The only poll of Malcolm Turnbull’s second week is the regular two-week rolling average from Essential Research. Clearly this week’s sample produced a good result for the Coalition, as Essential published its “one week only” result last week to show a 50-50 debut for the Turnbull government, and adding this week’s result to that one has produced a Coalition lead of 52-48. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 44%, Labor is down two to 35%, and the Greens are steady on 11%. Further findings:
• Sixty-three per cent want the election held next year, whereas 21% think the government should go early.
• Forty-one per cent say Tony Abbott should resign from parliament (although it’s not specified if this means right now or at the end of the term), 25% would prefer that he stay on the back bench, and only 16% believe he should be given a ministry.
• Twenty-six per cent rate the state of the economy as good versus 32% for poor, and 34% think it heading in the right direction versus 39% for the wrong direction – both of which are much as they were when these questions were last posed in March.
• Since July 2013, respondents have become somewhat more likely to think people on high incomes would be better off under a Liberal government, and much more likely to think people who send their children to private school would. Conversely, small business, farmers, average working people, pensioners, single parents and the unemployed are now perceived as much better off under Labor. The rating for middle-income earners was 5% in favour of the Liberals two years ago, but is now 6% in favour of Labor.
Further on the polling front, The Australian has today published its first geographic and demographic breakdowns since the takeover of Newspoll by Galaxy, of purely historical interest though the results may be, given that they are compiled from the entire polling period between July and September.
Apologies for the long post; I had planned for a short post but then kept adding in more information that I felt was relevant to the point.
[446
mexicanbeemer]
Whinging on PB about neo-liberal policies is mostly just empty sloganeering. Those who post their gripes here are not developing anything more than a line of political insult aimed at Labor, who they perceive as their rivals.
If they wish to pose a critique of capitalism or an alternative to it, they should do so. Modern monetary theory is not such a critique. It presupposes but does not offer an explanation for the existence of a permanent “output gap”. We could equally well talk about a “distribution gap”, an “equality gap” or a “capital gap”.
If we created more capital – or, rather, different kinds of capital other than mostly idle, nil-return financial capital – and allocated it differently, we would have higher productive potential. Higher real production implies higher real incomes and higher future real capital formation too.
So we should think a lot more about capital….what it is, how it’s produced, how and where it’s accumulated, directed and managed. We need above all to think of capital as a social and not solely as a private resource. We also need to understand that capital is both produced and destroyed every minute of every day. Capital is plastic, extendable, mutable and dynamic….and it is in all cases a produced (and reproduced) resource.
What we can observe is an incredible contradiction: capital scarcity (over-rationing) in some places and capital excess over-accumulation) in others. If we resolve this contradiction, we can relieve the income/employment crisis in the economy. Quite obviously, we cannot depend on financial markets to allocate capital in ways that ameliorate crisis. On the contrary, they engender it.
briefly
They may think that they are having a shot at the ALP which shows that they don’t necessarily understand the term as it is clear that the ALP are not a neoliberal party, if anything the ALP support a mixed economy.
We see this with the ALP supporting the NDIS, NBN and other government backed nation building programs which go against the ideas of what is really classic liberalism.
Millenial @450
Clinton was one of many villains in that piece – Phil Gramm led the effort to repeal financial regulations and then in the Bush administration there was “desupervision” on top of the Gramm-Clinton deregulation: the financial regulators stopped using the powers that remained to them.
Additionally the Clinton Treasury politicians appear to have been under the common delusion that issuance of treasury securities is related to financing government expenditure (i.e offsetting deficits) and so when a fiscal surplus arrived they stopped issuing securities. The result of this was that people started looking around for risk free interest bearing assets and many of them settled on Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac backed mortgages as an alternative…
Briefly @ 452
I am not sure that the existence of an output gap is controversial. There does seem to be a stock of unemployed labour and modern monetary theory (MMT, which seems mostly old theory applied to current observed practice) would claim that this is a deliberate creation of the policies of the last 35 years: maintain a “buffer stock” of unemployed people in order to suppress wage growth.
You are certainly right in a distinction between financial and non-financial sectors within the business sector (which in turn is a component of the domestic private sector). MMT observes (it is a simple fact) that government deficits are required for the private sector to be in surplus given the external position of the US (and AUS). However, the same analysis applies within the private sector and it would be quite possible for the private sector to be in surplus overall but with only financial in surplus within it whilst non-financial and household remain in deficit – an unsustainable problem.
