photo credit: Corey Tegeler

David Pecotic

Two great new Australian e-gov mashups:
Key Indicators Graph
[Over at their Betaworks blog, the ABS has published an interactive graph that can display key indicators such as the unemployment rate, the consumer price index, gross domestic profit, average weekly income, and (most importantly for our purposes) the house price index. This is the latest in a series of visualisations of ABS data that not only make it fast and easy for our customers to find key figures but make it understandable to the non-statisticians (i.e., the rest of us).]

Atlas of Productive Ageing
[Another Australian e-gov initiative: provides maps and data for a number of indicators of ageing at different geographical levels.]

Is the Australian government equipped to provide collective public goods online?
[On the other hand ... Gov 2.0 Taskforce's Chairman Dr Nicholas Gruen stated that "it was the government’s job to build Google, Facebook, Twitter. I’m quite serious about that." Most of us accept that one of the core purposes of government is to develop and provide infrastructure for its citizens, public goods that benefit nations and states but are often too expensive, unprofitable or may be a national security risk if left in the hands of private or foreign entities (how we fund that is another matter). But what about virtual public infrastructure: providing collective public goods that many people, including many Australians, use on a daily basis, whether for the storage, organisation, distribution or discovery of information? Or should they leave it up to the market?]

Garrett gives Gorgon gas go ahead
[Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has given the nod, with conditions, to the construction of the $50 billion Gorgon gas project on Barrow Island off the West Australian coast. An extra 28 conditions have been imposed on the project to ensure that Barrow Island, which is a Class A nature reserve, is adequately protected. Mr Garrett says as well as the extra conditions, 20 management plans are also in place.

Dr Andrew Burbidge, who is a consultant for Chevron (one of the joint venture partners), says, however, that the project should not go ahead because it will threaten the island's biodiversity.]

Projected rises in sea level to curtail development
[PARTS of the Queensland coastline will be declared off-limits for development under a coastal planning policy released yesterday that claims sea levels will rise 80cm over the rest of this century.]

Australia’s ski fields: 40% less snow by 2060
[I wonder how this will effect property prices in the Alps ...]

A dangerous Labor blind-spot
[OHS consultant Kevin Jones wrote a piece for Business Spectator on 'Utegate' and the role of Godwin Grech last reported to be receiving treatment in a Canberra psychiatric facility. He points out that the saga illustrates issues of personal responsibility for safety, an employers’ OHS obligations, hours of work, allocation of work tasks, an employee’s physical and mental health, and industrial relations regulatory compliance. It raises legitimate questions about how a Labor government, the traditional friend of the worker, manages the safety of its employees.]

Perhaps overwork leads to lack of due consideration of good ideas – like Geonomics!
Forum hears plan to level housing taxes
[HOME owners should not enjoy a tax advantage over renters, according to a proposal presented to a Henry review conference on tax reform.

A Treasury official has canvassed the idea of charging a defacto tax for living in the family home with additional payments offset by a tax deduction for mortgage interest payments. The 157-page paper said the greatest tax distortions to the savings choices of households were caused by explicit decisions made by government in two areas: superannuation and capital gains taxation.

However, as pointed out by one seller in the article, it will also act as a disincentive to owners to spend money on improvements. Geonomics, on the other hand ...

Predictably, the property industry came out swinging yesterday against it. They argued it would result in (warning: may contain old chestnuts) a shortage of property, lift rents, and would most affect the elderly.]

Check the commentary on this important report over at Prosper

Property, death & taxes: the home owners advantage over renters
[A useful round-up about the Henry Tax Review and the pros and cons of the usual suspects: stamp duty. capital gains tax, negative gearing and land tax. The following 'handy hint' from property author and financial advisor Margaret Lomas with state-by-state variations is very revealing of our contemporary bunyip aristocracy: she argues against land tax as it is one that, beacuse of state-by-state variations, can be avoided by spreading your investments across Australia to maximise the tax-free thresholds.]

