Macrobusiness this morning really got stuck into the rotten state of Australian political economy. Hurrah!
The Glass Pyramid made the following contribution to the ensuing debate. Continue reading
The March data on Stamp Duty paid in NSW has been released by the NSW Office of State Revenue and still the Gladys foreign buyer “Secret Business” continues.
As noted in past Glass Pyramid exclusives:
https://pfh007.com/2017/03/16/dig-deeper-release-foreign-ownership-data-for-housing-in-nsw/
https://pfh007.com/2017/03/11/nsw-secrets-gladyswho-is-buying-all-the-property-in-nsw/
…..the NSW State Government stopped releasing data in November 2016 (see the large table below) when it became clear it would provide some useful information on just how much property was being bought by foreign citizens either offshore or temporary resident in Australia.
Even though Gladys has made it clear that she does not care how much residential housing foreign citizens buy, provided she is able to run a skim operation and milk them as much as possible for revenue, she is still very shy about letting the people of NSW know just how many new foreign milk cows have been added to her herd.
And she is shy for a very good reason.
She knows that the people of NSW are sick and tired of politicians who sell off Australia to foreign buyers one suburban block at a time. Continue reading
Footsore
Cheers for that.
It was an interesting interview and well worth the time.
Though I am surprised that Steve Keen is still pushing the idea of a “Debt Jubilee” as an application of QE for the People and I don’t understand why he keeps using the term “Helicopter Money”. I think both are real political and economic lemons to be avoided if at all possible. Continue reading
It has been a busy week at the Glass Pyramid as a cloud of confusing and obfuscating commentary on “Foreign Debt” has again descended on the nation.
Never have so few worked so hard to convince the general public that racking up trillions of dollars of debt to foreign lenders is nothing to be worried about.
The objective of the exercise seems clear … sprout enough economic gibberish in a condescending tone and hopefully the populace will relax and go back to regular programming …. another plate of unproductive capital inflows (foreign debt), another serve of imported goods / services, more job losses, more businesses heading offshore and all with a side serve of smashed avocado (though only if Bernard Salt has approved your demographic to munch on the stuff).
So what did Ross do ?
He is normally such a pleasant avuncular chap and often says unkind words about the current government’s state of economic confusion, so surely he is one of the good guys / aka one of the few remaining ‘progressives’ at Fairfax not engaged in marketing the glorious housing bubble and the remaining trickles of gold ?
Well a lot of the time he does say sensible stuff but every so often he reaches into the bag of economic fables and myths and pulls out a big hairy rabbit with a bad case of myxo. Continue reading
We don’t hear too much about “foreign debt” these days.
Neither the foreign debts owed by our private companies and private banks nor the foreign debts owed by our governments especially the Federal Government in Canberra.
So it was quite a retro moment when an editorial in the Australian was titled “Our complacent reliance on foreigners’ savings”
Note: It appears Ross Gittins decided yesterday to don the hyper-colour T-Shirt, spin some late 80s stadium rock and run the “foreign debt is cool” nonsense again in the SMH yesterday. More on that creaky skeleton of the 1980-2000s in a separate post. Continue reading
The following comment was made in response to a comment at Macrobusiness
EP,
“..The slightest withdrawal of the economic stimulant (debt) plunges an economy into depressive conditions…”
“..There are other forms of economic “stimulus” that don’t incur debt, a sovreign state paying for infrastructure, free health and education, and providing a Wealfare State with its monolopy right to Print the fiat,. for example are ways money can be “pumped” into the REAL economy without incurring the expotentially growing out of controll, economic overhead of compounding interest…” Continue reading
It was good to see the ALP making an effort this week to extract data from a reluctant NSW Government about the level of foreign citizen buying of housing and land in NSW since 1 July 2016.
Note: For the period (decades) prior to 1 July 2016, there is no data recording foreign ownership of NSW land because our dimwitted politicians did not direct the OSR to require identification from buyers and sellers. Yep, no records were kept.
However, it quickly became clear that the ALP needs to keep on digging and pushing Premier Gladys “Secret Squirrel” Berejiklian and Treasurer Domininc “I knowz nothing” Perrottet to cough up the data so the public know what is going on and there can be an informed debate.
Accordingly to newspaper reports the Office of State Revenue provided data, pursuant to the Freedom of Information request, for the period 1 July 2016 through to 30 September 2016 only. Continue reading
It always sounds odd to argue that we need a lower $AUD but the ‘value’ of the $AUD is very important in determining whether or not Australia becomes a Banana Republic.
People buying imports and planning a holiday overseas love a high Aussie dollar as they have greater spending power.
However, people who have lost their jobs or businesses as a high Aussie dollar made imports cheaper and made it harder to compete in foreign markets are not so keen on a “mighty” high Aussie dollar.
So how do we resolve the happiness of consumers v the happiness of Australian workers and business, bearing in mind that at different times of the week most people are both consumers and workers/business owners? Continue reading
NEWSFLASH – Since publishing this post on Saturday there has been a flurry of activity by the State Government, as some foreign buyer data for the period July through September 2016 was released following a FOI request by the Daily Telegraph. The Premier and the Treasurer promise to do “something” to slow the acquisition of local housing by foreign buyers. But when and what is the question.
The real story is that the government is sitting on the foreign buyer data for the perio
d right through to the end of February 2017 and should release it immediately. The period July – September 2016 was likely to have been slow for foreign buying activity as the introduction of the new charges on 1 July 2016 caused buyers to bring their transactions forward to before 1 July 2016. Release the data Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet!
A few weeks ago the Glass Pyramid noted that much of the speculation about “who is buying Australian houses and driving up prices” could be resolved very easily if the Australian Tax Office released some of the detailed information it is now receiving from the state land title offices and offices of state revenue. Continue reading
The papers are full of stories about Australian companies being gouged and charged top dollar for LNG supplies at the same time as a bunch of international companies extract our gas reserves and ship them offshore to sell in foreign markets for peanuts.
There are even loony ideas circulating whereby we build a new terminal to re-import the gas those companies are selling offshore for nickles and dimes.
Why import what should never have been exported in the first place?
Worst of all some industry clowns are trying to use this massive policy failure and incompetence induced gas shortage as a reason for demanding that every farm gate be forced open and every paddock be made available to the agricultural vandalism of fracking.
The solution is simple and no different to the one required for iron ore. Continue reading