Additionally, and relevant to output gaps, it is possible that some parts of the private sector have output gaps whilst others are at full capacity. In such cases fiscal injections can presumably be inflationary since they might complete to purchase output in the full capacity sectors: so the Phillips curve and NAIRU strikes back against the MMT proposal to maintain an employed buffer stock?
Perhaps fiscal policy need somehow to balance sectors (addressing the mis-distribution of capital you observe) rather than just trying to balance the private sector as a whole?
E. G. Theodore
I have a problem with the claim that a public sector deficit equals private sector surplus, currently both the public and private sectors are carrying large levels of deficit, if I’m understanding correctly then under MMT, that should not be happening as they are said to go in the opposite direction.
New thread.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers.
More from Adele Ferguson on the 7-Eleven scandal.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/7eleven-ceaseless-scandal-finally-forces-change-20150930-gjy54f.html
The issue of bullying by surgeons is gathering steam. At last people are saying “enough is enough!”
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/systemic-bullying-at-broken-hill-hospital-nurses-claim-20150930-gjxyrg.html
West Coast Eagles player Daniel Chick spills the bean on the drug culture rampant during the team’s 2006 premiership year.
http://www.watoday.com.au/victoria/former-eagles-player-reveals-clubs-drug-culture-20150930-gjykam.html
Here’s a dire warning about the new wave of illicit drugs hitting our shores.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-turbo-ice-age-20150930-gjy2bj.html
Nick X has had enough of publicly funded and blatantly political advertising .
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-spends-10m-spruiking-china-fta-to-australians-20150930-gjyaw6.html
As pressure mounts on Turnbull to come up with some “doable” policies Kate Carnell comes out with this doozy! “If we can’t get more women, young and older people into the workforce, we can’t get productivity up.” Productivity is doing more with less, but she thinks it’s all about unit hourly labour rate. Pathetic!
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/business-pushes-malcolm-turnbull-for-actual-doable-policies-20150930-gjy4t7.html
Yet another example of the psychological damage and effects of religion on the poor and ignorant.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/mob-in-india-kills-muslim-man-over-rumours-of-cow-slaughter-20150930-gjykvf.html
The Senate often does very good work.
http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/property-spruiker-jamie-mcintyre-called-a-conman-by-senators-seeking-lost-millions-20150930-gjyhsg.html
Here is some good data on the apparently widespread gaming of the emissions testing on diesels. There are some very excessive differences between standard testing and real life drive cycle testing on a number of models. I am pleased to see that the Mazda 6 diesel I recently bought is right on the bottom of the list.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/30/wide-range-of-cars-emit-more-pollution-in-real-driving-conditions-tests-show
More of the same as we continue without a Sex Discrimination Commissioner.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/vacant-sex-discrimination-role-has-advocates-concerned-20150930-gjy3pz.html
Go to the new thread for the Dawn Patrol.
I’ll correct that for you, BK.
[The issue of bullying by
surgeonshospital management is gathering steam. At last people are saying “enough is enough!”http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/systemic-bullying-at-broken-hill-hospital-nurses-claim-20150930-gjxyrg.html ]
It seems the bullying in NSW Health is rife, as is falsification of documents.
We are not talking arguable nuances here, matters of interpretation. We are talking about wholesale, verifiable, corroborated falsification of documents in disciplinary matters.
Bullying, too is rife.
At the Sydney hospital where my wife works HR and management are waging a war against older women employed in administration too, not just nursing.
Management, usually older women themselves, is a law unto itself, and in collusion with HR they simply lie. Anyone, like my wife, who bucks the system and fights back, is victimized. It can get terribly debilitating.
Lawyers you talk to shrug their shoulders and say, “Meh. That’s NSW Health!” because the culture is so entrenched.
You come up against repeated “factual” references to incidents that didn’t occur (in some cases incidents that could not possibly have occurred), official documents that state bald falsehoods, such as listing people who attended meetings who did not, or altering and backdating records and then inserting them in the official record.
You think you’re going crazy. You complain. You point out the facts, with conclusive proof, and the response from management is even more vicious and full of lies. You are threatened with further discipline for complaining, and if that doesn’t work (which it doesn’t), they just falsify the record even more.
It’s like that scene in Rosemary’s Baby where Rosemary turns to all her friends and finds they are all devil worshippers.
No wonder the woman in the Herald piece thought she was going mad, and was worried about her mental health. In such a toxic atmosphere, it’s easy to think you’ve caught the disease yourself.