lift their profile with some sort of “get”. That’s one of the reasons why the package is being delayed a week. Not that the delay will actually mean anything. When Eric Abetz concentrated on issues of substance rather than trying to score points, he got FAHCSIA to admit it didn’t matter if the bills didn’t pass until next week, rather undermining the Government’s claims for urgency. Or, more correctly, exposing them as a political stunt. It was a good point, well made. Just how bad do things have to get before both sides stop this sort of rubbish and think about putting the national interest first? |
|
|
32 Comments
Cathy: “Joel B1 is trawling all sorts of websites tonight to vomit his bile”
I think you’ll find I only vomit in (or is that on) the very best websites…
Now he’s decided to oppose the the government Turnbull should rally his lot behind him and really go for the Fair Work legislation. If GGillard and the unions get their way the clock will be wound back to pre Keating days. Unions are about boosting their own power and increasing the take of their members…they do not care about anybody else including the unemployed. Unfortunately Rudd’s actions will guarantee plenty of them. By the time John Howard finally got the balance of Work Choices right it was too late! If iI was still working I would resent the fact that some union official had the right to get details of my terms of employment on the basis that the union had coverage.
Employer association reps such as Heather Ridout are SLOWLY waking up to what will happen….. too late she is already on her way to membership of the recently revived Industrial Relations Club!
I think our preferred national stimulus package might centre on relieving our political parties of the crisis they got us into. Imagine the impact on home affairs of a headline such as “Our nation is now under the guidance of an expert panel of international fiscal experts”? In extraordinary times we need extraordinary talents none of which is evident in our parliaments if we gauge levels of Senate, Reps and state debate. Not to mention Malcolm Turnbull’s pitiful contribution to governance optimism with the inference that Ken Henry and co were little more than pockets on the government singlet. The arrival of an organisation such as the mythical ‘Reforme Monetaire sans Frontieres’ !! would be hysterically uplifting and allow our leaders to return to the biased skirmishes they’re more familiar with. Political parties are a bit like scorpions – hostile to harmony and restoring natural order.
Come on Benard!
Now you say “… the Government should be putting aside partisanship and attempting to construct a commonly-agreed framework to handle it.”
But you were positively delighting in Rudd’s (ill-advised) denigration of Turnball a few days ago.
By way of example, take this last line gem: “That mild-mannered, bespectacled bloke will be swinging the baseball bat, hard and without pity. And he’s going to hit the Liberals again, and again, and again, and again, and he’s not going to stop until they’re a bloodied mess.”
How about some consistency…?
as I remember it
rudd announces he’s ready to seriously deal with world financial crisis
turnbull bursts into bipartisanship hugging (but after the ‘hugging video’) I can’t find a word or deed that tends to show Turnbull knew what that word (bipartisanship) meant
Bernard what does one do, elect the media as Prime Minister when all they do is wallow in the problems for all its worth cooking up a storm to keep the people trying to workout which ideology to bet on.
There’s the ‘cake cutter’ that cuts the cake into slices and listens forever (a short forever) to the outpourings of dissatisfaction about the slice that everyone has received
There’s the Leader who is wise, knows it’s the end of the world, tells you firmly
and cuts the cake into slices saying “take and eat” its probably
the last you’ll ever get unless you eat it fast
Then there’s denial, a prehistoric legitimate human psychological tool for coping which is
frequently resorted to by any individual (and as any individual
can see it is perfectly useless in the long term, that being a few
minutes) and it is beyond the power of will but not beyond the
power of evolved modern human reason (if you have it, like
denial it must be genetic eventually)
Then there are facts (the I was there kind which tend to confuse even the
best media).
(1) Whitlam’s short term saw the 1st budget surplus in the most trying financial times and then a super ‘Aus be Healthy and Great’ plan which unfortunately was conceptually beyond most and is still only revered by today’s geniuses in economics
(NO, not international financiers and bankers) but it had two words attached to it that enabled demonising it to an ugly black racist Muslim stew at Australia’s expense and the media’s profit
(2) Reagan in the 80’s pushed through a virtually communist like
(smelt a bit left the sensitive noses said) law (banking) which
gave the US global financial and new technology dominance
Joel B1 is trawling all sorts of websites tonight to vomit his bile. Got a permanent liver problem Joel or can we expect something constructive in the future?
Bernard, the size of the stimulus package does matter a great deal and the government should keep something in reserve. The GFC was initially compared to a tsunami but tsunami waves spread very quickly across the ocean.
A more accurate analogy is a slowly progressing bushfire in a valley which is a few ridgelines away. It is burning up/ consuming all of the fuel/ capital in front of it. We can see it coming and we have time to prepare for it.
We had a tank full of rainwater — the Liberals’ surplus. We should have waited for the bushfire to get closer, then fill the roof gutters with water and dampen down the house and garden, but we should also have left sufficient water in the tank to douse the spot fires threatening the house after the fire front has passed. That’s how to save our property.
