Ratings agencies are likely to find themselves under increasing attack after Standard & Poor’s last night warned that plans to corral French and German banks and insurance companies into contributing to the second Greek bailout could push the country into default.
Debt
Gruen: paying for Australia’s infrastructure deficit
Rather than simply getting budgets into operating surplus — mostly a very good thing — Australian governments have embraced the notion that all debt is bad, writes Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economic.
Our dangerous debt affair
Is our economic future at risk as a result of the huge debts we’ve accumulated to indulge our love affair with housing?
Irvine: Beware the (economic) bogeyman
Why do the Coalition fling so much mud at Labor in relation to debt and interest rates? The answer is simple: because the economic bogeyman is a very effective monster to haunt the government with, irrespective of the facts, writes Jessica Irvine.
Dispatches from Steve Keen’s Debt March
Rob Burgess is accompanying economist Steve Keen as he walks to Mount Kosciusko, doing everything in his power to prick the “property bubble” and put the Australian economy back on what he thinks is a sounder footing.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: No sympathy for Rudd
Crikey readers weigh in on Kevin Rudd’s mea-culpa, the Tassie election, the difficulty with differing between debts and the climate change debate continues.
Property value never falls? Don’t put the house on it
Australians’ household debt levels are world leading. We pay about five-six times our household disposable incomes for our average dream home. This won’t end well.
PIGS might fly when it comes to public debt
Rising public debt is a key challenges facing world economies, with many countries with debt to GDP ratios over 100%. And it’s the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) who are at the most risk, explains Mark Crosby.
Cut up your credit card
Megan McArdle recently interviewed finance guru Dave Ramsey, who advocates one simple message: ditch your credit cards and live debt-free. Would the world really be a better place without the plastic fantastic?
Is Dubai about to go broke?
Dubai is more than $80 billion in debt. It has about $4b left from its recent $20b bailout by Abu Dhabi, but, according to Standard & Poor, that’s about $10b too short to keep its government-related companies afloat.
Kohler: Dump Turnbull and his useless debt plan
Malcolm Turnbull may have tried to get the media focus back on national debt yesterday, but his debt reduction strategy is a “tired, dismal effort that will sink without trace”, writes Alan Kohler.
Turnbull’s debt plan to cut $12b a year
Malcolm Turnbull tried to get some of the spotlight off his leadership by launching a “debt reduction strategy”, representing a major shift back toward the Coalition’s traditional rhetoric of small government.
Malcolm and Joe, shoulder to shoulder in the thick of it
Andrew Crook attended this morning’s “united front” press conference at Melbourne’s Treasury Place. What was it like? Who asked the hard questions about blackface?
Making a bad situation worse
The RBA may have hiked up interest rates on the belief that the economy is returning to normal — but its view of “normal” is out of whack, says Debtwatch. Perhaps it’s time to take control of Australia’s monetary policy out of the RBA’s hands?
California: America’s first failed state
California is in the poo. Its public servants are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at a 70-year peak, and teachers are on hunger strike. How did it all go so wrong for America’s Golden State?
Buffett edgy on over-stimulated debt
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO, legendary investor Warren Buffet, has warned of the dangers of excessive fiscal stimulus and the dire effects of an ever-increasing public debt.
Australians discard the plastic
Australians are reducing their credit card debt and borrowing less in general, according to the latest lending finance figures, with revolving credit commitments down 4.8%.
Keen: Rate cut both courageous and a failure
The RBA’s decision to cut rates by a full percent — twice what all pundits were expecting — is both courageous and an admission of failure, writes Steve Keen/.
Will the consumer credit market be the next to collapse?
Despite the problems people are having in paying back, credit cards are still being handed carelessly. Adam Schwab asks, how much of the current overall debt will end up being paid back?
