Oz Federal Election 2013 - Discussion and Comments

[cove]

Ready, shoot , aim!
He is back hopefully for only a few weeks.
He will never apologise for his many mistakes.
Meanwhile the consumer has hesitated so the economy is tanking. If he makes the election closer to the end of the year lots of full time workers will get pink slips.

 

[Moody]

Ready, shoot , aim!
He is back hopefully for only a few weeks.
He will never apologise for his many mistakes.
Meanwhile the consumer has hesitated so the economy is tanking. If he makes the election closer to the end of the year lots of full time workers will get pink slips.

You forgot to repeat the latest four word slogan "policy on the run" you naughty boy. Go straight to the back of the mantra queue!

And what I don't understand is if the economy is truly tanking why are domestic airfares so expensive and hotels full. I actually checked Tiger last week in a fit of pique.

 

[Pushka]

Ready, shoot , aim!
He is back hopefully for only a few weeks.
He will never apologise for his many mistakes.
Meanwhile the consumer has hesitated so the economy is tanking. If he makes the election closer to the end of the year lots of full time workers will get pink slips.

You forgot to repeat the latest four word slogan "policy on the run" you naughty boy. Go straight to the back of the mantra queue!

And what I don't understand is if the economy is truly tanking why are domestic airfares so expensive and hotels full. I actually checked Tiger last week in a fit of pique.

Fixed it for you.
Ready, shoot , aim!
He is back hopefully for only a few weeks.
He will never apologise for his many mistakes.
Meanwhile the consumer has hesitated so the economy is tanking. If he makes the election closer to the end of the year lots of full time workers will get pink slips
Policy on the run.

If you can't see that small businesses are struggling (and they employ around 5 million people) as is retail (even the Stocktake sales were gloomy after years of non spending) then I don't know what you are looking at. Some niches are doing well (coffee) while others are in trouble.

 

[HarryB]

Consumers haven't been spending for over a year, it has nothing to do with Rudd.

 

[Pukka]

Consumers haven't been spending for over a year, it has nothing to do with Rudd.

Just the government then

 

[Pukka]

Looks like he's sunk 4.5% in a couple of hours - Newspoll has the Coalition cruising and Rudd losing.

Honeymoon's over, warm up the next one.

Hopefully the tides going out now. He might have to cut and run.

Must be bad the ALP pollies have started saying polls don't matter again

 

[tgh]

Just the government then

bingo....ding ding ding .. we have a winner.

Truth is perception..

Will the people perceive kevvie as the true saviour of all that is right and good?
He has moved so far to the right , so fast , that folks haven't caught up yet.

My Olefactory organ says his high risk vote gathering is looking shaky atm
TPNG can't and won't work as a "real" place to go.. but as a deterrent.. maybe gold.. or even plat.. or ....
Interesting times

 

[drsmithy]

Just the government then

Because other factors like one of the highest personal debt-to-income ratios in the world would have nothing whatsoever to do with customers not spending, right ?

 

[Pushka]

Because other factors like one of the highest personal debt-to-income ratios in the world would have nothing whatsoever to do with customers not spending, right ?

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the extreme cost of buying homes in Australia, right?

 

[Pukka]

Because other factors like one of the highest personal debt-to-income ratios in the world would have nothing whatsoever to do with customers not spending, right ?

Sounds like super Kevin needs to send out more $900 bribes then

 

[drsmithy]

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the extreme cost of buying homes in Australia, right?

It has everything to do with the ridiculous cost of real estate in this country (thanks again to Howard & Costello for helping to pump it up with their CGT changes).

Fixing that will do far more to help the economy than any sadistic plan to reduce employee rights and job security - sorry, "increase flexibility" - could ever hope to.

 

[Pukka]

It has everything to do with the ridiculous cost of real estate in this country (thanks again to Howard & Costello for helping to pump it up with their CGT changes).

Fixing that will do far more to help the economy than any sadistic plan to reduce employee rights and job security - sorry, "increase flexibility" - could ever hope to.

By fixing that you mean you want housing prices to plummet; and you seriously think that will help the economy.

I'm sure the feel good factor for those millions of people that end up in negative equity will make them rush out and start spending to boost the economy.

Or maybe not.

 

[Pushka]

It has everything to do with the ridiculous cost of real estate in this country (thanks again to Howard & Costello for helping to pump it up with their CGT changes).

Fixing that will do far more to help the economy than any sadistic plan to reduce employee rights and job security - sorry, "increase flexibility" - could ever hope to.

Right, so you will send those people who have bought homes into instant poverty as their homes will be worth less than their mortgage. Or do you think only rich people own homes? Sounds more like policy on the run to me, with all those unintended consequences (aka - "We didn't think it through") emerging after the announcement.

Any other ideas?

 

[drsmithy]

By fixing that you mean you want housing prices to plummet; and you seriously think that will help the economy.

Longer term, unquestionably.

High land costs are a massive anvil around the neck of the economy.

I'm sure the feel good factor for those millions of people that end up in negative equity will make them rush out and start spending to boost the economy.

It's not supposed to be a short-term fix. Short-term fixes only lead to greater long-term pain.

We are way, way, too far into this real estate bubble to get out without major negative consequences. The time to act with relatively little pain was back in the '90s, and the guys running the place back then went in completely the wrong direction.

 

[drsmithy]

Right, so you will send those people who have bought homes into instant poverty as their homes will be worth less than their mortgage.

That doesn't "put you into a poverty", it only becomes a problem when selling and moving. Your mortgage payment doesn't change just because your house has lost value.

