so what of your beloved Greens now???? bob the alien brown he tossed it in and all that is left are the communist ratbags and bleeding hearts of sarah hanson young, lee rhiannon and horse head Milne.......:-" :-" :-"

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no bigger lie than this one Matt, talk about spin

I never voted Green because of the Greens. I voted Adam Bandt because he's one of the few remaining politicians with any convictions left.

I'm also a member of The Secular Party, not The Greens.

Now that I live on the regional fringe rather than the inner city it doesn't really matter how I vote in the house. Russell Broadbent will be my MP regardless.

Thinking of voting Assange in the senate.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

If you make your point based on an articulate argument as to why the policies of the party you support are good you might get somewhere. Superimposing 'Fact' and accusing everyone else of lying makes you seem bigoted at least, and is hihgly detrimental to your case.

And that concluded today's lesson: Command of language, helps your point.

I'm voting for Katter's Party.

umad?

-PB

A deficit scary? It depends on why it's there
Date
May 11, 2013

Far too much fuss is being made about this year's budget because politics has overtaken economics. I'm adding to the fuss, of course, but at least I'm trying to help people assess the economic significance of all the political argy-bargy.

When we see the budget on Tuesday night the deficit is likely still to be very big. How worried should we be about that deficit? And how urgent is it for the government to get the budget back to surplus? For the politically partisan, these are easy questions. If you're a one-eyed Liberal supporter, any deficit is a terrible thing and it should be eliminated ASAP. If you're a one-eyed Labor supporter, budget deficits aren't a great problem and to reduce them while the economy is in its present state could do great damage.

If you're interested in an economic analysis, however, it's not as simple as the political partisans imagine.

To decide how worrying a budget deficit is you have to know about the state of the economy at the time. This is because - although the political types don't know it, or keep forgetting it - the budget balance at any moment is a product of two different forces: the economy's effect on the budget, on one hand, and the government's effect on the budget on the other.

Advertisement
When the economy's in the upswing part of the business cycle the budget's likely to be in or heading towards surplus. That's because people will be earning more income and paying a lot of tax on it, while others will be finding jobs and going off the dole.

When the economy's in the downswing part of the cycle the budget's likely to be in or heading towards deficit. That's because people will be earning less income and paying less tax, while others are losing their jobs and going onto the dole.

But though the economy's effect on the budget balance via the business cycle is usually the bigger effect, we still have to take account of the government's effect on the balance. The economy's effect is known as the ''cyclical component'' of the budget balance and the government's effect is called the ''structural component''.

The structural component should be the cumulative effect of all the policy decisions the government has made - some going back quite a few years - to change taxes and government spending (although it may also include the effect of changes in the underlying structure of the economy).

The point of all this is that if the deficit at a particular time was largely the product of the weak state of the economy, the weak state of the economy would be something to worry about, but the deficit it produced wouldn't be.

So to decide how worried we should be about the budget deficit we see on Tuesday, we need to know how much of it is cyclical and how much is structural. Whatever part of it is cyclical is justified by the state of the economy and something that will fix itself as the economy strengthens.

If a significant part of it is structural, that could be justified only if the economy was so weak the government was adding its own stimulus to that provided automatically by the budget's ''automatic stabilisers''. (These are built-in elements of the budget - particularly the progressive tax scale and the dole - the operation of which is what creates the cyclical component of the budget deficit or surplus.)

The way economists divide the budget balance into its cyclical and structural components is to work out where the budget balance would be if the economy were running at trend levels - on its medium-term average growth path, averaging out all the ups and downs in the cycle. The extent to which the actual budget balance departs from this trend estimate represents the structural component.

As with so many concepts in economics, the idea's easy to grasp but putting a number on it ain't. You have to make a lot of assumptions and estimates, meaning different economists come up with different figures.

This week Chris Richardson, of Deloitte Access Economics, published his estimates that the overall cash budget deficit will be $22.2 billion for the year just finishing, 2012-13, and $20.2 billion for the coming year.

His corresponding estimates for the structural deficit are $22.8 billion (equivalent to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product) and $20.2 billion (1.3 per cent). In other words, the overall deficit is totally explained by structural factors.

Note that these figures are on a ''no-policy-change basis''. That is, they're estimates of the ''starting-point deficit'' before the government began deciding on all the policy changes to be announced on Tuesday (and which it has been leaking as part of its media manipulation). Richardson says the small improvement in the structural deficit between the years is probably mainly the result of a year's worth of bracket creep.

Does it surprise you that, according to Richardson's figuring, no part of the overall deficit is cyclical? If it does, it shouldn't. You've been listening to politicking, not reading the economic indicators. Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said this week the economy is growing at only ''a bit below trend''.

And this week we learnt the smoothed unemployment rate has been at 5.5 per cent for three months. Remember, economists regard full employment as an unemployment rate of about 5 per cent.

