Tag Archives: interest rates

The Biggest Drag On Our Economy

20 Feb

ball-and-chain

What do you think is the biggest drag on our economy?

If you said “usury“, welcome to Club Classically Correct.

Usury is not, as so many would have you believe, the charging of an excessive rate of interest.

That is the modern definition. Banker approved.

The classical definition of usury is commonly attributed to Aristotle:

“There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest (tokos), which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of any modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”

– Aristotle, c. 350BC (Politics, Book I, Part X)

Today, our modern “money” system is the pinnacle of the money-lenders’ art.

Or should I say rather, the money-lenders’ “artifice”:

ar·ti·fice
[ahr-tuh-fis]
noun
1. a clever trick or stratagem; a cunning, crafty device or expedient; wile.
2. trickery; guile; craftiness.
3. cunning; ingenuity; inventiveness: a drawing-room comedy crafted with artifice and elegance.
4. a skillful or artful contrivance or expedient.

The vast majority (around 97%) of “money” is simply electronic digits.

Digital bookkeeping entries.

Created by the banking system, every time a person signs up for a new (or bigger) loan.

(See The World’s Most Immoral Institution Tells You How + Think You’ve Got Cash In The Bank? Think Again)

And here is the key to the usurers’ immense power and wealth. They have been given the exclusive rights not just to create this digital “money” in the form of debt that must be repaid. You have to pay back those digital bookkeeping entries with interest.

It is interest – usury – that is the biggest drag on our economy.

Consider this.

According to the ABS, the average size loan for a first home buyer in Australia reached an all-time high $293,900 in December 2012. A typical variable home loan rate right now is 5.6% – that’s with the RBA’s official interest rate at record “emergency” lows, mind you. According to ASIC’s “MoneySmart” online calculator, taking out such a loan right now, and repaying $2,000 a month for the next 20 years and 9 months, would result in your repaying the bank $203,598 in usury alone.

Of course, this assumes that interest rates did not rise in the next 20-something years. If (when) they do, then so too does the amount of usury you must repay to the bank.

Just the other day I was wondering, “Has anyone ever bothered to calculate the total value of one year’s worth of usury repayments, on all home loans in the Australian economy”?

To be frank, I have neither the skills nor the knowledge to make an accurate calculation.

But it is not hard to work out a very rough approximation.  Something that helps give some idea of just what a drag on the economy the repayment of usury on the banks’ digital bookkeeping entries must be.

According to the RBA, at December 2012 the Australian banking system claimed a total $1.136 Trillion in residential loan “Assets”.

(Yes, that’s right. Your signature on a loan document, pledging yourself to decades of debt slavery to repay the bank their digits, is considered the bank’s “Asset”)

According to Canstar’s variable rate home loan comparison chart, a variable mortgage rate of around 5.6% would appear fairly typical right now.

So, as a very basic approximation, if the total value of all the banks’ mortgage “assets” at end December 2012 were on the variable rate of usury, thus earning the banks 5.6% p.a., then (ignoring compounding, which makes the total even higher) the banks’ would stand to earn $63.6 billion in usury on home loans in 2013.

Just imagine all the far better, more productive and valuable uses that much “money” could be put to in 2013 by Aussie households.

Now again, I stress my lack of knowledge on this data. For all I know, the value of expected usury repayments may already be included in the RBA’s total of banks’ mortgage “assets”.

If so, it matters very little. Even a mere 5.6% compound interest on >$1 Trillion in mortgage debts, is a huge annual sum.

Clearly, the drag on the economy from the burden of repaying usury to the bankers on home loans alone, is truly staggering. EPIC.

And when we consider that banks have done nothing to deserve this exclusive right to profit from our lifetime labours, the truth of Aristotle’s observation is only the more clear.

Of any modes of getting wealth, usury is indeed the most unnatural.

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One Chart Debunks Wayne’s Lies On Interest Rates

20 Feb
Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Treasurer Wayne Swan has never tired of telling the Australian people that interest rate cuts are a sign of the government’s good economic management:

Dec 4, 2012 – Treasurer Wayne Swan says the central bank’s decision to cut the cash interest rate follows the federal government’s prudent management…

“Today’s rate cut from the Reserve Bank is the early Christmas present that hard-working Aussies deserve,” Mr Swan told reporters in Canberra.

