Tag Archives: FBO

Swan: We Created Every Single New Job In The Entire Nation Since We Came To Office … And 10,000 More, That Don’t Even Exist

22 Jun

Goose talking "jobs jobs jobs"

Do you remember Wayne’s pre-budget mantra?

That big red herring about jobs – the one that the entire Australian media corps swallowed hook, line, and sinker?

We created 750,000 jobs since we came to office when other nations shed millions of jobs…

Back in early May, we first debunked Wayne’s Big Lie ( “Behold, Wayne’s Große Lüge” ), simply by comparing his own Final Budget Outcome 2009-10 to the Final Budget Outcome for 2007-08, the year that Labor came to office.

Of course, that simple comparison using government budget documents did not take into account a number of factors. Including what may have happened in the employment trends between the end of financial year 2010, and Wayne’s grand claim in May 2011.

So now, dear reader, we present for your enjoyment the definitive proof. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force data from November 2007 (the month that Rudd won the election) through to May 2011 (the month in which Wayne was frantically waving his “jobs jobs jobs” red herring, to distract from his upcoming record-high budget deficit announcement).

First, here is a chart for Full-time employed persons:

Click to enlarge

That’s a grand total of (8.0271 million – 7.6689 million) 358,200 more Full-time employed persons now, than in November 2007.

Second, here is a chart for Part-time employed persons:

Click to enlarge

That’s a grand total of (3.4135 million – 3.0317 million) 381,800 more Part-time employed persons now, than in November 2007.

For a grand total of … 740,000 more employed persons than in November 2007.

In a nation where the population increased by 1.237 million from September 2007 to September 2010 (the latest data), including a natural increase of 0.5 million (births minus deaths):

Click to enlarge

Now, what was that you said, Wayne?

We created 750,000 jobs since we came to office when other nations shed millions of jobs…

Let’s take a moment to enter an imaginary parallel universe.  A fantasy world where the Australian private sector – that’s every non-government business in the nation – did not create a single new job – full or part-time – in the past 3.5 years. 

Not one.

According to the official ABS data, even if the entire private sector did not create a single new job, and instead, we swallow the patently absurd notion that Labor alone was responsible for creating every single new full-time and part-time job in the entire country over the past 3.5 years, Wayne’s claim would still fall short long.  By 10,000 jobs.

Now, perhaps you are one of the eagle-eyed readers who has spotted the big 80,000 fall in full-time employed persons in April-May.  An ominous collapse, only one-tenth less than the GFC-triggered f/t employed persons plunge in Feb-Mar 2009.

And perhaps you are also quick-witted enough to be thinking, “Hey wait on there mate, Wayne couldn’t have known the May figures in early May, could he?”

And you would be right on both counts.

Doesn’t help our Wayne’s claim though.

Because if you calculate November 2007 through April 2011 instead, you get a grand total of … (380,200 F/t + 352,000 P/t) 732,200 employed persons.

Meaning, his lie was even bigger than you thought.

Be-holed, Wayne’s Große Lüge.

If you are going to lie, make it a Big Lie.

And repeat it often.

If you haven’t dug your fork in to check if this goose is fully cooked yet, then you might also enjoy our debunking of Wayne’s “But wait … there’s more!” free steak knives claim.

That the government “will create half a million more” jobs in the next two years.

A ridiculous lie that is clearly betrayed by the evidence buried in the fine print of his own May Budget documents –

Economic parameter variations are forecast to reduce expenses in 2011‑12 and over the forward estimates … Partly offsetting these reductions … an upwards revision in the estimated number of unemployment benefit recipients is expected to increase expenses in 2011‑12 compared to MYEFO, although this is partly unwound by a reduction in the forecast of the number of unemployment benefit recipients in 2012‑13.

Budget 2011-12 | Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 6, Table 2

Dig your fork in here – “Half A Million Jobs” – Wayne’s Big Lie (Reprise)

Today's Special - Roast Goose

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Labor Less ‘Creative’ Than Greece

19 Mar

From the Korea Times:

The Greek crisis is a textbook example of the interconnectedness of the global economy and the foreign policy environment.

For most of the last decade, the Greek economy grew faster than others in the euro area. Yet, the country’s balance sheets worsened.

(Sound familiar?)