All this says most of the deficit we see on Tuesday will be structural. As we saw in last week's column, however, much of it will be the legacy of unwise decisions made by the Howard government (including, Richardson reminds us, its decision to stop indexing the excise on petrol, which is now costing about $5 billion a year).

To be sustainable, the recurrent budget does need to be in balance on average over the cycle. It would risk damage to the economy to try to eliminate a big structural deficit in one hit. But that will not excuse any failure by the Gillard government to get on with reducing it.

Twitter: @1RossGittins



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/federal-budget/a-deficit-scary-it-depends-on-why-its-there-20130510-2jdjx.html#ixzz2SyvjJqR8

An inconvenient truth perhaps?

Structural factors? But Swan and Gillard are still to blame right, right.....right?

But, but, but.....Howard had a surplus.

Parramatta to Epping rail link funding pulled?

You mean the rail link that the NSW Government refused to build?

That one?

The rail link that the Federal Government refused to break their promise on? Where they offered 80% of the funding for the link, only for the NSW Goverment to refuse to build it?

Is that the one?

Because it sounds like you're confusing that project, the one cancelled by the O'Farrell Liberal Government, with some fantasy rail project that the Federal Government promised to fund then backflipped on.

Not the real funding proposal, which was never pulled, and instead was cancelled by the NSW Liberal Government.

And Gillard has a debt. Another thing Abbitt will have to fix, like the debt Howard and Costello inherited and fixed.

Oh Labor, what is it good for?

If only a certain previous Government hadn't sold everything not nailed down to throw billions down the drain on vote buying middle class welfare.

or a lobbyists excuse

the fact of the matter is the Greens and the independants who the rabble of a government got into bed with are the reason Labor can't get what they want through.........to be honest if EITHER Abbott or Gillard were the leaders we deserve neither would have formed Government and we would have returned to the Polls, proof that neither are fit to rule the country..........

yes that one, where Gillard promise 80% of the funding, and when the cost blew out from 2.6 billion to 5.4 billion and Gillard themn fixed the funding as a dollar figure rather than 80%, o'Farrell had no other choice than to pull out, so politically it looks like O'Farrell dumped it but had Gillard stumped up the 80% as promised you may well have seen the link built....

you only have to go and search the project, funding and crap that they have promised and never delivered and you will see the truth.......

Because no Government has ever broken a promise right? :lol:

-PB

Yes of course, lets not discuss the facts, lets query their credibility.

doesn't make it right or that we should be apathetic and accept it.......

let aspire to mediocrity....!!!!!=d> =d> =d>

ok let's discuss the facts....

FACT: Wayne swan and Julia Gillard predicted a surplus of $1.5 Billion.....Gee they are only $20 billion off the mark....let's all join hands and dance around at how fortunate we are.....YIPPEE......\:d/ \:d/


and what credibilty is that???? the part where she knifed RUDD, or the part where she lied about the carbon tax, or the part where she endorsed Craig Thompson and peter slipper????



Edited by batfink: 12/5/2013 12:44:31 PM

has been rejected by Palmer

A deficit scary? It depends on why it's there
Date
May 11, 2013

Far too much fuss is being made about this year's budget because politics has overtaken economics. I'm adding to the fuss, of course, but at least I'm trying to help people assess the economic significance of all the political argy-bargy.

When we see the budget on Tuesday night the deficit is likely still to be very big. How worried should we be about that deficit? And how urgent is it for the government to get the budget back to surplus? For the politically partisan, these are easy questions. If you're a one-eyed Liberal supporter, any deficit is a terrible thing and it should be eliminated ASAP. If you're a one-eyed Labor supporter, budget deficits aren't a great problem and to reduce them while the economy is in its present state could do great damage.

If you're interested in an economic analysis, however, it's not as simple as the political partisans imagine.

To decide how worrying a budget deficit is you have to know about the state of the economy at the time. This is because - although the political types don't know it, or keep forgetting it - the budget balance at any moment is a product of two different forces: the economy's effect on the budget, on one hand, and the government's effect on the budget on the other.

Advertisement
When the economy's in the upswing part of the business cycle the budget's likely to be in or heading towards surplus. That's because people will be earning more income and paying a lot of tax on it, while others will be finding jobs and going off the dole.

When the economy's in the downswing part of the cycle the budget's likely to be in or heading towards deficit. That's because people will be earning less income and paying less tax, while others are losing their jobs and going onto the dole.

But though the economy's effect on the budget balance via the business cycle is usually the bigger effect, we still have to take account of the government's effect on the balance. The economy's effect is known as the ''cyclical component'' of the budget balance and the government's effect is called the ''structural component''.

The structural component should be the cumulative effect of all the policy decisions the government has made - some going back quite a few years - to change taxes and government spending (although it may also include the effect of changes in the underlying structure of the economy).

The point of all this is that if the deficit at a particular time was largely the product of the weak state of the economy, the weak state of the economy would be something to worry about, but the deficit it produced wouldn't be.

