Jeor

Lehrmann bringing this defamation action has to go down as one of the great self-sabotage acts in recent history. The judge even said it in something akin to escaping the lion's den but then going back for his hat. He'll probably be bankrupt now, and unemployable, but I won't be shedding a tear. To be fair, Lisa Wilkinson and Channel Ten don't come out smelling like roses either. No fact-checking and no opportunity for Lehrmann to respond seems a pretty gross violation of journalistic integrity. And no evidence of a government/political cover-up, which makes the eager politicking of David Sharaz look uncomfortably opportunistic. I don't think there's a winner in any of this case, although I hope for Brittany Higgins it brings some form of closure; while not a criminal trial, and the burden of proof being lower (balance of probabilities), it did at least give her some legal ruling by proxy that essentially establishes the truth of her allegations and Lehrmann's guilt. And the Bondi Junction stabbing was a massive tragedy - hits a bit close to home, only a few weeks ago I was there at Bondi Westfield on a Sunday afternoon dropping my daughter off to a birthday party while my wife, me and our 2 year-old son were ambling around the shops for a couple of hours to kill the time until we picked our daughter up (we live 45m away from Bondi so wasn't worth our going home). Incredibly, incredibly sad for those involved but also some amazing acts of bravery too. Thank goodness we don't have many guns in Australia, it could have been so much worse.

Trump knows enough about shady business schemes to make this a pump and dump operation. And as has been previously mentioned, he doesn't actually need to sell the stock - he can borrow a large amount of cash now using those shares as collateral. While I have no doubt in the long term the share price will start to crater, I don't think that will happen for at least another year or two and I suspect it will only crater if he loses the election. Tesla stock seems to be at a crossroads at the moment. It's taken a bit of a hammering lately and the outlook isn't good. Cheaper EVs from China are flooding the market, Tesla has had to lower prices and destroy its own margin, and the consumer spending outlook still isn't bullish enough to lift what is a discretionary product. I'm not a fan of Elon Mask so I'm enjoying a bit of schadenfreude lately - but I'll enjoy it while it lasts, because the stock defies all reason and the Musk fans will probably push it up again sooner rather than later. The Apple behemoth is also coming off the boil a bit. For years and years people have been talking about how the innovation product line is stalling with no new killer product and it seems the market has reached saturation point on the iPhones. Tim Cook did a good job of milking it while it lasted and squeezing as much margin as he could, but they are surely going to need to really get into AI or self-driving cars or virtual reality or something in a big, mass-market way.

It's only a problem if Trump ends up benefiting from Truth Social by selling out after his 6-month lock-up provision for a massive profit. Which I suspect he will be able to do, as 6 months isn't nearly enough time for a meme stock to crash when there are however many fanatical loyalists who will be retail shareholders in it (and enough cynical stockpickers who don't buy into Trump politically, but feel that there might be some money to be made by riding the wave). It's classic Trump, making money off nothing but a bag of hot air. And you have to admit, he's pretty good at cashing out and leaving others holding the bag. It will be interesting if the Fed's "higher for longer" does end up taking the wind out of stocks. So far there have been remarkably few repercussions to higher interest rates as far as the stock market is concerned. "There is no alternative" was the narrative that supported high stock returns in a low interest rate environment, but now that's gone the market is still levitating. I suspect the fact a lot of banks are holding onto underwater bonds to maturity means that the effect is only happening gradually.

Yes, currently about 50% of my portfolio is now in ETFs. I have one for the ASX200, one for the S&P500 and another Vanguard Global one (which is nevertheless about 70% US). They've all done very well in this first quarter of the year. In a weird way they've become my "growth" stocks in that my actual individual stock picks (telco, health) are largely defensive and my other ones (financial, mining) have only had marginal gains. I am getting more mathematically convinced of ETFs being a bigger part of my portfolio, quite apart from the time/research benefits. Our fixed interest rates (at the rock-bottom 2.09% p.a.!) are about to expire in August this year. Market rates at the moment imply that we're going to jump up to at least 6% on our principal residence and investment property, which will be a blow. Fortunately my wife is back working part-time now and next year our youngest will go into subsidised pre-school, so we will probaby only have to watch things carefully for a few months. In Australia there isn't really a 10 year fixed rate, most mortgages tend to be variable rates and fixed rates go up to about 5 years max. I think we'll take our chances with a variable rate and see them eventually come down maybe at the end of this year or start of next.

