I have mentioned a few times that we were living in the economic miracle or the lucky country and that investors in particular those who are invested here should be vary careful about taking on board the USA gloom and doom focus of Australian commentators and of course the manipulators trying to create another massive bargain basement out of the ASX.
Standard and Poor's have just had the following to say post the election:
Budget in better shape than predicted
Colin Brinsden, AAP Economics and Business Correspondent - 4h ago
The incoming Labor government will inherit a budget that is in better shape than was predicted just a few months ago, according to global credit rating agency Standard & Poor's.
It also says a change in government by itself has no effect on Australia's AAA rating or its stable outlook with fundamentals, such as a projected fiscal recovery, still sound.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his economic team of Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher were sworn in on Monday after defeating the coalition at the election on Saturday.
S&P said the new government has made a range of promises around energy investment, manufacturing, housing, childcare, health, and education.
"We will examine the new government's policies, and their impact on the economy and fiscal outcomes, when more details are known," S&P said in a statement on Monday, noting Labor has promised a budget before the end of 2022.
"We expect this budget to set the fiscal tone and tolerances for spending."
S&P expects Australia's economic recovery and commodity prices to improve fiscal outcomes faster than the March 2022 budget anticipated.
"We believe significant upside is likely because commodity prices will outperform budget assumptions. Further, inflationary pressures will drive nominal GDP and taxes higher," it said
"It will take significant spending during the last three months of the 2022 fiscal year to hit the budgeted deficit of $A85.8 billion," it said.
It said rising debt levels do not currently present a risk to Australia's rating, being comparable to similarly rated peers.
"In addition, we expect borrowing costs to remain manageable. Despite interest rates rising from recent lows, they are still lower than in the past," S&P said."
We live in the lucky country and/or hold our shares in the lucky company so keep doing your own research, have a plan and good luck to all.
My opinion only DYOR
FF
AKIDA BALLISTA
Hi FF,
You've set my hobbyhorse rocking, so now it's my turn to dissent.
I think that, in light of the GFC, we should take the ratings agency evaluations with a blood-pressure endangering load of salt.
We have a record-breaking deficit and unemployment comparisons with the 1970s are quite misleading because of the changes in the measure of "employment" which, back then did not include 1 hour a week as "employed".
Here is a graph of Australia's employment in manufacturing since we signed up to WTO.
From 1989 to 2017, manufacturing employment declined from 1.16 million to 890,000 - almost 25% decrease and at an accelerating rate, and that was before Abbott oversaw the nailing down of the coffin lid of vehicle manufacture. Were it not for the rise in China's increased demand for coal and iron we would be a banana republic, much to the delight of a certain Asian leader. (I'll refrain from commenting on the equine dental inspection of our largest customer/poking the sleeping panda in the eye with a burnt stick.).
Labor's world champion treasurer was instrumental in to bulldozing our playing field flat ahead of all other countries (advanced or not so advanced), while failing to get agreement on the industry where we had a major advantage - agriculture - "a courageous action, minister", not that we could have expected any more enlightenment from the other team.
Then Honest John strongarmed/blackmailed the states into privatizing public utilities - that worked well for electricity, not to mentioned water, rail, telecomms ... . The fatuous idea of splitting up the utilities for the sake of the appearance of "economic efficiency" (generation, poles and wires, distribution) ignores the reality that economic efficiency can only follow engineering efficiency. Had the power companies remained in government control we would not now have the chaos of maintaining base-load supply. All that achieved was to create separate profit centres which each had to generate a profit, and it may have created some wealthy companies - but where does the profit come from? And, on top of that, the taxpayers have to pay for the lost revenue from the previously government owned utilities. Free market fundamentalist economists are the first up against the wall come the revolution.
It's funny to see the Libs boasting about getting us through the epidemic by implementing Keynesian economics on a previously unimaginable scale, when they have spent all their lives seeking to enforce "fiscal rectitude", and going into the election promising to cut the public service (and, of course, the ABC (again).
So the advent of Akida is sorely needed to provide some real economic sustenance for our enfeebled economy.