So to decide how worried we should be about the budget deficit we see on Tuesday, we need to know how much of it is cyclical and how much is structural. Whatever part of it is cyclical is justified by the state of the economy and something that will fix itself as the economy strengthens.

If a significant part of it is structural, that could be justified only if the economy was so weak the government was adding its own stimulus to that provided automatically by the budget's ''automatic stabilisers''. (These are built-in elements of the budget - particularly the progressive tax scale and the dole - the operation of which is what creates the cyclical component of the budget deficit or surplus.)

The way economists divide the budget balance into its cyclical and structural components is to work out where the budget balance would be if the economy were running at trend levels - on its medium-term average growth path, averaging out all the ups and downs in the cycle. The extent to which the actual budget balance departs from this trend estimate represents the structural component.

As with so many concepts in economics, the idea's easy to grasp but putting a number on it ain't. You have to make a lot of assumptions and estimates, meaning different economists come up with different figures.

This week Chris Richardson, of Deloitte Access Economics, published his estimates that the overall cash budget deficit will be $22.2 billion for the year just finishing, 2012-13, and $20.2 billion for the coming year.

His corresponding estimates for the structural deficit are $22.8 billion (equivalent to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product) and $20.2 billion (1.3 per cent). In other words, the overall deficit is totally explained by structural factors.

Note that these figures are on a ''no-policy-change basis''. That is, they're estimates of the ''starting-point deficit'' before the government began deciding on all the policy changes to be announced on Tuesday (and which it has been leaking as part of its media manipulation). Richardson says the small improvement in the structural deficit between the years is probably mainly the result of a year's worth of bracket creep.

Does it surprise you that, according to Richardson's figuring, no part of the overall deficit is cyclical? If it does, it shouldn't. You've been listening to politicking, not reading the economic indicators. Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said this week the economy is growing at only ''a bit below trend''.

And this week we learnt the smoothed unemployment rate has been at 5.5 per cent for three months. Remember, economists regard full employment as an unemployment rate of about 5 per cent.

All this says most of the deficit we see on Tuesday will be structural. As we saw in last week's column, however, much of it will be the legacy of unwise decisions made by the Howard government (including, Richardson reminds us, its decision to stop indexing the excise on petrol, which is now costing about $5 billion a year).

To be sustainable, the recurrent budget does need to be in balance on average over the cycle. It would risk damage to the economy to try to eliminate a big structural deficit in one hit. But that will not excuse any failure by the Gillard government to get on with reducing it.

Twitter: @1RossGittins



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/federal-budget/a-deficit-scary-it-depends-on-why-its-there-20130510-2jdjx.html#ixzz2SyvjJqR8

I look forward to having this conversation with you in 4 years time :)

-PB

Only in your deluded world could continuing to promise to fund a project despite a higher cost be considered a 'backflip'.

Partisan pettiness aside, you are fairly simple if you don't understand the difference between a parties policies campaigning for government and policies implemented when government is formed as a result of a hung parliament.

if the LNP get in they will be the next target in my sites, i don't subscribe to the view that the opposition are to blame for a governments mistakes.......

:shock: hypocrite much....!!!!! so when the cost's exceed the original budget it's all right for Gillard to pull the funding, but it's not ok for O'Farrell to pull the funding??? smelling like politics on forcing a state to break a promise.....

talk about deluded.....you can't be serious???

excuses aside you must be simple if you can't see the difference between stating "this government will not introduce a carbon tax" (her policy) and what was rolled out ( a lie)..??

your telling me Gillard was stupid enough to agree to lying to become PM??

wow she is a low life lying scumbag of epic proportions and has displayed the lack of principles required to hold her position as PM and leader of the ALP......

You still seem to be unable to grasp what is a resoundingly simple concept.

When the ALP and LNP campaigned for the previous election and put forward their policies those policies were under representation of a majority government. Neither could form government in their own right and to do so had to compromise on policy with the minor party seat holders and independents.

There is a difference between lying and being unable to fulfill a promise due to circumstances beyond your control. Lying requires knowingly misrepresenting facts, and Gillard was, to the extent that it can possibly be proven, being truthful when campaigning about not introducing a carbon tax. The information she had access to and her parties stance on the matter meant that saying otherwise would have been a lie at the time. Abbott offered concessions to the independents as well, however they felt the best outcome for them was (rightly or wrongly) a ALP government. Had they gone the other way would you be calling Abbott a liar for not fulfilling some of his campaign policies? (hint: if so, you would still be wrong)

I'm calling you out on this not because I support Gillard or Labor (I don't) but because I loathe people buying into uninformed rhetoric. Falling for these sorts of attacks is precisely the reason why informed political debate is depressingly rare. It is a lot easier for a group to start a buzz-word laden scare campaign and wash the masses up in name-calling and petty arguments than it is to inform and reason.