Making the headlines is how increased regulatory scrutiny has revealed there is an additional $50 billion of property investor loans on the banks' books. This is such a big discrepancy, it was enough to boost the portion of investor loans on banks books from 35% to 40%. Naturally the RBA is letting it known they are unhappy.
The Reserve Bank's deputy governor has scolded the banks over poor home loan data that is "complicating" its understanding of the housing market and clouding its ability to make and enact policy decisions.
In a strongly worded speech delivered at the Finsia regulators' panel in Sydney on Thursday, Philip Lowe said he was surprised and concerned over recent problems with the data relating to banks' owner-occupier and investor housing loans, a development he described as disappointing.
Disappointing might be an understatement. Figures like this mean the banks are far more precarious than previously thought.
Ross Garnaut Spells It Out
With all this talk of tax reform you would think that they were going to make taxation feel good. They're not. Yet it also needs to be said that the whole reason they should look for efficiency and better balance is to spur better growth in the economy. So in the quest for more revenue, the government's going to hurt our wallets, but it's all for the good of the economy so that you'll get something in your wallet again, okay? Uh-huh.
Ross Garnaut has come out swinging saying that there's no point in doing taxation reform if it adds to the inequality.
It's true that unbalanced taxation systems give rise to perverse incentives. The same could be said of all the corporate welfare given to rentseekers. When you look at the kind of money the GST may raise (the maximal version sits at about $130billion), and you look at how much corporate welfare is expended, one might think it was stupid not to cut the corporate welfare first before raising the GST.
Ross Garnaut Spells It Out
With all this talk of tax reform you would think that they were going to make taxation feel good. They're not. Yet it also needs to be said that the whole reason they should look for efficiency and better balance is to spur better growth in the economy. So in the quest for more revenue, the government's going to hurt our wallets, but it's all for the good of the economy so that you'll get something in your wallet again, okay? Uh-huh.
Ross Garnaut has come out swinging saying that there's no point in doing taxation reform if it adds to the inequality.
"Does increasing inequality and stagnant or declining real incomes of ordinary people in the developed countries matter if it occurs alongside rising incomes in the developing world?" he said.
"I think it does," he said. "Stagnant incomes for most people place a great strain on a democracy. Governments tend to be nasty, brutish and short.
"If there was any doubt about this simple reality, it was removed through observation of the fate of the Abbott government. We have no experience of democracy flourishing with stagnant or declining living standards for most people."As strange as that seems, he's got a very big point. If at the end of raising the GST, and then compensating the low income earners, and they are worse off for the exercise, the taxation system being more balanced and efficient isn't going to do much for the betterment of society.
It's true that unbalanced taxation systems give rise to perverse incentives. The same could be said of all the corporate welfare given to rentseekers. When you look at the kind of money the GST may raise (the maximal version sits at about $130billion), and you look at how much corporate welfare is expended, one might think it was stupid not to cut the corporate welfare first before raising the GST.
Hypocrisy At Its Most Shameless
George Brandis is a funny man, isn't he?
Attorney-General George Brandis has hit out at criticism of Tony Abbott's religious beliefs, describing the "ridicule" to which the former prime minister was subjected as "bigotry at its most shameless".
Senator Brandis, who last year defended people's "right to be bigots" amid debate over proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act, has told a roundtable meeting of religious and non-religious representatives that "religious freedom is every bit as important as political freedom".
So, the man says people have a right to be bigots. AND the ridicule of Tony Abbott's religious beliefs was bigotry at its most shameless" because Tony Abbott is religious freedom to have his religion the way he likes it. I mean, by his own reasoning, the people doing the ridiculing of Tony Abbott have a right to be doing it; he can't very well be complaining about the kind of ridicule when he's not willing to stand up for others, like say, Muslims.
Besides which religious freedom does not include freedom from ridicule. Get over it George; especially if you go around espousing freedom of expression.
He then says Catholics cop it hard from prominent intellectuals and this is bad. But he's a Liberal Party MP - it's not that long ago that the Liberal and Nats on one side and the ALP on the other, was a cover for a Protestant/Freemasons versus Catholic split. It's kind of weird seeing Liberals who are Catholics, and Liberals who want to defend Catholicism.
Really, the world has changed.
Puncher & Wattmann
I started part-time work at the niche publisher this week. It's pretty cool so far. It's closer to home, the work's pretty clear cut. There's lots of it, but that's the good part. I won't starve, get bored, live in anxiety or for that matter lose headspace to the work. It's just what the doctor ordered.
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