Kevin Rudd has already drained our water tank prematurely. The tank is now dry. If we want more water, we’ll have to borrow/ buy it from China at spot market prices. We’ll be far worse off in the future because the amateur bushfire fighters panicked as soon as the temperature rose. Kevin pissed himself as soon as the wind changed and the air got hot. He should have waited for the fire front to reach us and then used our surplus of capital to douse the spot fires and help us recover from the damage.
That’s so you Bernard,
S-ck up to the paying members of Crikey…
It was a nice start SizeMatters but the analogy ‘fizzled out’ (excuse the pun).
There is no surplus left - the surplus is only ever a projection and thanks to decreasing revenue (company losses, capital gains tax receipts) the ‘tank’ in your analogy sprung a leak and drained out. The bushfire is still coming so the only option we’ve got is to turn on every tap, hose, throw the pump in the neighbours pool and borrow their water and do our best. If we can ‘soak the ground’ we may be able to avoid our house getting burned down (albeit badly smoke damaged).
The problem is everyone who should be fighting it knows the news crews are coming as well, so those who should be helping are too busy doing their makeup, preening themselves and making sure they look like Firey’s from the calendars.
Standing about arguing like two tossers over details such as ‘Well I think we should all remove our shirts and use our left hands in front of right, as opposed to right over left’ isn’t helping anyone. Just get on with the bloody job. If the house burns down and we figure out you were too busy trying to rub yourself down with sweat and oil, you’ll look like a dick no matter what.
Sorry but it’s friday afternoon and I am feeling creative.
Yes, the actions of Kevin Rudd deserve serious discussion. But by playing absurd political games Malcolm Turnbull reveals himself as just another rich amateur. A bored one leading a bunch of people with a dated born-to-rule mentality. It is not arrogance of tenure lost so much as outrage about being dumped by the voter which animates them. Loss of promised gains will be remembered long after the announcement of the next election.
Senator Fielding sells his vote with the ease of a trollop promising fidelity. Yet these people will be the inquisitors of Rudd’s actions?
Hey Bernard, your rubbish is just as bad as the politicians’.
Mike Steketee in the Oz has a good analysis of the standoff:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25018087-7583,00.html
Dennis Shanahan, on the other hand, only demonstrates what a worn out old hack he is:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25019130-17301,00.html
Who IS Tony Abbott ?
Is that insipid parliamentary attack snail from the Coward Howard’s team still in Parliament????.what a waste of space…great news for the Rudd gang, though…
Joel B1 are you the same ?? If my workplace and personal opinion were linked I’d be alarmed.
Ihttp://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications_for_business/industry_development/digital_economy/future_directions_blog/topics/minister_tanners_welcome/joel_b5
For the last few months every MP and every public servant with any input into the simulus packages ought to have been focused, and the Senate inquiry ought to be focused, on how much private cash and credit can be enlisted in the revving up of the constant round of exchanges which is a healthy economy. Well-timed incentives could have been substituted at an early stage for a good part of the $10.4 billion transfer from future taxpayers to current taxeaters (and some who didn’t need it) and now the key question is whether there will be a multiplying flow on from what the latest stimulus package provides until confidence returns enough for animal spirits and ordinary consumerism to take over. Mind you, a private pensioner who benefits from big bank dividends is not going to be unhappy about the handouts, and props to the property markets, if they help to keep the banks healthy. The fact that ii is hard to see who will be clear losers doesn’t detract from the point that targeting means enlisting private cash and credit, preferably for investment.
Thanks Mal, I’ll quote that next time someone accuses me of having an “anti-Rudd agenda” and that I belong at The Australian.
I’m afraid I have great difficulty finding anything polite to say about Senator Fielding. The thought of the future of the country falling on his shoulders is somewhat depressing.
I would really like to see the Coalition parties put some longer term thinking into this. Their current performance is little better than “we don’t think we like that” What is happening now isn’t going to be fixed in a few months. It will have ramifications for several years and possibly several elections. Why are they putting all their energies into a single option now that they’ll have to wear for years if they aren’t careful. The use-by date for this lot of bloviating will fall well before the next election and they don’t seem to have left themselves with a Plan B. With the current polling, I’m not sure what would happen with a double dissolution. The Senate dynamic changes a great deal when that happens.
We’re talking about an extraordinarily large amount of money and a crushing debt for our grandchildren.
I’m really not sure what all this fuss is about.
Within this report/comment section I initially suggested that BK might adopt a more consistent approach. (and I didn’t call him a fair-weather fool either, although obviously he is).
It’s true I have strong opinions but I do back down very quickly in the face of reason. As for “my workplace and personal opinion were linked I’d be alarmed.” I agree. That is not the case.
Finally, thanks Cathy for the charming welcome to Crikey…
What twat, ‘size matters’. The bushfire metaphor started off as interesting, but as soon as you joined the Turnbull discourse in assigning blame for the deficit to Rudd, you started pissing in the wind.