Tuesday September 8 – 22nd, 6.15 – 8pm
1/ 27 Hardware Lane, Melbourne

Universal economic laws must be understood if we are to change the system. How can we engage in this game of life without understanding the rules of engagement in this …

photo credit: al-zahra

Renegade Economists Podcast 102

As broadcast on the almighty www.3cr.org.au 19/08/09

Dissecting America: Karl returns from the US armed with signs, stats …

photo credit: sendung

David Pecotic

Wow – what a vital source of news, varied angles on most current issues – thanks David

As Arctic Ocean warms, megatonnes of methane bubble up
[More detailed analysis about the increase in the release of methane that had been frozen beneath the Arctic: over 250 plumes of gas have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor to the west of the Svalbard archipelago, which lies north of Norway. The entire hydrate deposit around Svalbard could be releasing 20 megatonnes a year, a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide.]

Gorgon no threat to environment: govt
[There's "no way" the $50 billion Gorgon LNG project off the West Australian coast poses any threat to the environment, federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson says. But he also admits it's not really his place to make that call, with Environment Minister Peter Garrett officially in charge of environmental approval.

Fav line: Mr Ferguson told Network Ten on Sunday ... "the environmental considerations are not my considerations". Indeed ...\
Also stories are that the $50bn price tag is really $27bn at best]

Cities could deliver greater emissions reduction than the CPRS
[Australian cities could halve their greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years by implementing a targeted strategy similar to the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 plan, a new study has found.]

Former treasurer defends role in CBus and property sale
[FORMER Keating government treasurer Ralph Willis has defended in court his stewardship of superannuation giant CBus and his role in overseeing the sale of a Whitsundays development to property developer David Marriner. The construction industry's superannuation fund is taking civil action against Mr Marriner in the Victorian Supreme Court, alleging that he misappropriated about $850,000 from a property development and investment business connected to CBus.]

Property avoids the plunge, at a cost
[The Government's chief adviser on housing affordability, Julian Disney, says these grants have caused a housing bubble and reduced affordability. "We are paying too much for housing and people are getting much too overcommitted," Professor Disney said. He agrees with the IMF assertion that Australian homes are overpriced by up to 20 per cent. "Housing affordability will continue to get worse, but the problem is it is already very bad ... It's an overinflated balloon and we need to gradually deflate it." Yet federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Government was pleased with the success of the first home buyers' grant because "a strong housing market is critical for underpinning confidence and supporting jobs in the Australian economy".

The Australian economy isn't the only institution giving pundits mixed signals these days ...]

In effect Pliberseck is hereby admitting that the FHOG is an economic stimulus package, not a housing affordability policy. Will young home buyers understand this nuance?

Houses of cards
[From the UK Spectator Australia: The latest house price data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is a little embarrassing - from October to June the number of dwellings purchased with borrowed money each month increased by about 15,000, to 65,000 — a level similar to the heady days of 2007. More than two thirds of this increase arose from the purchase of already-constructed dwellings; only 2,400 of these purchases entailed any new building. The cause, the FHOG; the main policy impact of which appears to have been an increase house prices, which ultimately helps the banks out no end ...]

Revealed: The Housing Shortage Lie
[Money Morning Australia demonstrate that the numbers (derived from FACSIA's National Housing Supply Council State of Supply Report 2008) which represent the entire basis for the ‘chronic’ housing shortage just don’t add up. Regular readers will already be aware of this, thanks to the work of Earthsharing and Prosper Australia.]

LVRG Blog: Stimulus without deficits
Land Values Research Group’s Gavin R. Putland, whose analysis often appears here, writes that prominent critics of deficit-financed stimulus measures have nothing to offer as an alternative but deficit-financed stimulus measures.

In other words, to quote the piece, whereas the Right has nothing to offer but more private debt, the Left has nothing to offer but more public debt. All seem to accept the assumption that governments can stimulate demand only by increasing expenditure and/or reducing revenue.]

Recovery!

Originally uploaded by ChrisI1024

Lets see what happens at the September correction. The stock exchange ‘cash out’ month used to be October, last year saw Sept 22 …