Peter Costello serves up the truth.

mmm....shiney! said:
LMAO, I just clicked on the link...................and the author is...................Richard Denniss. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Say no more. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Three toddlers playing in a sand pit have a better grasp of economics than does the good Professor.
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It's the IMF.

Again, no one can point out where the IMF is wrong?
 
SilverPete said:
bordsilver said:
The truth sure as hell isn't in that nonsense article either :rolleyes:
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What's inaccurate about the article?
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Typical Richard Denniss internally inconsistent nonsense that believes that a "responsibly managed" big Government can solve all of the purported problems of cycles and can make the poor wealthy. It completely disregards the source of growth in favour of Keynesian claptrap. Yes, he makes the right noises about Government "investing" in productive infrastructure/education etc but he is primarily talking about increasing recurrent welfare and hand-outs and trusting bureaucracies without a profit measure to actually know what people want and to be able to deliver the services efficiently. Things that have been consistently shown in the economics literature (and history) are simply pipe-dreams.
 
SilverPete said:
mmm....shiney! said:
LMAO, I just clicked on the link...................and the author is...................Richard Denniss. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Say no more. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Three toddlers playing in a sand pit have a better grasp of economics than does the good Professor.
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It's the IMF.

Again, no one can point out where the IMF is wrong?
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It's Richard Denniss's, not the IMF's opinions.

But I'll list a few anyway:

Anyone who has ever bought a house or a new car has run a "budget deficit". If you earn $100,000 per year and buy a $700,000 house, you will rack up a big deficit that year and, inevitably, a big debt. Is that reckless? Or irresponsible? Most people, and most financial planners, don't think so. Neither do most companies.
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Comparing government debt to a company's debt is ridiculous. Companies enter into debt to make capital gains, governments do not.

Most people interpret deficit as a problem, and a surplus as a good thing, but it's not necessarily the case; a surplus of morphine, for example, could kill you.
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:rolleyes: How's that for a fallacious argument?

Just as there is nothing "irresponsible" or "unsustainable" about an individual borrowing to buy a house or a company borrowing to invest in a profitable new project, there is nothing irresponsible about a government borrowing to invest in the infrastructure that a rapidly growing population and economy need.
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Richard Denniss should read bordsilver's link somewhere on this forum explaining the difference between private and public debt.

Edit to add: here it is http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-822517.html#p822517

Do I have to go on? :o
 
Plenty of different reporters and papers reported on it. Attacking one reporter doesn't invalidate widely reported news.
 
SilverPete said:
Yet no one can dispute the IMF figures, just attack the reporters.

Interesting.
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Nothing interesting about it.

What IMF figures are you referring to? The article linked to by Julie is by Richard Denniss, it's his version of how economics operates that we take exception to and will continue to do so until he eventually shuts up. You wanted inaccuracies and I did say you'd have to quote the whole article again. :lol:
 
SilverPete said:
Yet no one can dispute the IMF figures, just attack the reporters.

Interesting.
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Just google the refutations for goodness sake. I know you can do it. To start you off, here's two:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...n-howards-record/story-fn7078da-1226553110377
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/01/11/howard-was-a-big-spender-who-knew/

And quoting some of the Ergas one which is less technical:

Henry Ergas said:
As a general matter, that approach can work poorly when government debt is low. That is because a government that persistently holds debt to low levels obviously does not face the problem of improving its budget position so as to offset debt increases. Techniques that identify fiscal virtue by examining the response to rising debt will therefore be biased against those governments.

Instead, much like confusing temperance with a drunkard who periodically goes on the wagon, they risk most readily ascribing virtue to those governments that, having let deficits spiral, are forced into drastic corrective action.

That said, the paper does develop three specific tests to pinpoint periods where significant shifts in fiscal policy occur. One of those tests selects 2003 and 2005-07 as years of Australian "fiscal imprudence".

That is the result Martin's story emphasises. But what Martin doesn't note is that the paper's other tests did not confirm that finding, and that the test he privileges is statistically unproven and, on the authors' own admission, unconventional. Indeed, that test gives many bizarre results. For example, it not only finds Italian governments to be consistent models of fiscal rectitude, but also singles out 2002-05 as years of fiscal prudence in Britain, even though that was when the Labour government's budget deficit blew out of control.

Precisely because of the difficulties of placing much weight on any such measure, the paper provides a table that combines its tests - and which does not identify any fiscal imprudence in the Howard years.

You wouldn't know that, however, from Martin's reporting. Nor would you know that the test he privileges uses data on gross, not net, debt (that is, gross debt minus gross financial assets).

Usually that will not matter, as the two vary together. But the distinction does matter, possibly substantially, for the Howard government.

That is because as net debt fell to zero, the Howard government faced a situation where it would not be issuing government bonds; but the interest rate on those bonds plays an important role as a reference point for financial markets, for example, in setting prices for bonds issued by corporations.

The government therefore continued to issue bonds, thus retaining gross debt, but offset those issues with purchases of other financial assets, so that net debt kept falling.

With gross and net debt thus moving separately, a test that only examines gross debt would incorrectly conclude the government imprudently failed to push fiscal consolidation as much as it could and should have done.
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mmm....shiney! said:
SilverPete said:
Yet no one can dispute the IMF figures, just attack the reporters.

Interesting.
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Nothing interesting about it.

What IMF figures are you referring to? The article linked to by Julie is by Richard Denniss, it's his version of how economics operates that we take exception to and will continue to do so until he eventually shuts up. You wanted inaccuracies and I did say you'd have to quote the whole article again. :lol:
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This IMF report: A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy
 
From the IMF report:
Although a precise definition of prudence or profligacy has not been established, policymakers, investors, and voters need to take a view all the time, in real time, on whether a country's fiscal policies are appropriate to support economic growth and achieve other social objectives without causing a fiscal crisis. The focus is on the fiscal stance within the control of the governmentusually proxied by the primary fiscal balance (i.e., the fiscal balance net of interest payments).

...


This paper draws on a newly collected historical dataset of fiscal variables for a large panel of countriesto our knowledge, the most comprehensive database currently availableto gauge the degree of fiscal prudence or profligacy for each country over the past several decades. Specifically, our dataset consists of fiscal revenues, primary expenditures, the interest bill (and thus both the primary and the overall fiscal deficit), the government debt, and gross domestic product, for 55 countries for up to two hundred years. For the first time, a large cross country historical data set covers both fiscal stocks and flows.
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SilverPete said:
mmm....shiney! said:
SilverPete said:
Yet no one can dispute the IMF figures, just attack the reporters.

Interesting.
Click to expand...

Nothing interesting about it.

What IMF figures are you referring to? The article linked to by Julie is by Richard Denniss, it's his version of how economics operates that we take exception to and will continue to do so until he eventually shuts up. You wanted inaccuracies and I did say you'd have to quote the whole article again. :lol:
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This IMF report: A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy
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You've lost me, I can't see any mention of IMF statistics in the article by Richard Denniss. All I see is a load of shite.
 
mmm....shiney! said:
SilverPete said:
mmm....shiney! said:
Nothing interesting about it.

What IMF figures are you referring to? The article linked to by Julie is by Richard Denniss, it's his version of how economics operates that we take exception to and will continue to do so until he eventually shuts up. You wanted inaccuracies and I did say you'd have to quote the whole article again. :lol:
Click to expand...

This IMF report: A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy
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You've lost me, I can't see any mention of IMF statistics in the article by Richard Denniss. All I see is a load of shite.
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You're not looking too hard:

"According to economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Peter Costello was Australia's most profligate treasurer of the past 50 years. According to global doyens of fiscal responsibility, the man described by John Howard as Australia's greatest treasurer spent like a drunken sailor when the economy was booming."

Did he make that up?
 
AUSTRALIA'S most needlessly wasteful spending took place under the John Howard-led Coalition government rather than under the Whitlam, Rudd or Gillard Labor governments, an international study has found.

The International Monetary Fund examined 200 years of government financial records across 55 leading economies.

It identifies only two periods of Australian "fiscal profligacy" in recent years, both during John Howard's term in office in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007

The IMF study mirrors findings of a 2008 Australian Treasury study that found real government spending grew faster in the final four years of the Howard government than in any four-year period since the 1990s recession.

The number of spending decisions worth more than $1 billion climbed from one in the first Howard budget to nine in the last. The proportion of savings measures fell from one-third of budget measures at the start of the Howard era to 1.5 per cent at the end.

ScreenHunter_23-Jan.-11-09.36.gif

Source: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/01/howards-legacy-questioned-by-imf/
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SilverPete said:
mmm....shiney! said:
SilverPete said:
This IMF report: A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy
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You've lost me, I can't see any mention of IMF statistics in the article by Richard Denniss. All I see is a load of shite.
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You're not looking too hard:

"According to economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Peter Costello was Australia's most profligate treasurer of the past 50 years. According to global doyens of fiscal responsibility, the man described by John Howard as Australia's greatest treasurer spent like a drunken sailor when the economy was booming."

Did he make that up?
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I think you misunderstand our objections to the article.
 
SP - Did you even bother to read the refutations, or you're just content to continue to regurgitate disproven memes? The IMF study did not show any such thing and didn't even discuss Australia specifically.
 
Publish whatever articles from whatever papers you want but reality is reality - Massive prosperity and surplus under Howard/ Costello, Worst national debt in history under Rudd/Gillard/Swan. Reality wins.
 
bordsilver said:
SP - Did you even bother to read the refutations, or you're just content to continue to regurgitate disproven memes? The IMF study did not show any such thing and didn't even discuss Australia specifically.
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Are we talking about the same report? Australia was covered and they even added more detail in the accompanying chartbook :

lB3W3Oc.jpg
 
mmm....shiney! said:
SilverPete said:
mmm....shiney! said:
You've lost me, I can't see any mention of IMF statistics in the article by Richard Denniss. All I see is a load of shite.
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You're not looking too hard:

"According to economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Peter Costello was Australia's most profligate treasurer of the past 50 years. According to global doyens of fiscal responsibility, the man described by John Howard as Australia's greatest treasurer spent like a drunken sailor when the economy was booming."

Did he make that up?
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I think you misunderstand our objections to the article.
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Agree. Your right, I am focusing too much on the IMF data.
 
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