Joe Hockey - a Clown or debt-cyborg gone rogue?

Old Codger said:
The last 6 years of rampant socialism will take AT LEAST a decade to fix or even turn around.

Any suggestion otherwise is simply dishonest.

OC
Click to expand...

So you reckon Smokin' Joe is dishonest as well? I can see that.
 
Everyday here on SS, THE BLUE AND RED teams argue on what could have, should have and what should have been done to the Australian economy.

The reality is that the bankers in Wall St have turned from Capitalism to Corporatism.. They don't gamble on the performance of a business anymore, but amongst each other with trillions of $$$$$$$$$$$$$ of derivatives.

Some estimates is the amount in Derivatives is $600 trillion +++.

IMO, I believe that when the derivative domino falls at the first bank, the rest will soon follow. Then the world's economy is in deep poo, including Australia.

Who will be to blame? The red or the blue team here in Australia? IMO Neither.

Australia used to ride on the sheeps back. Now it is the Panda. If China or the USA goes down so too will Australia and it will not make any difference who is in power.

Make you and you family safer by being aware that the fiat system with derivatives may well end very soon.

Regards Errol 43
 
Hockey gave AUD$8.8 billion to the RBA in October 2013. The money was so they could buy more foreign currency.

AUD$1 was buying USD$0.95 at the time.

AUD$1 is buying USD$0.89 at the time of posting.

Assuming the RBA blew the lot on USD, they're sitting on a gross profit of $528 million from the trade. The interest bill would be roughly $110 million (assuming a federal government 5 year bond yield of 3.4%, which is a little bit more than it is at the moment) so the net profit would be about $418 million, give or take three million or so.

Joe played the Forex market and won.
 
Maybe,if your assumptions are correct. But the RBA performs open market operations all the time and don't require the government issuing debt to do it.

Hopefully Joe is not some kind of closet gambler who enjoys multi-billion dollar flutters in the forex markets.

I feel it is more likely the money was required from the government because the issue that needed addressing was not yet covered by the RBAs charter or governance rules. In that case, it would be required to operate under direction rather than going rogue itself, and operating outside its guidelines.

I reckon it was a stop gap in the $200B repo/capital guarantee commitments it has over the self-rated, sub-prime, toxic debt the banks have parked on its balance sheet. It doesn't get a charter for that until 2015.

So what's more likely, Hockey having a flutter, or him being forced to act to save the banks taking a hit from distressed RMBS sitting at the RBA and the markets being spooked? ( I would bet the knock on effect in the RBMS and subsequently real estate markets would be huge and demanding of the Treasurer's full attention.)

I'll happily stand corrected though.
 
Big A.D. said:
Hockey gave AUD$8.8 billion to the RBA in October 2013. The money was so they could buy more foreign currency.

AUD$1 was buying USD$0.95 at the time.

AUD$1 is buying USD$0.89 at the time of posting.

Assuming the RBA blew the lot on USD, they're sitting on a gross profit of $528 million from the trade. The interest bill would be roughly $110 million (assuming a federal government 5 year bond yield of 3.4%, which is a little bit more than it is at the moment) so the net profit would be about $418 million, give or take three million or so.

Joe played the Forex market and won.
Click to expand...

Lets hope he didn't buy NZ $ :)

Regards Errol 54
 
Big A.D. said:
Hockey gave AUD$8.8 billion to the RBA in October 2013. The money was so they could buy more foreign currency.

AUD$1 was buying USD$0.95 at the time.

AUD$1 is buying USD$0.89 at the time of posting.

Assuming the RBA blew the lot on USD, they're sitting on a gross profit of $528 million from the trade. The interest bill would be roughly $110 million (assuming a federal government 5 year bond yield of 3.4%, which is a little bit more than it is at the moment) so the net profit would be about $418 million, give or take three million or so.

Joe played the Forex market and won.
Click to expand...

I suppose he will move onto Derivatives now that he has a stake. :)

Regards Errol 43
 
Gino said:
Maybe,if your assumptions are correct. But the RBA performs open market operations all the time and don't require the government issuing debt to do it.

Hopefully Joe is not some kind of closet gambler who enjoys multi-billion dollar flutters in the forex markets.

I feel it is more likely the money was required from the government because the issue that needed addressing was not yet covered by the RBAs charter or governance rules. In that case, it would be required to operate under direction rather than going rogue itself, and operating outside its guidelines.

I reckon it was a stop gap in the $200B repo/capital guarantee commitments it has over the self-rated, sub-prime, toxic debt the banks have parked on its balance sheet. It doesn't get a charter for that until 2015.

So what's more likely, Hockey having a flutter, or him being forced to act to save the banks taking a hit from distressed RMBS sitting at the RBA and the markets being spooked? ( I would bet the knock on effect in the RBMS and subsequently real estate markets would be huge and demanding of the Treasurer's full attention.)

I'll happily stand corrected though.
Click to expand...

