Ross Gittins is economics editor of the SMH and an economic columnist for The Age. His books include Gittins' Guide to Economics, Gittinomics and The Happy Economist.
Smoke signals from Canberra suggest that all the government will manage to get through the Senate is a reduction to 27.5 per cent in the tax rate applying to companies with turnover of less than $10 million a year.
Economists may not be much chop at forecasting how fast the economy will grow in the next year or two, but that doesn't mean they haven't learnt a few things about how economies work.
The nation's budget problem still won't be solved when, one day in the distant future, we get the federal budget back into surplus. Only a change in strategy is likely to produce a sustained solution.
If you learn nothing else about the economy, remember that it moves not in straight lines but in cycles of good times followed by bad times, and bad times followed by good.
There's no clearer sign that the Turnbull government is in deep political trouble than the never-ending saga of the Centrelink robo-debt stuff-up.
Confidence and capacity are the real drivers of investment.
The tax system is supposed to deal with issues other than attracting investment.
In Australia, micro-economic reform has degenerated into a form of rent-seeking that's saying the way to a prosperous economy is to keep business – the people who create the jobs – as happy as possible.
It turns out Christopher Pyne was right: Julia Gillard's version of the Gonski school funding reform was indeed "Conski".
There's a long history of politicians professing to be terribly concerned about "the cost of living" and nothing good ever comes of it. It's always about saying things to keep or win your vote and rarely about doing anything real – let alone sensible – about prices.
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