Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Recession

  • AUSTRALIA

    The financial crisis the Government wants us to have

    • Colin Long
    • 09 February 2015
    19 Comments

    The Coalition Government falsely claims that Medicare co-payments and cuts to welfare and publicly funded institutions such as the CSIRO and the ABC are necessary to 'fix Labor's mess'. There are indeed structural problems with the economy, but essentially the plan is to strip the public sector by cutting universal access to a range of services that also includes tertiary education, to create a dominant free market that marginalises Australians on low incomes.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Hapless Joe Hockey

    • David James
    • 10 December 2014
    12 Comments

    One of the fascinating aspects of Australia's political pantomime is the manner in which the Federal Treasurer is forced to metamorphose into a used car salesman who is spruiking the Australian economy. One reason for the relative impotence of the Treasurer is that the Federal government only has control over fiscal policy. Monetary policy, the interest rate, is set by the Reserve Bank, not the government.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Australia's delayed GFC

    • David James
    • 08 September 2014
    7 Comments

    What is only now starting to come into focus is the extent to which the whole economy is in hock to house prices. A sharp fall in the housing market will put intense pressure on our major lending institutions, leading to a deeply depressing effect on all parts of the economy. The regulators, as ever, are taking a hands-off approach.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Commbank plunder part of new world economic order

    • David James
    • 07 July 2014
    7 Comments

    As the Pope and economist Thomas Pikkety have observed in recent times, the inequity created by capitalism is a growing concern. But the problem with this argument is that 'capitalism' is too broad a term. The attack would be far better directed against the financialisation of developed economies. A new type of sovereign has emerged, and like all rulers they are cheerfully engaging in acts of plunder.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Abbott and Hockey more Prince John than Robin Hood

    • David James
    • 05 May 2014
    11 Comments

    In politics, one should never opt for a balanced and thoughtful description of the truth when wild exaggerations will do. Especially when you want to take from the poor and give to, if not exactly the rich, at least the investor class. The dire pronouncements from the Abbott Government in response to the Commission of Audit's 86 recommendations reflect not only the PM's relentless negativity, but also more than a whiff of class war.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Who killed the car industry?

    • Ray Cassin
    • 13 December 2013
    33 Comments

    The immediate responsibility for this looming economic disaster rests with the Abbott Government, and not merely because of its use of a bullying speech in Parliament by the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, to goad Holden into announcing a decision that its masters in Detroit had probably already taken. In the longer term, this should be seen as a bipartisan disaster. What happened this week was the culmination of a process that began under Hawke.

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    Which party really has the economic smarts?

    • David James
    • 13 August 2013
    3 Comments

    As the China boom fades Australia is experiencing a delayed version of the GFC, without the banking crisis. Until now we've been reasonably well served by both sides of politics, in terms of macro-economic strategy. Now we require a way of dealing with more mundane economic issues like productivity and efficiency. Neither side has many good ideas about how to achieve the required structural shifts.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    When it comes to work and welfare, market rules Labor's roost

    • Luke Williams
    • 27 May 2013
    10 Comments

    If I was a long-term unemployed person, how would I answer the question, 'What has the ALP done for me?' 'Lots, and not much.' The Gillard Government's commitment to developing workforce skills suggests it values decent work, not just jobs, but in positing productivity as the path to prosperity it seems more Reagan than Keynes.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Hockey and Thatcher's 'no entitlement' is bad economics

    • Michael Mullins
    • 14 May 2012
    15 Comments

    Joe Hockey provoked outrage with his recent suggestion that we should rely on families rather than the state for social welfare. His premise that high social spending leads to debt and decline reflects the GDP fetish of fundamentalist economists that Joseph Stiglitz blames for Europe's current economic problems.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    One lifetime, two Depressions

    • Robert Corcoran
    • 21 October 2011
    16 Comments

    When America sneezes the world catches cold. No wonder crowds are demonstrating against Wall Street. Successive economic crises reveal that we have forgotten the economic lessons learned after the Great Depression. I am one of the dwindling number of Australians who was alive at that time.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Managing our mining windfall

    • Michael Mullins
    • 19 September 2011
    5 Comments

    While we have have East Timorese students coming here to learn about how to look after their oil sector, Australia should be sending people to East Timor to look at their outstanding example of how to safely and wisely preserve oil revenue for future generations.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Remembering Bonegilla's refugee riot

    • Bruce Pennay
    • 18 July 2011
    8 Comments

    50 years ago this week, migrants and refugees from Eastern Europe rioted at the Bonegilla migrant reception centre outside Albury-Wodonga. The Federal Immigration Minister said such behaviour was not tolerated in this country, but investigation prompted public sympathy for the demonstrators.

    READ MORE