Bump! The big rally is starting to lose a bit of steam - time will tell whether this is a blip or start of a larger move downwards. Either way it seems like interest rates aren't going to be coming down quite as fast as everyone thinks (inflation being stickier), and if they do, it's not going to be for a good reason. I've started to go a bit more passive in my investing (more ETFs and not as many individual picks of stocks) partly because of my available time, with work and family life taking a large chunk out of what would have been my research time. It's actually kind of relaxing just watching ETFs gently float up and down - the broad-based ones rarely move more than 1% in a day. Not as much excitement but statistically it's a good bet.

Inflation is a hard beast to tame because it also involves psychology (inflation expectations) which are very hard to control. Economics all runs on incentive, but how to incentivise the right behaviour when inflation is involved is a very hard thing to do. If not interest rates from independent central banks, the only other real way of fighting inflation is through fiscal policy and no government in this era is going to implement austerity measures. Theoretically, the government could depress demand and increase savings rates by a variety of methods, but they are all unpalatable and amount to engineering a downturn. And I think we all know the other method of government intervention, price controls, doesn't work effectively to tamp down inflation as a black market then prospers and supply is withdrawn from the market. It's no surprise that, given this, governments are happy to pass the unpopularity contest over to the central banks.

Yes we need to keep the wages down!! More seriously though, Australia's multi year enterprise bargaining system is probably going to result in a few years of strongly rising wages and I wonder if this will force the RBA to keep rates high. Many sectors are struggling to find workers and in the current cost of living crisis, most industries are going to have to lift wages by at least 5-6% per annum (if not more) for several years in a row. Consider the striking wharfies who just got 23% over 4 years.

I sort of get what you're saying but I struggle with this part of it. Unless you are in some completely self-sufficient economy (and Australia certainly isn't), the exchange rate matters. Proponents of MMT and so forth often forget that virtually no economy runs in a vacuum and that global confidece in a country's currency has a major effect. A government that runs long, systemic deficits will have a falling currency. If the objective is to always create more money to make payments, that currency quickly becomes worthless. Why would an international investor put money into Australia if the Australian government keeps flooding the market with more and more created AUD? An international investor will demand higher yields to offset this, this creates a falling currency, a big rise in the cost of imports, and in the long run, hyperinflation. Then you have a trade crisis like the one that befell Sri Lanka recently, who couldn't pay for imported medicines, fuel, etc. Now, if you had a completely self-sufficient economy that could manage itself, then this would have more of a chance of working, but even so the inflation spiral would start when fiscal discipline gets out of hand and the yields on government bonds keep rising.

I read your earlier post as well as this one, and I'm not quite sure I follow. I get that there is a difference in purpose in how you might view taxation (more as controlling the economy appropriately, rather than trying to pay for spending), but in practice, is this really any different? It seems if you're looking for low taxes and high spending you're inevitably going to run up large government deficits. How would this system deal with large systemic deficits? The USA has run lots of high deficits lately, but they are the world's reserve currency so have not had much trouble financing them. In other countries like Australia, large, continual deficits would push down our exchange rate, make imports much more expensive (hence increase inflation), push up government bonds, and increase the interest rate on the government debt. If the government was seen not to worry about large deficits and hence not be "good" to pay off the debt (or could only pay it off through printing more money), that would lead into a debt spiral, currency crash, and hyperinflation. It sounds like Modern Monetary Theory to me which I must admit I'm not very convinced by.

