Happy New Year

By in MacroBusiness

| 27 comments

NY

From all the team at Macro Associates, Happy New Year !

2013 was a huge year for Macro Business with amazing growth and , with our reader’s support, we hope to do more of the same in 2014.

Thank you again to everyone who continues support us, particularly our subscribing members. We have some big surprises coming this year and we look forward to continuing to be Australia’s leading finance, investment and economics blog over the next 12 months and beyond.

 

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Comments

  2. Ino

    Oh, Happy New Year to you Macro Guys – Happy new year to you and your reading audience.

    And to the Dark Side: may your negative gearing be abolished, and your capital gains taxed. A land-tax on both your houses. May the new year bring the recession we have to have and deserve to have!

    • Turnitup

      An interesting read. They really are bastards. Have any MB readers ever held senior positions in a bank? I’d love to hear their tales.

      • Janet

        Deep T is about as close as you can get!

        http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/deep-t/

        The problem with most bankers who get to the top ( like many other businesses) is that to climb the ladder, you have to have become part of the establishment ( otherwise you are culled on the way up). Once at the top, it’s likely that there will be too many personal skeletons to risk saying too much…..it’s part of The Plan…

    • aj.

      An excellent read.

      “In all probability there are no brown paper bags under the table in Australia (save perhaps for members of the judiciary). But a revolving door employment gravy train beckons for the most prominent amongst the regulators and politicians. And for the bulk of their brethren, opportunism and craven cowardice reigns. A Minor Party politician who conducted a crusade for bank victims in the late 1980s was crucified. That fact is etched in the consciousness of Australian political wannabes.”

      Michael West from Fairfax has consistently drawn attention to the significant failings of the legal, banking, insolvency cabal.

      Most would be staggered at how easy it is to own the regulators, you don’t have to bribe them, you just buy off the people with a job. Most toe the line in hope of a cushy consulting gig, and constantly poaching the best people just beautifully destabilises the organisation from any any establishment activities.

      Anyone that believes the bank marketing is naive to the extreme, this is a hyper-competitive moral free zone.

      • rich42

        That JFK quote is screaming at me …

        “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy,

        It’s coming. GenY will not tolerate this much longer. Take the easy path Abbott, grandfather it. Fixed, no one gets hurt except the banks; you keep the votes.

        Alternatively, do nothing and it will lead to places this country’s never experienced.

      • rich42

        How absurd we live in a country where anyone with an ounce of intelligence can see we’re headed for a train wreck but can’t get bipartisan solutions. Curse every one of you grub politicians that’s not speaking out. Thats every one of you. .

        Boycott lawyers as members. We don’t use the boycott anywhere near enough in Australia. I think in South America somewhere (Brazil?) people boycotted coffee to get prices down. It worked.

    • China-Bob

      Australia really does need to introduce some form of CH11 and slowly phase out all these silly “insolvent trading” rules. If the banks have nothing to gain by forcing “insolvency” than all the shenanigans associated with this practice will end immediately.

      • aj.

        Whoops i think we just identified yet another powerful bunch of rent-seekers – can you imagine the big insolvency practices and the legal support teams letting that through.

        No change coming – add it to the list…

    • migtronixMEMBER

      Happy New Year thomickers ! AUD almost closed the year @0.9! And cable is @ 1.655 moving almost 100 pips in the session. And the 10 Year? Firmly above 3! Wild session for metals too. Banging the close in style

    • migtronixMEMBER

      This is absolute, pro-judiciary garbage and thanks for pointing it out!

      Common Law guarantees all the free speech you could ever want as an individual – the notion that “corporate speech” is free speech is nauseating!! Something in-corporated can never be corporeal or have an individual opinion worth the preserving!!

      This is just another manifestation of the strawman as a legally, but not lawfully, entitled person. Try and bring a corporation into a court of Common Law and you will quickly discover they have no standing and can bear no witness and claim no injury.

      • drsmithyMEMBER

        The real issue here is not about treating “corporate speech” the same as “free speech”, it’s about drawing an equivalence between free speech and political donations, thus kneecapping any attempt at restricting the latter by making it legally and ethically the equal of the former.

        Yet another validation of the rich conservatives’ movement to pervert democracy.

        Corporate personhood is a separate (though no less insidious) issue.

      • migtronixMEMBER

        Drsmithy : I hear ya but to me it’s same same but different. Corporate speech is money because nobody who wasn’t getting paid would lend their real human voice for a corporate mouth peice

      • drsmithyMEMBER

        Corporate speech is money because nobody who wasn’t getting paid would lend their real human voice for a corporate mouth peice
        There are plenty of people more than willing to lend their voice in support of the “market”.

        Then of course there’s all those people voting for parties who think business entities should be allowed to operate with little to no responsibilities, restrictions, or regulations.

  7. JacksonMEMBER

    Happy New Year to all, I’ve got this nagging feeling that 2014 is going to be “interesting”.

    I have one wish for the year – for someone in federal or state politics to recognise the negative impact high house prices have on our international competitiveness. My wish the following year will be that they do something about it.

    To the commentariat herein, keep banging on endlessly about your passions, good and bad.

    • GunnamattaMEMBER

      Actually not that bad……

      He hasnt said it increases available stock or has no pernicious impact on prices – as your true spruiker would – he has just said that there are other factors in the mix making residential real estate unaffordable.

      From Leith we know that Negative Gearing

      Costs about 4 billion as an outlay
      Reflects a reduction in government revenues of about 13 Billion

      This guy (He doesnt say where he gets his figures from) has the capital gains tax concession on the family home at about 15 Billion a year in reduced revenues
      He then chips in with about 5 Billion from reduced tax paid on profits from sale of investments for individuals and most trusts which Howard/Costello brought in circa 1999.
      He also mentions 20 Billion paid as pension to those with circa 500K in assets including the family home.

      Thats 57 Billion which effectively props up the real estate market one way or another – sure I know a lot of that is double counting and it isnt that much in toto. But it is somewhere around there where you would start – and that doesnt even look at SMSFs and their rising interest in RE.

      For mine, I am starting to feel a real change in attitudes towards negative gearing in particular – but the murky grey area of what is support for the housing market (or what isnt) in particular. When I came home 2 years ago people would openly scoff when I raised the NG and Capital Gains tax concessions and argue loudly about how they supported renters and the like and werent involved in pushing prices higher. Now there is an increasing sensitivity to the subject (you can see it in peoples eyes or feel it in the way they couch their caveats). Maybe the ghost of Keating (release of papers about Keating’s ill fated attempt to kill it in the 1980s) could have a sting in the tail yet.