So, when the global recession hit, and the Greek economy contracted by 2 percent in 2009, international bond markets panicked, fearing that Athens was going to have trouble meeting its obligations. By mid-February the Greek government was paying three percentage points more to borrow money than the interest rate charged Germany, worsening the mismatch between Greek revenues and expenditures.

Wall Street bears some of the blame for this mess. Goldman Sachs and possibly other American financial institutions reportedly helped Athens understate its true indebtedness through the creation of innovative financial instruments.

The Rudd Government has used a more traditional way to understate our true indebtedness. ‘Creative accounting’. Or ‘cooking the books’.

First, Rudd Labor has made changes to the ‘methodology’ used for reporting Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  And they have applied those changes to all the previously reported Budget numbers too.  The result?  A “substantial increase” in Australia’s GDP.  As much as (eg) 4.5% per annum added to the real, inflation-adjusted GDP that was originally reported in the Howard Government’s 2006-07 Final Budget Outcome.

The benefit to Rudd Labor in making this “substantial increase” to GDP in the historical data, is that their spending (as a percentage of that GDP) looks lower.  Their annual spending growth (as a percentage of GDP) looks lower. Their debt (as a percentage of GDP) looks lower. And, their Interest-on-debt (as a percentage of GDP) looks lower too. This explains why Rudd Labor politicians always love to quote everything in percentages. “As a percentage of GDP”.

Second, Rudd Labor has also changed the ‘methodology’ used to calculate the inflation-adjusted value of ‘real’ spending growth.  This was a sudden decision, for the November 2009 MYEFO budget update. The result? The Rudd Government’s reported ‘real spending growth’ is a whopping 30.1% lower under their new calculation method.

Finally, Rudd Labor lies about the GFC whenever it needs to defend its massive spending spree. They have repeatedly told the public that “the GFC punched a huge hole in our projected revenues”.  But the official Budget documents show that this is a lie.  In the May 2009 Budget, the estimated government “Receipts” were only 2.7% lower than for the previous year.  And by the November MYEFO update, government revenues were expected to be slightly higher than for the previous year.

Please follow those links. View for yourself the actual Budget documents that show how Rudd Labor have ‘cooked the books’.

You will see that, unlike Greece, our Labor Government does not need to hide our true state of indebtness through the use of creative financial instruments.

They use good old-fashioned ‘creative accounting’ instead.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Labor Fakes GDP By 4.5%

17 Mar

*This post follows on from my recent article, “Labor: Hide The Increase”.  There, I showed that the Rudd Government has fiddled the books to hide their massive increase in borrowing and spending. Please read the article for background to this new article.

In the fine print on the Rudd Government’s Budget 2009-10 MYEFO website, we learned that Rudd Labor made a change in the accounting method that was previously used to calculate Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  This change resulted in a “substantial increase” to the official GDP figures:

* The 2008-09 Annual National Accounts show a substantial increase in the level of GDP over history due to the ABS adopting the new System of National Accounts 2008. Given the degree of increase in the level of nominal GDP, the Government has released updated tables of fiscal aggregates contained within Appendix D of the 2009-10 MYEFO.

So just how much is that “substantial increase”?

4.5%. Or $47bn. In just one year.

Here’s a chart I’ve put together from the official Australian Government Budget data. It shows my reverse calculation* of the value (in $millions) of Rudd Labor’s “revisions” to historic GDP.

That is, it shows just how much the Rudd government has simply tacked on to the previously-reported official GDP figures (click to enlarge):

Rudd Labor "revisions" to past GDP figures

This chart only goes up to 2006-07.  The last year of a Coalition government Budget report.

That is because the Rudd government has gone back and “revised” the figures in the Rudd Labor 2007-08 and 2008-09 Final Budget Outcome documents too.  So I could not find the original reported figures for those years in order to calculate the GDP, and compare to their newly “revised” figures.

Even so, you can easily see that Rudd Labor’s “revisions” to past GDP are indeed, a “substantial increase”.  For the 2006-07 year – the last year that I am able to compare original vs “revised” figures – it appears that they have adjusted GDP upwards by $47 billion (4.49%) over the original figures reported by the Howard Government.

Of course, we can easily perceive just why Rudd Labor would wish to do this….

Continue reading ‘Labor Fakes GDP By 4.5%’

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: