The federal government’s Farm Finance package includes concessional loans to help farmers restructure and improve productivity – but carries the risk of heaping them with more debt.
The Federal Government’s new Farm Finance assistance package includes concessional loans to help farms restructure debt and invest in productivity.
But this is a back-to-the-future response that carries…
While the blame game for the deficit continues, the economy remains vulnerable to future turbulence.
AAP/ Alan Porritt
Labor has said all options are on the table to address Australia’s structural deficit and falling tax revenues, following disclosure this week of a $12 billion revenue shortfall, just weeks from the federal…
There are economic and moral justifications for debt forgiveness.
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The overhang of debt in Europe and the US has made recovery from the global financial crisis particularly tenuous.
Is there a dramatic and simple way out of all this? Some argue that there is: a “debt…
There’s a strong financial case to selling Medibank Private, but politics has made privatisation an unpopular choice.
AAP/ Joel Carrett
At first sight it is surprising that neither the government nor the opposition, both seeking budgetary savings, is proposing to sell Medibank Private.
When retiring Medibank Private chairman Paul McClintock…
According to the organisers of Occupy’s Rolling Jubilee, 77.5% of American households are in debt.
AAP
Debt, it seems, is an idea with currency. Cities, states, nations and individuals are indebted, with creditors at the door, demanding repayment. This year, the US Federal Reserve even had David Graeber…
The federal budget often neglects to address the costs of unfunded liabilities.
AAP
Every Australian is directly or indirectly affected by unfunded liabilities.
Yes — even you.
State and federal unfunded liabilities now total more than $200 billion and this amount is rising rapidly…
With the rest of the world mired in economic crises, it seems Australia is the place for foreign central banks to park their assets.
Krug6
Central banks everywhere – from Russia to the Czech Republic – are piling into Australian-dollar-denominated assets. This has limited the fall of the Australian dollar to around 3% from its peak even though…
A clear-headed analysis of the budget must delve beyond the buzzwords and political rhetoric.
AAP
Each year the budget is like an annual health check on a patient with many complexities. In a black coat, not a white one, the august Treasurer reports the nation’s temperature, provides much-needed tonics…
Size does matter: rather than be concerned about achieving a surplus or a deficit, the government should be focusing on how to manage its debt.
AAP
By Kevin Davis, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
Treasurer Swan’s commitment to bring the government budget into surplus in 2012-13 may be a political imperative, but is not good economics. The focus for prudential fiscal management should instead be…
The European Central Bank’s long-term refinancing operations have reduced acute liquidity problems in the banking sector, but the situation in the Eurozone remains fragile.
AAP
By Harald Sander, Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS)
In November 2011, the Eurozone crisis reached a climax with interest rates on sovereign debt of Eurozone problem debtors soaring. Fear of sovereign defaults spilled over into the interbank markets as Eurozone…
Neither Anna Bligh nor Campbell Newman seem keen to talk about Queensland’s staggering debt.
AAP
By Mark McGovern, Queensland University of Technology
In the run-up to the Queensland state election, politicians are making all sorts of pledges to win over constituents, but few are willing to tackle a potentially paralysing problem: the spectacular growth…
Decoupled: The Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to hold interest rates has been ignored by the banks.
AAP
By Kevin Davis, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
Last week, the Reserve Bank defied market expectations to announce the 4.25% cash rate would remain unchanged. But the surprise decision by Australia’s Big Four banks to act independently of the Reserve…
Bankrupt former billionaire Sean Quinn accepted highly risky loans from Anglo Irish Bank before it collapsed.
AAP
The fall of the “Mighty” Sean Quinn from Ireland’s (and Forbes-listed) richest man to one of the world’s most indebted individuals is perhaps the biggest story of Ireland’s boom-to-bust recent economic…
French leftists protest after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country’s debt on Friday.
AAP
Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the credit ratings of nine Eurozone countries, including Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, is another symptom of the contagious and vicious debt cycle…
Personal loans should be used to fund major infrastructure projects, like the National Broadband Network.
AAP
The Global Financial Crisis should be called the Global Debt Crisis. Too much debt has been created and there is not enough productive capacity to pay the interest on the debt, let alone repay the loans…
Are ordinary homeowners perpetuating Australia’s property bubble?
AAP
While my recent commentary (here and here) demonstrates Australian housing is in a bubble, I have not explained where this situation has come from.
Asset markets, in this case, property, are the subject…
Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy must take drastic steps to maintain the legitimacy of EU institutions.
AAP
The European Union is in crisis – yet again. If you enter “Europe in crisis” into Google, more than 655 million entries pop up.
Europe’s current problems are being described as a Euro crisis – it is a…
Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel believe an FTT can help solve Europe’s debt woes.
AAP
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have announced a plan to impose a financial transactions tax (FTT) for the Eurozone, as part of an effort stem the bloc’s worsening…
The only way out of this crisis is to dishonour some of the debt that is weighing down the global economy.
AAP
The dramatic falls in share prices of Greek debt-laden French banks overnight highlights just how closely tied the current market chaos is to the world’s worsening debt woes.
Market crashes like that…
Has his compromise with Republicans over the debt ceiling ended Obama’s electoral hopes?
AAP
Despite the apparent disgust of many Americans and the contempt held by many outside observers, US politics is supposed to look this way – at least sometimes.
The widely diagnosed dysfunction of the recent…
US House Speaker John Boehner wants government programs cut: but is austerity politics the answer?
AAP
For some time, it appeared that the severity of the global financial crisis had created a compelling “learning moment” that promised to return the world to a more civilised form of capitalism.
Insufficient…
Many Greeks are ashamed by what has happened to their country.
EPA/Orestis Panagiotou
Athens is no longer considered by scholars as the birthplace of democracy but all of a sudden it has become the epicentre of a powerful political earthquake rocking the foundations of every democracy in…
