Category: Austrailia
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Will a Plunging Stock Market Send the Economy Into Recession? / Economics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
So far this month the Australian share market has dropped by 10 per cent, sending some people into a panic and raising the spectre of recession. Let us begin by putting this in historical perspective. In October 1987 the Australian share market plunged by 50 per cent. This drove the economic commentariat to wail that the economy was heading into a deep recession.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 14, 2008
Australian Stocks Attempted to Break Losing Streak / Stock-Markets / Austrailia
By: Geoffrey_Transom
We mused on Friday if perhaps the Australian market might be able to break its losing spell this week - and it did its damnedest to do just that today, albeit after a very poor opening.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Australian Stocks Continue Week Long Losing Streak / Stock-Markets / Austrailia
By: Geoffrey_Transom
Crikey... seems like the Strayan market just can't get it's act together. Today marked the fifth successive session of decline for every All Ords market-cap sub-index except the ASX20 (which managed a gain yesterday), with average declines in the market-cap based subindices of 5% for the week.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 11, 2008
Australian Prime Minister Should Ignore Demands for Price Controls / Economics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
Now that we have wall-to-wall Labor Governments the question of price controls has once again been raised, particularly with respect to petrol. Although I do not believe for a moment that Prime Minister Rudd intends to imposed price controls I still think it is prudent to remind people that those who cry out for price controls either believe that the laws of supply and demand do not exist or that they are determined by institutional factors, meaning that they vary according to time and place. From this they conclude that prices can be fixed without any harm to the economy so long as account is take of the costs of production.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Taxes, Money and Surpluses: Fact and Fiction / Economics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
John Stone's somewhat harsh criticism of the Howard government's fiscal policy was fully justified. ( Mr Costello's repeated budget failure , National Observer No. 73 - Winter 2007). However, Stone's comments on government revenues and budget surpluses missed a very important question: what generated such huge government revenues and massive surpluses? There was a time when the answer would have been self-evident to any economist worth his salt.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Australian Economy Heading Into Stormy Seas / Economics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
The problem with Terry McCrann's economic opinions is not that they are terrible but that they are largely shared by the rest of our economic commentariat. For instance, McCrann cheerfully reports that over the year to October credit for business rapidly expanded. Now he did temper his enthusiasm with the observation that the trade deficit jumped from $1 billion in July to $1.8 billion in August before jumping to $3 billion in October. As he put it: "Import volumes are soaring, thanks to the high Aussie dollar."Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Why Austrailia's Trade Unions Sponsored Work Study is Worthless / Politics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
The aim of Buchanan and Woonay's Australia at Work study is to persuade people that free labour markets drive down real wage rates because labour lacks the power to defend itself against capitalists. Yet every single critic of this so-called study missed this vital point. What we got were conservative economic illiterates like Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew Bolt and Imre Saluszinsky (all of whom are from the Murdoch stable) engaging in ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with Buchanan and Woonroy's underlying assumption that free labour markets are exploitive.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Unbroken , Australia''s Voters “Fix” Her Anyway By Electing Kevin Rudd / Economics / Austrailia
By: Chip_Hanlon
Political challengers, you just saw a great example of how to run against an incumbent when things in your country are perfect, a seemingly impossible task: convince voters there is essentially no difference between your ideas and those of the incumbent. This strategy was just worked to perfection in Australia , where a week ago the liberal Labour Party's Kevin Rudd was elected as the country's new prime minister, unseating the long-ruling conservative, John Howard.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Labour Market Economics Sank the Howard Government / Politics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
Although it is probably correct to point to rising interest rates and Howard?s admission that he would resign if re-elected as contributing to his defeat, it is still very likely that an autopsy will reveal that the principle cause of the Liberal Government?s demise was its grotesque mishandling of labour market reform. Trying to explain to Liberal politicians what was needed to successfully sell the benefits of free labour markets was an impossible task.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 19, 2007
Australia’s Plummeting Unemployment: Miracle or Good Economics? / Economics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
Australia’s seems to be facing the happy prospect of unemployment falling to 4 per cent or less. What was once thought to be impossible has become the mundane. How can this be? We have been told year after year that the jobless were doomed to be always with us because it would require a savage cut in real wage rates to restore full employment (Gittins Gregory). Therefore it would not only be heartless to cut real wages but also suicidal. I said at the time that this view was absolute rubbish. Time has once again proved me correct.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Act Now to Invest in Booming Austrailia Before the Dollars Winter of Discontent / Stock-Markets / Austrailia
By: Money_and_Markets
Fading Green, Brighter Gold - Sean Brodrick writes: When I was in college, I worked on the Cog Railroad that runs up the side of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. One of my favorite times was at the end of the season, when the surrounding slopes and valleys of the White Mountains would turn flame red, royal purple and rich gold with the change of seasons. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 17, 2007
Does the Fall in Australia’s Manufacturing Hold a Lesson for US economy? / Economics / Austrailia
By: Gerard_Jackson
Australian manufacturing is now about 11 per cent of GDP, the lowest ratio in the OECD. For years I have been warning our so-called free marketeers that the condition of manufacturing needed to be addressed. Their insouciant response is that the decline of manufacturing — no matter how severe — as a proportion of GDP is only to be expected in an advanced economy. In support of this assertion they appeal to the law of diminishing marginal utility and the concept of comparative advantage.Read full article... Read full article...