Sunday, February 26th, 2012

Shane Wright

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Ideologies drive huge handouts industry

Over the past decade or so the Federal government has handed out cash to particular industries in a bid to assist them.In the case of one industry this largesse has run to $39 billion, and it's a handout that has been growing sharply.No, it's not the...
Mon, February 20, 2012, 9:40 am WST
Debt plan just leaders tilting at windmills

Here's the secret that neither side of the political fence will share with ordinary voters.The chances of Wayne Swan or Joe Hockey, or Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, returning Australia to a position of "no net debt" are as remote as the...
Mon, February 13, 2012, 11:08 am WST
Oompa-Loompa leaders running fudge factories

Forget about Willy Wonka. A "fudge factory" has been established in politics with Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard number one and two Oompa Loompas. O-L Abbott and O-L Gillard, when faced with tough economic questions go to prepared lines that...
Mon, February 6, 2012, 12:06 pm WST
Cheap rates addiction hurts economic health

In a week's time the Reserve Bank will have its first meeting of the year. If financial markets and many pundits are to be believed, the Reserve is set to reduce official rates to about 3.25 per cent by year's end starting with a quarter of a...
Tue, January 31, 2012, 12:41 pm WST
More economic jitters ahead by any guess

It's a good year for making economic predictions.There is so much going on that if you make enough prognostications then there's a good chance of at least a couple coming true.After a year that started with some promise, veered towards economic disaster...
Mon, January 2, 2012, 11:52 am WST
The day of reckoning is coming

There are two dates in the coming year that will determine the political fortunes of both the ALP and the coalition.One we already know. The other is still an unknown. The first is July 1 - the day the carbon tax comes into operation. That Sunday could...
Fri, December 30, 2011, 1:11 pm WST
Growing divide cause for alarm

The image on the front page of Time magazine's "person of the year" edition is stark. It is a protester.They could be someone tearing down despots across the Middle East, a member of the Tea Party or someone from the Occupy protest movement...
Mon, December 26, 2011, 11:08 am WST
Shoppers taking retail control

When it comes to retail, it's hard to get more retail than JB Hi-Fi. The purveyor of everything from iPods to flat-screen TVs, and the latest Kate Bush CD, is front and centre when it comes to high-turnover shopping.So when it reported last week that it...
Mon, December 19, 2011, 12:29 pm WST
Boardrooms still a risky business for most women

When Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout takes up her post on the board of the Reserve Bank next year she will join an exclusive club.Just 61 people have sat on the board of the nation's central bank since its inception in its...
Mon, December 12, 2011, 12:47 pm WST
Treasurers out of tune with economic reality

Every day the economic clouds get darker. Sure, there are occasions when the clouds break up and some sunshine shoots through.One of those instances occurred last week when several key central banks, fed up with the policy missteps that characterise the...
Mon, December 5, 2011, 11:28 am WST
Cutting debt a pipedream

The chances of any future Australian government paying off all Commonwealth debt are disappearing as quickly as taxpayers are leaving Greece.Wayne Swan’s Budget update effectively confirms that, unless he manages to survive as Treasurer until...
Wed, November 30, 2011, 7:04 am WST
Big squeeze cripples the world economy

Things are tough in the global economy when one of the world's best-managed countries can't sell its debt. That occurred last week when Germany, if nothing else the paragon of economic virtue in the European Union, went to the market with €6...
Mon, November 28, 2011, 11:07 am WST
Without ECB support, 'euro's too big to save'

On his short walk to waiting journalists at last week's APEC summit, Barack Obama passed a pool of sharks. At the beachside hotel he walked past a saltwater pool that was home to about half a dozen hammerhead sharks and a similar number of stingrays.It...
Mon, November 21, 2011, 12:00 pm WST
New tactics needed in great debt battle

Three "Dominions" went to battle on the beaches of Gallipoli in 1915. Australia and New Zealand were there. But another Dominion that lost soldiers on those Turkish cliffs was Newfoundland (also encompassing the island of Labrador).A year...
Mon, November 14, 2011, 10:36 am WST
Time to take on the banks

Buried in NAB's announcement that it was going to do over its mortgage customers was a small insight into the world of banking.Personal banking boss Lisa Gray, while arguing NAB's decision to cut interest rates by 0.2 percentage points rather than the...
Mon, November 7, 2011, 1:38 pm WST
Baby, welcome to a fast world

Where were you on January 20, 1999? Preparing for the onset of the Y2K bug? Wondering how to pay the Christmas credit card bills? Considering whether Australia's "old economy" had a future given the tech boom?Perhaps not, but somewhere...
Mon, October 31, 2011, 10:01 am WST
Tighten up for this reckoning

One of my favourite television programs at the moment is the series Supersizers Go on SBS.Every week restaurant critic Giles Coren and comedian Sue Perkins munch their way through a particular era.From medieval meals featuring roast peacocks to...
Mon, October 24, 2011, 12:19 pm WST
Black swans give way to platypus

It's not often that a Reserve Bank speech reads like something out of a David Attenborough documentary.But the RBA's head of financial stability, Luci Ellis, might soon be vying with Sir David for air time on pay TV after delivering one of the most...
Mon, October 17, 2011, 11:43 am WST
Tax reform lacks political will

Two days of people talking tax, to paraphrase HG Nelson, is barely enough. Millions of words, thousands of pages of submissions and analysis, a couple hundred of speakers, one goal. It was tax bliss.Sure, there were some who said it would be nothing but...
Mon, October 10, 2011, 10:57 am WST
No place for GST at tax forum

It's the elephant that isn't even allowed in the room. When about 200 poor souls tramp into Federal Parliament's Great Hall tomorrow for the two-day tax forum, they will do so knowing neither side of the political fence wants to talk about the GST.Not...
Mon, October 3, 2011, 7:44 am WST