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Paxter

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Everything posted by Paxter

  1. Having said the above...financial stability will be getting a test in the coming days. Bailey has said the BoE will end its emergency gilt buying in three days (unsure why that deadline was given - hopefully he knows that the pension funds have raised enough cash now to meet their margin calls). Either that or Bailey is playing chicken with Truss. I think the overall indirect contagion risk here is fairly low internationally...unless of course other countries have also turned their pension funds into mini-banks that are leveraged and vulnerable to market/interest rate risk. As for direct contagion risk, that depends on whether any global financial institutions have material exposures to the players (both banks and non-banks) in the UK charade.
  2. The similarities are certainly there with the GOP...gimme a tax cut baby! On the bright side, at least this whole conversation is a (possible) genuine point of contention between the two major parties. There is precious little dividing them at the moment, other than culture wars stuff like ScoMo's religious discrimination bill. When I think about it, Albo effectively conceded all major policy points in order to gain power.
  3. @Jeor: Why is it better to give the $120k plus crowd a tax cut than spend that money on the aged care or health system? Or tax credits for struggling families? $243bn is a nice pot of money…can’t we find better uses for it? We have talked a lot in this thread about ways to raise taxes either for budget responsibility or to fund services to an ageing population. This move completely goes against that mantra. It’s more a Reagan style trickle down thing :(. Hopefully voters see right through the broken promise to the wise policy decision. I didn’t vote for Albo so that we could keep this! On fiscal restraint of emerging economies, I can see both sides. We have to avoid Argentina style situations but at the moment the pendulum probably has swung too far towards austerity. Pakistan, for example, should probably be spending more, not less, in the wake of its devastating floods.
  4. For sure, institutions like the IMF encourage countries to reduce corruption and maintain high-quality spending. But they are also strong proponents of a balanced budget and they usually make smaller deficits a condition of financial assistance.
  5. If that were true, emerging economies could rack up huge deficits in health, education, social security and infrastructure while never receiving a credit downgrade.
  6. The eternal struggle between adequate social investment and prudent economic management! If you have a strong tax base, both goals are within reach. The ScoMo tax cuts don’t help on either score.
  7. Yeah in theory this is an attractive time to get in. Plenty of very beaten up names out there, energy sector aside. But the downside still looks considerable. Some of the speculative puff from the COVID years has come out, but a significant central bank induced recession is not priced in. Nor are further geopolitical setbacks, which could cause headline inflation to skyrocket again. And there’s always the chance of a financial crisis, though most of the risk is (hopefully) sitting outside the banking system this time (and in any case banks are shielded somewhat by the post-crisis buffers).
  8. True pensions are indexed to CPI in Aus, but Brazil also automatically indexes things like the minimum wage and many other govt payments (such as highly successful cash transfers to the poor). While laudable from a social justice perspective, these legislative increases mean that it’s very hard for Brazil to maintain fiscal restraint.
  9. The reduction in taxes for the $120k+ crowd is completely indefensible when we have so many people struggling in this country. And I couldn’t care less about broken promises. Let’s get the important policy questions right. On comparisons with the Truss situation, those are to provide electoral cover. The credit rating agencies aren’t about to downgrade Australia over the ScoMo tax cuts. We have far too much coal to dig up for Moody’s to be worried about us.
  10. Radio talk show host turned politician was all I had to read.
  11. Yeah countries like Brazil index social spending to inflation and it ends up being a massive headache for governments as they can never get on top of their deficits. Similar thing occurs on the tax side.
  12. I'm starting to feel more confident that Albo and Chalmers will do the right thing here. The Truss thing has been a boon.
  13. From a Labor MP on the legislated tax cuts: I'm sorry, $120k per year is a fucking great income. It may not be "rich", but it isn't someone who needs a lot of help from the government. Median earnings in Australia are currently around $50k per year. When are we going to focus on the millions of Australians earning around this amount or lower? Just tells me that both sides of the aisle are completely fucked when it comes to our tax system.
  14. Yeah actually a lot of similarities there. Aus has had more PMs of late, but in terms of parties in power in my lifetime (and just prior) we’ve had the Coalition for stints of 10 (Howard) and 9 (Turnbull/ScoMo/Crazy Onion Eater) years and Labor for 13 (Hawke/Keating) and 6 (Rudd/Gillard). I’d expect the left to win again in NZ next year but it’s really too early to say. I didn’t think Aus would vote for a change this year.
  15. Haha. Only thing is that you need to edit your opening post to include a link to a classic Aus/NZ tune. It’s tradition!
  16. Yeahhhh…I’m in the camp of finding it hard to call a recession with a labour market this tight. I know that technically the definition has been met, but I’m talking something with some serious bite on both Main and Wall St. And that’s what we will probably see next year across the developed economies. So far, there is no recession priced in because the market can’t agree on its extent and duration (fair enough). All we’ve seen is multiple compression as future earnings are discounted at a higher rate. And of course some silly speculative stocks and coins come crashing to earth.
  17. There are plenty of bulls still out there who think the Fed et. al. can engineer a “soft landing” or will simply tolerate high inflation to preserve market stability. So these bear market rallies will continue. But ultimately I am still predicting some sort of recession, which will take prices lower than they are now over the next 12 months. The only saviour for the bulls is if somehow the inflation beast is rapidly tamed. But otherwise, cash is not trash.
  18. $47 is very flattering. The stock opened at like $43 today. Elon’s premium definitely higher than 13. Market wise, we have seen a hell of a rip on the back of the BoE backflip and some slightly weaker economic data. Probably will get a nice bounce from here, maybe until the mid-terms. Then reverse as inflation stays sticky.
  19. It's not just ERs either, there is strain across the health care system, from family doctors to surgeries. And of course the aged care system is hopelessly broken here. Ontario's proposed solution? Private care. That will end well.
  20. No holiday for the two most populous provinces though.
  21. Tragedy in Hamilton, Mississauga and Milton today. Horrifying, distressing and confusing.
  22. Expected result. I assume this just takes the Conservatives closer to electoral oblivion (kind of like the right-wing version of the disastrous Jeremy Corbyn)?
  23. That doesn't really jive with my own life experiences but I don't have any data to back that up. I'm a millennial myself and most of my male friends of the same age are highly supportive or at least generally supportive of LGBT rights. That applies to guys I consider "bros" as well as religious individuals. But self-selection is a problem here. By contrast most of the male boomers in my life are neutral at best on LGBT matters (including my dad, for example).
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