Yes, for all the criticism of the RBA being behind the 8-ball (and leaving rates lower than the US, UK and NZ), it seems to be working. I expect rates will stay on hold throughout the year and a cut won't come right until the end, not as soon as people are predicting. Cuts only really come if inflation undershoots (highly unlikely) or if the economy crashes (less likely, though still a possibility). There hasn't been a wave of foreclosures, a prolonged period of underinflation, a massive spike in unemployment, or a sudden increase in business failures, so there's no reason for the RBA to drop rates anytime soon unless 2 or more of those things happen.

I don't think Cummins really should be blamed for the declaration. It was a 9th wicket declaration at an opportune moment in the game, and any of the criticism could only come with the benefit of hindsight. As it is, Australia had plenty of other chances to win the game or at least pull ahead and they didn't take them, and they had many other reasons why they did so poorly (batting). So that mutes the issue of a 9th wicket declaration.

Yes, stamp duty is a scourge that should be abolished. The land tax that Perrottet introduced in NSW wasn't a bad idea and would have been much fairer over the long run, not to mention potentially free up mobility. The fundamental problem of tax reform is that no one would ever want less money in their pocket, and no one would ever want lower quality government services or support. Hence the need to tinker around the edges and only hit small segments of the population. I actually think "reform" is more geared towards hitting the rich rather than the poor. America is a weird outlier on this but in a compulsory voting democracy like Australia, the Albo plan of changing Stage 3 was made easier by the fact that only 10% of the population were worse off while 90% were better off. If Albo wants to get rid of negative gearing, now might actually be the time to do it. People are already asking questions. There is a fair bit of support in the electorate for abolishing negative gearing (or at least limiting it to only one property) because, fairly or unfairly, it's seen as a major driver of the housing affordability crisis and he wants to be seen as doing something like that. If he's broken a couple of promises (superannuation, Stage 3), he may as well go the whole hog and go for negative gearing, franking credits, CGT reductions... In other news, the Future Fund now will have Greg Combet as chairman taking over from a retiring Costello. I hope the Fund doesn't become a political warchest to spend on whatever priorities the government of the day has, or is liquidated just to retire government debt. I'd rather have a large asset and a larger liability, rather than no asset and a large liability. At least with an asset you have a chance to grow faster than the debt.

Very happy for the Windies to get that win. It will mean a lot to the players and to the long-suffering fans who've seen some pretty poor displays over the past 20-odd years. Nice to see Brian Lara in the commentary box enjoying the win too.

While we're at it - I don't know what other peoples' circumstances here on the Board are, but supporting two children (and in my case, an elderly mother-in-law as well) is an absolute killer for finances. Not only are there the far higher housing costs for getting enough space for said family, our grocery bill routinely tops out at $1200/month (and we don't eat fancy = 15K/year), second car (cars paid off, but probably cost 10K each per year in petrol/insurance/rego/services), hideously expensive childcare ($150/day even after govt subsidies - yes, that means 40K a year on childcare for ONE child if you did it full-time to enable your partner to work, 80K a year if you had two children in childcare), bills (electricity/internet/water/council rates = 10K annually). We're already at 85K and that doesn't include the mortgage living in Sydney, which for some people would easily be 50K a year (4K a month), and doesn't assume any private school fees either (which can be up to 30-40K annually per kid). Yes, tell me I'm rich taking home 130K after taxes on a 180K income. Now, if I were single, yes 180K gross income would make me rich. My outgoings would be probably 35K (subtract 40K for childcare, 10K for the second car) or even less if you proportionally reduce the groceries etc. I'd be super rich with a likely 100K surplus (minus whatever mortgage), but with a family? No way. And my income prices me out of pretty much all government support (e.g. Family Tax Benefit A cuts out at 80K), so I'm not drawing any tax/spending benefit from having a family from the government, apart from the very low childcare subsidy. Until you actually have children, it's easy to deride people on 180K as huge income earners and fat cats who should bear the brunt of tax. You might change your tune after a couple of children come along...