What's going to "put people into poverty" is when unemployment starts to rise as the economy slows. Then those mortgage payments that are sucking up 50% of two incomes are going to get mighty difficult to meet.

Sounds more like policy on the run to me, with all those unintended consequences (aka - "We didn't think it through") emerging after the announcement.

No, I've thought it through fairly well. I never said it was a good solution, just a least-worst one.

Any other ideas?

It's one more than has been offered so far.

 

[drron]

Because other factors like one of the highest personal debt-to-income ratios in the world would have nothing whatsoever to do with customers not spending, right ?

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the extreme cost of buying homes in Australia, right?

These are the reasons why many feel the economy is not as rosy as Wayne painted it.

Longer term, unquestionably.

High land costs are a massive anvil around the neck of the economy.


It's not supposed to be a short-term fix. Short-term fixes only lead to greater long-term pain.

We are way, way, too far into this real estate bubble to get out without major negative consequences. The time to act with relatively little pain was back in the '90s, and the guys running the place back then went in completely the wrong direction.

And here I am totally with you.Nothing goes up forever.The only unknown is the timing.Even Helicopter Ben was saying the US housing scene was in no danger of a collapse on the eve of that home price collapse in the US.At least in the US people could just walk away and not be pursued for the shortfall.Here the individual is going to be hit harder.Again as you say it will depend on them keeping their job so as not to be forced into selling.

 

[drsmithy]

Even Helicopter Ben was saying the US housing scene was in no danger of a collapse on the eve of that home price collapse in the US.At least in the US people could just walk away and not be pursued for the shortfall.Here the individual is going to be hit harder.

One needs to be careful treating the US as a single entity in this context. Laws and outcomes vary wildly between states.

There were places in the US that never had a real estate bubble (and there are places where it is rapidly bubbling again - I am cursing my decision not to buy when were were living in AZ a few years ago).

There are many places in the US where simply walking away from a mortgage is no easier than it is here (and it made no difference).

 

[wmetz]

Any drop in Kevin is just green voters pi??ed off with him, but at the end of the day, their preference vote will go to Kevin over Tony.

Ask yourself this, while Kevin only PM for a few weeks, why for 3 years Didn't Tony or Morrision ever come up with any other idea other then towing boats. All they done in last few days is keep bagging it, just like they did about everything else, which turned out not true. In fact it seems that Kevin made extra trips to PNG over last year or so, to get their support.

And rubbish in the papers saying take 2 years to build, well it didnt take 2 years to build when Howard open the detention their last time, and so I think the same builders can get it up and running even quicker, as basic building still their.

And at the end of the day, the ones in Nauru, they now realise that the last changes done by Julia, to put them at the end of the line is working. So they either rot there , or go back to their last place of call. And this same point of PNG. u can stay there behind barred wire in a isolated jungle, or go back to indo where they got the boat from.

As for debating, ask yourself this. If he couldnt beat Julia when she debated him 3 years ago, Kevin will wipe him in the debates.

And forgeting about this PNG thing, in QLD the election will be based on the failure of this state gov and how schools here wont be getting any extra funding
, the disability program also a no show in QLD and the sacking of nurses and doctors, which took place in rural QLD.

And the hospital system in Victoria also a failure, and that MP on a fact finding trip to London.

And finally Tony saying he stop the changes to protect the car industry, well wasn't he against tax money to protect local production. And now since the dollar dropped by atleast 10%, then cost of imported cars will rise against local production, which can lead to more private buyers, who dont get any tax benefit for driving their car. And anyone with half a brain can write anything in a log book to show it was a business trip and not personal. Maybe this explains also from US today, the gov wants all cars to have fixed GSp systems in them. It would allow their tax office to know exactly where car goes Mon to Fri.

 

[eastwest101]

I rarely agree with drsmithy - but I think rather than house prices plummeting I would suggest that we need property prices to stagnate for quite a while so that property prices are not so out of step with the rest of the world, less borrowing would also free up money to be used/invested elsewhere in the economy whether by consumption or by investment in other places. There are demographic drivers for this that are unavoidable, i.e. an ageing population with less younger people choosing from a larger and larger pool of housing stock as the population ages.

The two biggest impediments to housing affordibility are state government stamp duties that act as a brake on people relocating and buying more appropriate size housing, and the other big one being the high cost of developed land (i.e. with services) - no-one can argue that Australia is going to run out of land, its the distortions in the supply side such as the high cost of acquiring, planning, and developing services/approvals and the limited release of available land by developers that drives up the cost of land. These high costs show up in the presumably high profit margins of land developers, the high costs and inefficiencies built into the rezoning, planning and permissions stages as well as the high costs of construction and the high cost of providing infrastructure in Australia. With other industries that are trade exposed - if you have high costs you go out of business fairly quickly but land development is not trade exposed, yet, until younger Australians realise that they can buy better value real estate somewhere else. This will be a tougher one as it will require local, state and federal governments to act like adults and co-operate otherwise the property market will become unsustainable to the point of collapse or driving homeowners to alternative solutions.

Unwinding property bubbles is tough as there are a lot of stakeholders exposed or over-exposed to high property prices, such as existing homeowners, lots of government bureaucracies, banks and their shareholders etc

 

[Pushka]

That doesn't "put you into a poverty", it only becomes a problem when selling and moving. Your mortgage payment doesn't change just because your house has lost value.

It would most definitely put me into poverty. I will be downsizing and if your plan comes into being I will have a mortgage on a house but no house. ergo, the Bank will call in money on an asset I no longer own. Where does the money come from for that, and then, where will I live?

Do you guys actually own houses or are just pontificating. House prices have been stagnant for years!