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Showing posts from October, 2009

PM gets called a bit grubby as stand-off on the high seas continues

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THE FRONT PAGES POLITICS AND ECONOMICS Australia The national mood Voters back to boom-time expectations: report  - Australians are “over” the global financial crisis and are again ready to worry about the things that troubled them in the last boom - failed state government services. The growing confidence in the economy, revealed in the latest Ipsos Mackay Mind & Mood report, has placed the Rudd government in a better position than it was a year ago, when many voters feared a recession was coming and were troubled by Labor’s excessive cash handouts -  The Australian Leadership I’m worth every cent I’m paid, says Nathan Rees  - Premier Nathan Rees yesterday described his pay rise as “uncomfortable” but still feels he is entitled to it - Sydney Daily Telegraph Barry O’Farrell overhauls Nathan Rees  - The leadership of Premier Nathan Rees in NSW will come under renewed pressure after a Newspoll that shows Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell has opened up a clear lead as prefer

A cautionary comment about the US economy

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The stockmarket seemed very happy with the United States’ gross domestic product figures out overnight but there is little joy in them for the country’s unemployed. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put the 3.5% growth figure into a little perspective on his  New York Times  blog  this morning when he pointed out that the growth rate was not remotely enough to make any real headway against the unemployment problem. He illustrated the past relationship between growth and unemployment with this little scatterplot: Krugman commented that “basically, we’d be lucky if growth at this rate brought unemployment down by half a percentage point per year. At this rate, we wouldn’t reach anything that feels like full employment until well into the second Palin administration”.