“We’ve now had the equivalent of seven rate cuts over the past year and of course that’s been made possible by the government’s economic management, strong budget management and of course, contained inflation.”

I could include many more examples. Except there would be no point. If you have heard Swan making these self-congratulatory noises once, you have heard it many times.

The truth, of course, is completely different.

When interest rates are cut, it is not a sign of good economic management.

It is a warning sign that things are going to poo:

Dec 4, 2012 – The Reserve Bank has cut the cash rate to its lowest level since the global financial crisis, following a raft of weak economic data that showed pessimism in the jobs market, a slowdown in mining activity and lower-than-expected retail sales.

The RBA cut the cash rate by 25 basis points, or 0.25 percentage points, to 3 per cent, which is the lowest the rate has been since the central bank started setting rates in 1990.

It matches the setting in April 2009 at the peak of the GFC, when the global financial system was in meltdown and the RBA was trying to prevent Australia slipping into recession.

That’s right. It is the important fact that Wayne and the rest of the Labor Party are conveniently forgetting to mention. The present official interest rate is deemed by the RBA to be an “emergency low”.

Take another look at the chart above.

See that little bump up, brief plateau, then fall in interest rates following the big GFC cliff dive?

Technical chart analysts call that a “dead cat bounce”.

2010-314--political-party-dead-cat-bounce-

Now, lest any reader think to accuse your humble blogger of partisan bias against Wayne and the ALP, let us not forget the LP’s history of lying on this topic.

Many will recall John Howard’s claim that “interest rates will always be lower under a Coalition government than under a Labor government”.

Think about this.

If that were true – and the chart above proves it is not – then what Howard was really saying is that “the economy will always be weaker under a Coalition government than under a Labor government”.

The usury rate formula is very simple to understand.

When the economy is strong, the vested usurers raise usury rates, to increase their profits.

When the economy is weak, they reduce usury rates, to “support the economy”. That is, to prevent their Ponzi scheme from imploding.

When interest rates are falling, it is not a great time to take out a loan. Despite what the vested usurers and their many mouthpieces in the media and real estate sales industry tell you.

It is arguably the worst time to take out a loan.

It is a warning sign that the economy is weak. That unemployment is likely to rise. That your job may be at risk in coming months.

And that the vested usurers are on the back foot, trying to prop up their Ponzi scheme.

DON’T BORROW NOW!!

 

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Bob’s No Mad Katter On RBA “Independence”

18 Dec

Well well well.

No sooner do I finish writing a blog that includes a positive mention and empirically-supported defence of the so-called “protectionist” trade views of Senator Joyce and “Mad” Bob Katter, and lo and behold, I read this headline (emphasis added):

RBA should lower rate or be sacked: Katter

Outspoken Queensland MP Bob Katter says if his new political party were ever to win power federally it would force the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates – even if that meant heads had to roll.

Katter’s Australian Party (KAP), which was registered in late September, wants to devalue the Australian dollar by reducing interest rates.

The party’s policy platform states that the official cash rate should be brought into line with the rest of the world at between one and two per cent.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cash rate is currently 4.25 per cent.

Addressing the party faithful on the Gold Coast this week, Mr Katter made it clear that if the Reserve refused to play ball board members would be removed individually or the entire bank “replaced with another body”.

“I don’t want to be advocating political involvement in the Reserve Bank,” the party’s founder told AAP on Saturday.

“But its independence doesn’t extend to the government of Australia abrogating its responsibilities to control the economy.”

Mr Katter said the RBA was using interest rates to control inflation but it wasn’t an effective tool.

Further, Australia didn’t have a problem with inflation, he said.

“Even if it did, it would be infinitely more important to rescue every single industry in Australia – tourism, manufacturing, agriculture and mining.”

The federal member for Kennedy said the high Australian dollar was “murdering” tourism particularly on the Gold Coast.

He noted that Europe currently has interest rates around one per cent while the United States is at 0.25 per cent and Japan zero.

“We are 500 per cent out of step with the rest of the world,” he said.

“There has been a protracted attitude over a quarter of a century that has been diabolical for this country.”

A Katter-led government would request the Reserve to lower the official cash rate and if if it didn’t would “take action”.

Damn!

Has “Mad” Bob Katter been reading Mark McGovern’s paper on Australia’s Debt Dreamtime too?

His comments and policy directly (though insufficiently) seek to address one of the central points made in McGovern’s paper:

Reserve Bank policies are worsening Australia’s external position and needlessly driving up internal costs…

… in recent decades the reliance on interest rate movements in inflation targeting along with an insensitive allocation of rates across investment classes have compounded problems and raised investment risk while doing little for inflation objectives. Clearly this challenges current conventions in Australia, and elsewhere, but an argument needs to be had. Reserve Bank of Australia decisions of interest rates may be well be worsening not only Australian competitiveness (since investment becomes markedly more expensive and unattractive as next discussed) but also its external position…

Now, watch all the usual suspects … the government, Treasury, “expert” economists, talking heads et al –  come out in force to denounce Bob’s policy as “mad” and “extremist”.

Just like they jumped all over Senator Joyce in 2009-10, for his courageous, prophetic, and correct call on the danger of ever-rising US debt levels.

Can’t have anyone with a public platform telling the truth about The Big Club, or starting to propose solutions that would undermine the status quo (read “power”), now can we (language warning):

Oh yes … by the way.

“Mad” Bob is right on the money concerning the Great Global Warming Hoax too.

Take very careful note of his comments in the following brilliant video, courtesy of the must-follow wakeup2thelies (from 1:34):

He’s on to the bastards!

And to top it all off, “Mad” Bob wants to change or remove outright the many ridiculous “Big Brother” nanny state laws … think fishing, firearms, camping, billy-boiling, etc … that seek to prevent us blokes from being proper blokes, and turn us all into soft, jelly-bellied, quiet, passive, make-no-trouble-for-government sheilas.

Definitely my kinda bloke, is Bob.

Begone our pathetic Australian cultural cringe … I admire good old-fashioned rough ‘n tough Aussie blokes.  Doubtless their slowly dying out is a big reason why I love old folk, and regretfully concede to feeling a mixture of scorn and sorrow for the latte-sipping, preening, “how-do-I-look?” obsessed, all-things-American-idolising Gen X and Y.

Hey Barn! How about pulling up stumps from the LNP coalition, and teaming up the National Party with Katter’s Australia Party?

One can only hope.

Interestingly, it seems that I’m not the only one who’d love to see the Green-Labor coalition get KAP’d:

Good guys still wear white – Katter’s Australian Party set to run Labor out of town

[Contrary to the line being pedalled by the LNP, a vote for Katter’s Australian Party will not play into Labor’s hands, Dean Bertram argues in The Australian Spectator this week. He writes..]

While I never thought that the progressive Left could teach us anything of worth, at the last Federal election they did. Those leftard voters who swung from Labor to the Greens were able to grab the reins of this country and steer it by their own faulty compass straight towards the perils of a carbon tax.

Imagine a brighter future, where, in place of the current monstrous Labor-Greens hybrid, Australia is governed by a minority Coalition government dependent upon the support of a party committed to solid conservative principals. And we know that [Bob] Katter wouldn’t compromise those principals should such a deal be struck. He wouldn’t sell us out.

We witnessed that when sides were drawn in the aftermath of the last Federal election. So if we want to turn this country around before we are forever trapped in the snares that the Left are setting, right-thinking Australians need to take a leaf out of the progressives’ playbook and change our own voting habits. Thanks to Katter, we finally have another viable choice: a new party that appears to be prepared to put the national interest and the rights of Australians above the dreams of dangerous globalists, be they crony capitalists or enviro-communists.

Katter is currently building a solid team for the Australian party’s inaugural run in the upcoming Queensland State election … The party currently has 43 candidates in place and plans to have about 75 by the time the election is called next year. Moreover, early poll figures indicate that it is set to replicate One Nation’s initial electoral success in that state.

… [L]et’s hope that Katter can round up an equally capable posse to join him in the Federal arena. Because good folk all across this great nation have been circling our wagons for some time now. We’re surrounded and being worn down by an ever-encroaching federal government, a rabid Marxist ideology that disguises itself behind political correctness and environmentalism, and a crony capitalist system that is inimical to both small business and what’s left of this country’s agricultural and manufacturing industries. The Australian party is shaping up to be our long-awaited cavalry. Which, after all, seems fitting, because the white-hatted Bob Katter is leading the charge.

Dean Bertram is right.

We leave the last word to Barnaby:

“I’ve always believed that if there’s a marketplace out there that can be filled in its political requirements by someone who can articulate a cause that collects a vote – good luck to them. That should be the job of all of us,” the Nationals’ Senate leader told ABC Radio today when asked about the idea of a new political party.

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RBA Officials Have Vested Interest In Fate Of Aussie Real Estate

23 Jun

From Business Spectator, September 20, 2010:

According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs chief economist, Tim Toohey, household debt levels in Australia now stand at an elevated level, both in relation to historic norms, and compared to other countries. For instance, Australia’s debt to household income ratio is higher than in the United States and Spain, and stands at a similar level to the United Kingdom.

Toohey has written a perceptive report on the Australian housing market, in which he argues that housing prices are between 25-35 per cent overvalued. As a result, he says, we run the risk that Australia’s house prices could drop sharply if a sharp decline in Chinese growth prompted a steep drop in our export earnings.

Interestingly, it appears that Reserve Bank officials are the keenest investors in rental properties. “We are not sure whether to be relieved or concerned that of the five central bankers who were brave enough to note their occupation on their tax form, all five had an investment property!”, the report says. “Of the 200 occupations classified by the Australian Tax Office, the employees at the Reserve Bank topped the list with respect to their investment property exposure.”

There’s more than one way to look at this very interesting revelation.

1. The “independent” RBA has a vested interest in fuelling Australia’s property bubble – which helps to explain the low interest rate policies of the early 2000’s that so helped to encourage excessive borrowing and real estate speculation.

2. The “independent” RBA has a vested interest in keeping the property bubble afloat – so that RBA officials do not suffer capital losses on their existing property portfolios.

3. My favourite.  The “independent” RBA has a vested interest in first fuelling a property bubble with low interest rates – meaning officials make profits on the way up – and then, collapsing the property bubble at a time of their choosing (by raising interest rates), so that officials can buy in to the property market again (and buy up even more), after prices have fallen dramatically.

One can only wonder about the investments of “independent” RBA Governor, Glenn “$234k Pay Rise At GFC Peak” Stevens.  Has he profited from his Board’s decisions on interest rates? Will he personally profit by (again) raising interest rates into the teeth of an onrushing GFC 2.0?

Next time you hear an RBA official like Stevens talking about interest rates, or the housing market, just remember this article.

And remember that, whatever happens to the housing market, it is those same “independent” RBA officials who know what is going to happen… before you do.

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Australia “Almost Certainly” In Recession In 2011, Economists Warn

13 Jun

From the Sunday Telegraph (sorry, no link), Finance Writer Nick Gardner dares to say the unspeakable:

Rates To Trigger Recession

Australia is on the verge of a recession.

Economists warn the economy will almost certainly be in recession later in the year as the Reserve Bank raises rates to avoid excessive inflation.

The forecast comes as most of the domestic economy continues to shrink in the face of weak consumer spending and a record-breaking strong dollar.

The economy contracted by 1.2 per cent in the March quarter, exaggerated by damage to our iron ore and coal exports because of natural disasters. And last week the ABS released jobs data showing the economy has lost 80,000 full-time jobs in the past two months. However, we are likely to skirt a recession this month.

“Miners are now having to work double time to fill not only the orders they would normally be catering for this quarter but also the coal they did not deliver in the previous three months because of the weather disruption,” said Steve Keen, professor of economics at the University of Western Sydney.

“That is likely to produce a pronounced bounce in the volumes this quarter, so we’ll probably have mildly positive growth by the end of June.

“However, after those orders have been filled, we’ll be back to our normal levels of exports and that’s when I think we will hit the skids and our growth will turn negative again for the last six months of the year.”

Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, agrees.

“It’s later in the year we have to worry, especially if the RBA raises rates. It risks bringing the entire economy outside of resources to a standstill.”

The Australian Industry Group said the manufacturing, construction, and services sectors all shrank in May. Its indices, where 50 indicates an expanding sector and below 50 a contracting sector, showed manufacturing reached 47.7, services hit 49.9, and construction hit 39.6 – its 12th straight month of contraction.

