Blogotariat

By Leith van Onselen The Coalition’s staunch defence of negative gearing is looking sillier by the day, with a new survey of 13,000 people by the think tank The Australian Institute for Progress revealing that most people believe that negative gearing reform holds the key to housing affordability. From The AFR: Of all respondents 24

The post Property lobby has lost the argument on negative gearing appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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I am not very interested in Dominoes as a business per se. But I am interested in it as an exemplar of the wage…ahem…massaging business models that have taken hold in Australia’s service sectors. Adele Ferguson is clear today: Since it listed on the ASX in 2005 at $2.20, Domino’s shares surged more than 2500

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By Leith van Onselen As expected, several “experts’ have lashed Dick Smith’s call to cut immigration, arguing that it would trash the economy. From The Australian: Economists and senior business figures have disputed Dick Smith’s claims that immigration is fuelling inequality and questioned his Grim Reaper campaign to save the nation from its “addiction to

The post Will Dick Smith’s Fair Go “stuff the whole economy”? appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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The breath of tomorrow is yours

I stand with the illusionists

And those who have illusions

Well, those card men and women

Who trick us to waste two dollars

To survive

Not two billion to thrive

And the illusioned?

What do we say to them?

That two dollar card games are tricks?

They know this reality

Then how do we explain

That the two billion is the real game?

History’s ways wend

Like a river of slow bends

Toxic, full of waste

Upstream, the fresh water floods

Oh dear, via Chanticleer: One of the ugly sleeper issues buried in the 580-page statement of claim issued by financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the accusation the bank failed to report its suspicions that a customer had links to terrorism financing. Under the law any suspicion of terrorism financing must be

The post ConBank becomes TerrorBank appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Investing can be a volatile ride, the last few days have reminded us. The last few days have also reminded us why holding international equities is often beneficial for Australian investors – the Australian dollar acts as a shock absorber on returns when volatility hits, which is exactly the opposite effect that international investors get investing

The post International shares are less volatile than Australian appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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By Leith van Onselen SQM Research has released its rental vacancy series for July, which revealed a 0.1% fall in the national vacancy rate over the month and a 0.2% decline over the year: As shown above, rental vacancies fell or were flat rose across all capitals in July. Over the year, decreases in vacancies

The post Louis Christopher backs immigration cuts as Saul Eslake loses his head appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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By Leith van Onselen With the release on Friday of the ABS’ housing finance data for June, it is an opportune time to once again plot CoreLogic’s dwelling price series against the total value of finance commitments (excluding refinancings) as measured by the ABS. Note: the ABS’ housing finance data is current to June 2017,

The post Do foreign buyers explain the disconnect between house prices and finance? appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Iron ore price charts for August 15, 2017: Tianjin benchmark dropped $2 to $72.30. Paper lifted a little overnight. What coking coal is doing at $200 I have no idea. It has no Chinese policy support and supply is gushing all over. I still see the top here. So does Capital Economics: • The price

The post Daily iron ore price update (down) appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Mobility and growth in top and bottom incomes – VOX Goldman Tops Banks Betting on a New Type of Hedging – Bloomberg Some Thoughts on Public Memory – Talking Points Memo Bitcoin Price Tops $4,400 As Crypto Market Nears $150 Billion – Coin Desk Shadow Fed is Glum on

The post Links 16 August 2017 appeared first on MacroBusiness.

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Barnaby Joyce has now renounced his New Zealand citizenship but his future is yet to be determined. Mick Tsikas/AAP Michelle Grattan, University of CanberraLet’s get one point straight. The crisis around Barnaby Joyce has been caused by one simple oversight by one person.

Reflecting back on the Coalition’s six years in Opposition, it’s no wonder they are in such trouble now. Instead of developing policy, think about what they spent their time doing. They pursued Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson mercilessly in an effort to bring down a minority government. They spent years trying to pin some wrongdoing…

The post The Coalition have had ten years to come up with a policy that works appeared first on The AIM Network.

Communism in east-central Europe after 1945, with its endless disjunctures between official rhetoric and lived experience, nurtured a rich black economy of mocking humour. The jokes of that era, as much as the region’s older folktales, are archetypal but come in national flavours. Some Czechoslovakian ones, for example, have an absurdism that subverts not just politics but life itself.