So are we saying that touching the GST is completely off the table? I know people may not agree with me, but I think we have a problem if the current revenue continues to depend on income tax. Australia has the second highest proportion of income tax of all tax revenue in the OECD (Denmark is the first). Figure 2 of this link suggests that income tax is about 50% of federal government tax revenues, company tax and GST are about 15% each and nothing else is really in the ballpark (i.e. inheritance taxes etc aren't going to make up a significant amount). This heavy reliance on income tax is not good for any country's ageing demographics, but Australia has a specific weakness on this as I've highlighted in my post above - income streams from super are completely exempt from tax once you are over 60. This will be an absolute killer in a couple of decades' time, when most retirees will start to have "full" super balances (which have been paid into over their whole careers) and a vast segment of the population will continue to draw comfortable incomes and not pay a cent in tax, while a smaller proportion of workers, particularly high income workers, will be paying heavy taxation to support this wealthy older generation. The Stage 3 tax cut changes make some sense. But let's not pretend it's a great "equaliser"; Stage 3 changes will have absolutely zero effect on wealthy, asset-rich, superannuation-heavy, low-spending retirees (the truly "rich" in Australian society), as compared to higher income workers with lower asset bases, mortgages, supporting children, etc. Hence - GST as one possible solution as an unavoidable tax. Yes, super reform altogether would be great, too. One or the other, I guess.

There are a few ways to do it (taxing wealth) - the playbook we've been talking about for years on this board, i.e. getting rid of franking credits, negative gearing, capital gains tax concession rate, all of which advantage people who are asset-rich. I think one of the reasons I'm annoyed at the high-income tax thing is that it doesn't address the fundamental issue with our tax system, which is the massive intergenerational divide. It is ridiculous that a wealthy retiree with a healthy super balance pays zero tax, and in fact, may get franking credits from the government. Any superannuation income stream is completely tax-free after you've turned 60. You could be drawing down 100K per year in retirement and not get taxed at all. You could do this while owning several investment properties that are negatively geared, and then flip them for a massive profit that gets a capital gains tax concession. It's one reason why I've been advocating reducing income tax and beefing up the GST. Yes, it is regressive (unless you try to balance it out with the income tax adjustments) but GST is an unavoidable tax for every person regardless of income, wealth, age, etc. This makes it a future-proof tax as far as demographics, wealthy tax-dodgers etc are concerned. The superannuation $3M tax was also a broken promise by Albo but it was at least a go at taxing wealth. It should have been indexed (in 30 years' time, $3M might be a standard balance) but at least it was a step in the right direction.

I don't think the statement "rich people never need tax cuts" is quite true unless you're very clear about what "Rich" means. Anyone over 140K is worse off under this plan. There are plenty of single-income families in capital cities on 140K who would vociferously disagree with you that they are "rich" - at least in the "don't need tax cuts". And yes, I realise they are still getting a tax cut. If we want to tax the rich, it is better to tax wealth rather than income. I'm not as mad at Albo for breaking his superannuation promise. But it's clear he's on a Labor mission.

Well, I'm not sure anyone thinks any politician is really high-minded, but Labor (and every Labor MP) said they were, which is a deeply cynical move, since "Restoring integrity to government" was the campaign platform. You expect cynicism from the right wing, but in a strange way it's kind of impressive how dirty the left is playing now.