I think it was simply a case of Hockey having a lot of info in front of him saying the AUD was over-valued and was likely to fall sooner or later and he decided to take a punt.

Remember that (at the time) he managed to spin it so it looked like recapitalizing the RBA was immediately necessary by saying his predecessor bled it dry.

So if you can borrow money at the lowest interest rate ever, your own reserve bank is saying "We reckon this sucker's gonna drop" and you can shift most of the blame onto someone else if you screw it up, why the hell wouldn't you?
 
I'd guess that Hockey had nothing to do with it, other than rubber stamp it.

It's not like the RBA sits around sipping tea and watching the charts until one days its " oops time to buy AUD I think. Give the current fellow a ring and ask him what to do old chap"
 
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/02/05...t-is-being-restored-for-the-liberals-friends/

How the age of entitlement is being restored for the Liberals' friends

BERNARD KEANE
Crikey politics editor

Treasurer Joe Hockey has emerged as the spine of a government that, a little like the Howard government, has arrived in office on the back of community unhappiness with its predecessor but unsure what it actually wants to achieve once it's finished pulling down Labor's work. Hockey's resolute holding of the line on rent-seeking, after the disgrace of the GrainCorp decision, is welcome. But his salesmanship is letting him down. And, worse, so is his consistency.

Having tolled the bell yet again on "the age of entitlement", Hockey has left the government open to allegations that entitlement is actually only over if the government wants to target the unions involved in your business. Otherwise, the spigot of taxpayer money is still open. No one in the government has been able to explain the difference between SPC Ardmona and the handout to Cadbury's Hobart factory except Sharman Stone, who pointed out it was in a marginal seat, nor the difference between the SPC and another handout to a Tasmanian seafood processor (announced by rugged individualist Jamie Briggs). And that's before you get into tax expenditures, which are a mishmash of generations of often conflicting policy objectives.

Governments -- all governments -- love to hand out taxpayers' money for political benefit. Sometimes it doesn't even have to be a marginal seat -- the government promised to waste $10 million helping to redevelop Brookvale Oval for Abbott's local footy club. Every time the government hands out a seven-figure amount from now on, Hockey's words about the end of the age of entitlement will be used to belt the government.

But there are more substantial inconsistencies, because for the Liberal Party's mates and supporters, the age of entitlement isn't over at all; in fact, it is being restored.

First, there was the reversal of Labor's decision to require better record-keeping and reporting for fringe benefits tax on novated leases. Note that this wasn't a tax rise, as widely portrayed, but merely a requirement that people currently avoiding, or possibly in some circumstances evading, tax demonstrate they are doing so for the legitimate reasons they claimed. It was designed to end a straight-out tax rort perpetrated by the parasitic salary packaging industry, at the expense of every taxpayer without a novated lease. Hockey has reinstated the rort, at a cost to the rest of us of $1.4 billion over four years.

However, that's as nothing compared to the government's plans to reverse Labor's Future of Financial Advice reforms, quietly revealed right before Christmas by Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos. Sinodinos proposes to dump the "opt-in" clause for financial advice fees that requires financial planners to actually get their clients' permission to automatically skim off fees every year for advice clients have never sought and don't want. Sinodinos also wants to get rid of requirements for advisers to reveal fees to existing clients and dramatically water down requirements designed to end the conflict of interest in which financial planners push clients into products planners stand to benefit from.

While much of the financial planning industry, large and small, is eager to move to a professional model for the financial advice that would turn away from the decades of self-interest and fee-gouging of clients, a rump of planners with close ties to the Liberals want to retain their ability to exploit the disengagement of most Australians about their superannuation in order to skim off a never-ending line of fees. The Liberals, in any event, strongly support the retail super sector of the industry, run by the big banks and AMP, which routinely underperforms the industry funds despised by the Liberals for trade union involvement.

Sinodinos' changes may cost financial planning clients, i.e. ordinary consumers, $130 billion in lost retirement savings, which the age pension system of the future will have to help make up. It puts all other handouts by government in the shade.

At the same time, the government has also scrapped Labor's plan to tax superannuation earnings over $100,000 a year for high-income retirees (i.e. Liberal voters) at 15% -- while dumping assistance for low-income earners to increase their super contributions (i.e. Labor voters).

Perceptions of equity are the key here. When Hockey correctly talks about needing to explain to the community the need for a change in the way they view entitlements, whether it's via the Business Council's Commission of Audit or through refusing handouts to businesses, the message will only be politically effective if voters perceive that there will be equity in the reform process. If politicians tell voters they need to make a sacrifice, they need to make sure voters believe there will be equity in that sacrifice, that no one section of the community is getting a free ride while the rest of us are giving something up.

But financial planners are having their free ride restored. So too novated lease users and the salary packaging companies. So too high-income retirees.

Voters already believe -- regardless of how they vote -- that the Liberals look after the big end of town and are less interested in low-income earners. Labor is using that as a theme of its criticism over the government's lack of support for manufacturing. Without careful management, the government will reinforce those perceptions, perceptions that it wants low- and middle-income earners to make sacrifices while it looks after its mates. It will not merely undermine support for its reform, it will undermine support for the government itself.