“Just how bad do things have to get before both sides stop this sort of rubbish and think about putting the national interest first?”
Good question, Bernard - maybe we should start modelling the answer for the two big twats, Rudd and Turnbull, right here. Positive discourse can lead to positive outcomes.
David Sanderson: The RBA? You’re having a laugh?
Looks like those clowns in Parliament have done it again. What a bunch of clowns.
Congratulations Bernard!! That is about the most balanced piece I have read from you since you started with Crikey. Although, it does come as a bit of a shock and we don’t expect it to continue. Usually you are about as “fair and balanced” as Hannity on Fox News - just “fair and balanced” in the opposite direction.
I think we all enjoy reading you (and Guy Rundle) because we know neither of you are anywhere near ‘fair’ or “balanced” - but it is fun reading.
Harvey, do you write this stuff as a cure for your insomnia? Is so, I hope it works but you should however refrain from publishing these senile ramblings.
Are we to believe that this boils (pardon the pun on this hot day), down to the age old battle of good vs evil ? No matter which side of politics you are on, it would appear that the other side is always wrong and you are always right. Turnbull and Rudd have many things in common, mostly related to their egos but I believe that they are both legitimately convinced that their own take on the stimulus package is the right one. If this is correct then they are both to be applauded for doing what they think is best for us plebs in the suburbs - if however either are contriving a not-so-cheap political stunt then they nned to fed to the orcs or the Canberra Press gallery depending on which group are available at the time. Whilst most of us have our views on the economy - they are purely steeped in theory and historical take. Time will be the only true judge of either attempt at economic maintenance.
The Reserve Bank has made it clear that the stimulus packages, working in tandem with their interest rate cuts, are essential to ameliorate the downturn. It seems to be dawning on Turnbull that he has stepped into an almighty hole but he also knows that he can’t back out again without losing the leadership. He now has to hope that the crossbenchers save his skin voting the package through. That means relying on someone as flaky as Fielding - and who knows what God will whisper in his ear.
Regardless, his leadership has been weakened, probably fatally. He will be seen as a glory-seeker, a limelight at any cost man and not a serious alternative PM.
It is not at all surprising that the RBA would say and do anything to limit their humiliation.
Good piece by Jeff Kennett in yesterday’s Herald Sun on Rudd’s grand plan entitled: ‘Our soft underbelly’
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25009319-5000117,00.html
Another good op-ed by Peter Swan, a professor of finance at the University of NSW’s Australian School of Business in today’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled: ‘Rudd’s pudding much too sweet’
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rudds-pudding-much-too-sweet/2009/02/05/1233423401914.html
However, I think Stephen Mayne’s take on this as explained on this morning’s radio is by far the most sensible.
Rudd however, has lost all credibility in light of his eagerness to play petty politics at a time he himself describes as a national emergency!
The RBA’s 1% reduction yesterday was the most important action that could have been taken this week.
Paul Keating envisages this financial crisis to extend from 4-7 years. National plans should be made to maximise the ability of Australian business to compete during the difficult times ahead and prepare to capitalise on a recovery. Efforts will be required to safeguard confidence in and the ability of financial institutions to extend credit.
Rudd has only acted to maximise fear in the marketplace. His behaviour these past few days have only added to, rather than detracted from the essential problem of confidence. Kevin Rudd is no longer credible.
cath, pm me…
An excellent opinion piece of the state of play from the Liberal party perspective in today’s Weekend Australian by Tony Abbott:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25017669-28737,00.html
He writes very well.
Shanahan and Steketee also wrote pieces which were quite good. Steketee’s assertion however that in the unlikely event of Rudd’s insanity being blocked in the Senate, Turnbull would be forced into an humiliating backdown is utterly implausible. Lenore Taylor performed her usual pathetic kick for touch. The influence of Paul Kelly I shouldn’t wonder.
I don’t expect, but I do fervently hope, that this “stimulus package” is indeed blocked in the Senate.
Seketee’s analysis is pretty spot on, though not especially balanced. HIs final paragraph is worth reading:
“Conservatives overseas, notably the Republicans in the US and the Conservatives in Britain, have taken a similar line to Turnbull against large government debt. But the argument is less credible in Australia, given our low government debt and the smaller size of the stimulus package. And both of the Liberals’ overseas compatriots are in the happy position of not being able to stop government measures going ahead.”
I can’t help myself to say who cares if Turnbull is representing a good long term political strategy. Long term and Turnbull are oxymorons.
Today’s behavior was much worse. If Abetz and Joyce was about raising their profiel, they failed dismally. Both come acrossed as stupid and bad mannered. No public servant, the chair or other members were safe from personal abuse.
As for the delay not being important was challeged today. There will not be any problem as long as nothing is changed in the bills. Some departments will be in a bind, as the extended deadline will take them into the end of the tax year and other responsibilities.
Joel B1 seems to think his vitriol on ‘gilt-edged’ websites is less offensive to..???? So what are the better websites Joel…is there a list?