So Albo is set to break the Stage 3 tax cuts. He's preserving about half of the top income earner breaks but is giving some to the bottom by moving up the tax free threshold and fiddling with the middle brackets. I know as someone who benefits from the original Stage 3, I've got a lot of self interest in not liking this change, though I can practically recognise that giving more relief to lower/middle incomes is definitely warranted in the current environment. But I think some things do need to be recognised by the people who are all for the changes: 1. It is absolutely a major broken promise by Albo. After campaigning on "integrity, integrity, integrity" and promising constantly before and after the election that they wouldn't change them, this is hypocrisy of the highest order. Labor voted for the original Stage 3 legislation (a fact that many Labor people are quick to forget), they promised before the election that they wouldn't change it. I understand that you can change your mind according to the circumstances, but John Howard with the GST did it the right way. Howard said no GST, he then changed his mind, went to an election with a platform pro-GST and won and then implemented it. The cowardly Albanese did it after the election. 2. Let's not forget that they're called Stage 3 for a reason. Stages 1 and 2 already addressed low/middle income earners and Stage 3 was to tell high income earners to wait until later. People talk about Stage 3 as being "unfair" and how a low income earner gets very little from Stage 3, but that's because they aren't considering Stages 1-3 in their entirety. A lot of the onus on tax is put on higher earners already - the top 10% of incomes contributes greater than 50% of all income tax collected. Bracket creep takes more and more from higher incomes as the years go on, and the 180K threshold has not moved in 15 years (since 2008/09). If indexed, 180K should be at 250K. I agree that higher earners should bear more of the tax load - of course they can and should contribute more - but the top threshold of 180K is actually very low by OECD standards and some people living in Sydney or Melbourne, with children, aren't as rich as you think. 3. Thirdly, by their very own nature these altered tax cuts will be much more inflationary. Labor talks about not adding to inflation, but by putting more money into lower incomes, who are more likely to spend all of that extra money, it will by definition add to inflation more than the old Stage 3. I realise that's a bit of a silly argument (give more money to higher earners because they don't need it) but I also think Labor shouldn't be making the argument that they're not being inflationary because they absolutely are. In summary - I can see why they altered it. It makes sense. But I am annoyed at high-minded Labor for breaking a promise, making a political calculation to lie to the whole electorate when they presented themselves as paragons of virtue, and making false or poor logic to sell it.

The long round-robin stage was a bit of a bore, I have to agree. If we're going with 10 teams I'd prefer just two groups of 5, top three teams qualify with a quarterfinal bye for the group winners. I did think India were susceptible to this outcome despite streamrolling through everything else. Australia is a good side in high-pressure circumstances and they peaked at the right time. Kohli/Rahul chewed up too much time and were clearly worried about the lack of batting depth, playing too defensively. Contrast this to Australia who were in worse shape at 3/47, but Head kicked on. Arguably Australia didn't have much more batting depth (Starc and Cummins at 8 and 9 are okay but not brilliant) but I guess they had the comfort of knowing the total wasn't that big to chase. India basically needed close to 300 and the lack of scoreboard pressure didn't give them many options.

Oh boy, Smith doesn't review an LBW that would have seen him survive with it being outside the line. He'll be kicking himself for that (and possibly Travis Head, who seemed to indicate to him it was plumb and shouldn't be reviewed). Australia making tough work of this and India in the ascendancy. It's funny that after the major run feasts of the tournament, one of the semis (Australia South Africa) and the final seem to have gone back to "regular" scores and tight low chases.

Insane second innings following on from the soporific first innings. Warner and Marsh both out playing super aggressive shots, after having scored 28 off the first two overs. Smith now at the crease (with Head). Smith and Labuschagne are probably needed now as cooler heads to just tick things over with singles. Chasing 241 should still be advantage Australia despite losing two early wickets.

I'm not sure about that just yet. Klaasen and Miller still in. At 4/76 off 24 overs they've not got much on the scoreboard and have eaten up a lot of overs, but I think if these guys stay in they've still got a path to 250+, which would be competitive. Great opening bowling by Starc and Hazlewood though. Aussies are coming good at the right time.

Oil price is really coming off the boil (which is a pity, given one of my positions is in an oil and gas producer). It seems that between geopolitical tensions which would support a high oil price, and the worsening economic outlook and demand issues which would point towards a lower oil price, the latter is winning. If this keeps up, I think it may be the canary in the coalmine that the next 12 months is not going to be a fun time.

Yeah, they shouldn't have appealed for a time out in that circumstance. Matthews was already on the field and there was an obvious accidental reason why he was delayed in taking the crease. I didn't actually see it but I wonder what discretion the umpires have to advise (or at least clarify) with a captain as to whether they want to withdraw the appeal.