As Hockey should know, good treasurers don't just take tough decisions, they skillfully explain them to voters and bring the electorate along with them. So far, Joe's just been good at the former.
Click to expand...
 
hennypenny said:
Voters already believe -- regardless of how they vote -- that the Liberals look after the big end of town and are less interested in low-income earners. Labor is using that as a theme of its criticism over the government's lack of support for manufacturing.
Click to expand...

And voters know that Labor also serve the "big end of town" - The big unions. It's a matter of which they find the least pallatable. The most recent annual "Trust" trust survey said that there was a 13 percent increase in "trust in the government" sine the Liberal party took office. Labor will not win the next election. They have no leadership and a third of the last cabinet including two prime ministers have had their political careers ended. They all underestimated Tony Abbott and they still haven't learned their lesson. Despite all of the noise and hatred spewing from the left the silent majority will vote Abbot back in for the same reason that Howard was voted back in despite his personal unpopularity. And of course Labor is broke and on the verge of trading while insolvent. They don't have the money to run an effective election campaign in 3 years.
 
^^ I've certainly noticed that there isn't the tidal wave of daily talking points and photo opportunities flooding the news that was the hallmark of the Labour Party when they were in power. That trust statistic has a lot to do with keeping a lower profile, I reckon.

It probably also shows that the politicians know full well that they have lost the trust of the electorate.

The clownish thing about Hockey though is that every time he opens his mouth, he contradicts something else he's said in a different setting.

Here he is telling the US that they need to support the emerging economies with their policy, while yesterday he said they didn't have to. He's either making mistakes and being corrected by his controllers or is just a loose cannon.

http://www.afr.com/videos/national/...ence-from-us-pxmhzqazp4nm9ygfphnek_wbgmi8b--h
 
Definitely a clown. But he is in a circus called the Australian federal parliament so I wouldn't expect anything less.
 
Treasurer Hockey says government's can't fund projects so workers' savings should be used

TREASURER Joe Hockey wants the savings of Australian mums and dads used to build the big projects governments can no longer finance because they are broke.

He today outlined an economic plan based on government abandoning many investment areas and handing them over to private enterprise along with a guarantee of a return on investments.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/national/tre...s-should-be-used/story-fncynjr2-1226826323460
Click to expand...

Where's my guarantee of a return, Joe?

Old Joe reckons its not the government's role to pick winners and losers in our market economy, but wants to sell government assets with guarantees of a return, guarantee Qantas debt in its competition with Virgin, and direct Super Funds to finance government projects.

But at least he stands on principle and decides not to fund the car industry or SPC ... at the beginning of the week. :/

But doesn't pick the winners or losers...which way is the wind going to blow tomorrow Joe? Hopefully you can blow it my way, eh? Just a little guarantee of a return, is that too much to ask for, or some extra cheap funding, or some of the punters savings. Geez ... :rolleyes:
 
Gino he didn't bail out the car companies or SPC at the end of the week either.

As for the guarantee of return...I wonder who he's saying that to. The gullible or the easilly led whose money would be in their sights.

As for QANTAS facing problems which are at their root problems of legislation:

"Number one is existing restrictions on the business imposed by the Parliament. Number two is if it's an essential national service, and number three is if it is in an environment where other sovereigns are engaging in direct competition to the massive disadvantage of an Australian business, then you need to take that into account,'' he said.
Click to expand...

I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.
 
AngloSaxon said:
Gino he didn't bail out the car companies or SPC at the end of the week either.
Click to expand...

That's right!
:)

He is the supreme adherent to principles at all times. But has to make allowance for when exceptionalism is required!

Tough job that, being arbitrary an inconsistent.
 
Hockey is an idiot, Abbott is an idiot, Rudd was an idiot, Gillard was an idiot, Swan was an idiot. Is there a theme running through this thread?
 
doomsday surprise said:
Hockey is an idiot, Abbott is an idiot, Rudd was an idiot, Gillard was an idiot, Swan was an idiot. Is there a theme running through this thread?
Click to expand...

Is their idiocy limited to their time in public office then?

The theme is that his rhetoric is inconsistent to his actions. And while that's nothing new for politicians, there is something wrong with his $8.8B gift to the RBA after a week or so in a central banking huddle that pulled the curtain back a crack to let doubt of his authenticity be exposed.

He is the highest profile of the government ministers and is clearly not an idiot if you read his bio. I suggested in the thread title that he is either just a clown, out of his depth and careening from one public appointment to the next, or is a policy instrument for the bankers that often overplays the situation to be subsequently brought back into line.

Is he just another deceitful politician or worse? Who knows, but we live in precarious times and he has a big influence.
 
Brisbane December 2014.. We will find out if Joe Hockey is a clown or a ring master.

Will he argue for the bank in or will he follow the other clowns and vote for bail ins for all G20 countries.

Regards Errol 43
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top