In the lead up to the recent May budget, Treasurer Wayne “Goose” Swan was loudly propagandising that the coming budget would be all about “jobs jobs jobs”.  Indeed, he claimed that Labor has “created 750,000 jobs” since coming to power. No proof, of course. And noone in the lamestream media asked for any either.  Or bothered to try and check if Wayne’s claim was true.

We debunked that claim here … using his own budget documents.

Wayne also claimed that the Green-Labor government will create “half a million more” “in the next two years”.

We debunked that claim here … using his own budget documents.

Now, according to the ABS, we learn that “the economy lost 80,000 full-time jobs“ in the very same two month period that he was loudly parrotting his BS, unchecked by the media and “expert” commentators.

Off to another brilliant start on that “half a million more” jobs pledge, aren’t you Wayne.

"Goose" talking jobs jobs jobs

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RBA Screws Up Again, Loses $6bn

19 May

From The Australian:

The RBA faces losses of $6 billion due to the strength of the dollar and will not pay dividends to the government for several years.

The value of the bank’s foreign exchange reserves has plunged since the end of the last financial year as the Australian dollar has emerged as one of the strongest currencies in the world.

The losses threaten to wipe out the bank’s $6.1bn reserve fund, which the board said last year was already below a level they thought “desirable”.

Although government sources indicated yesterday that Treasury did not expect it would be required to make a capital injection, the losses will slash more than half the bank’s capital base.

The commonwealth budget has traditionally relied upon about $1.4bn a year in dividend payments from the Reserve Bank.

The Reserve Bank flagged that after it made a $2.2bn loss last year, dividends would be reduced while its reserve fund was rebuilt, but it is unlikely now that there will be any dividends across the budget forward estimates.

Great.

Another multi-billion dollar black hole in the government’s “forward estimates”.

This time, thanks to the RBA’s incompetence.

This latest news follows another revelation recently, that the RBA needed US$53bn in emergency loans from the US Federal Reserve during the GFC.

Now consider.

The “independent” RBA is worshipped by our politicians and the media – and thus, by average Australians too – as some kind of ultimate authority on our economy. In particular, the RBA is regarded as the final authority on what is the “right setting” for interest rates.

The reality is, the RBA robs us by stealth.  For decades, the RBA has utterly failed to achieve their very first legal duty to the Australian people.

Their own data proves it.

In addition, RBA Governor Glenn Stevens failed to foresee the on-rushing GFC during 2008.

The RBA kept raising interest rates month after month in 2007-08.  Right into the teeth of the GFC storm.  Despite clear warning signs out of the USA for well over a year prior.

It could also be argued that the RBA’s actions directly contributed to a change of government, thanks to an unprecedented interest rate rise in the middle of the 2007 election campaign.

Stevens is by far the highest paid “public servant” in Australia.  Conveniently for him, the RBA Board has the power to decide their own salaries:

The Remuneration Committee is a committee of the Reserve Bank Board. Its membership is drawn from the non-executive members of the Reserve Bank Board.

Which helps explain why Stevens is pulling over $1 million per annum.  And why he was able to get away with taking a $234,000 pay rise in the middle of the GFC.

The RBA’s failures are manifest.

So, why do we continue to prostrate ourselves at the Altar of the Reserve Bank?

The RBA has been robbing Australia blind for decades.

They have proven themselves unable to foresee clear economic warning signs.

They did not disclose to anyone that they borrowed US$53 Billion from the Federal Reserve.  It took a US Supreme Court action forcing the US Fed to reveal information about its actions during the GFC, for us to learn about the RBA’s secret emergency loans.

And despite being supposed “experts” on interest rates and currencies, they’ve now managed to blow $6 billion in foreign exchange losses.

How is this possible?

Our main street banks manage to hedge against foreign exchange rate volatility through purchasing Foreign Exchange Swaps & Forwards. Is the RBA too incompetent to manage FX risk, in the same way the Big 4 banks manage to do?

The RBA Board of “experts” are hugely overpaid, demonstrated failures.

Worse, as an “independent” body, they are effectively unaccountable to the Australian people for anything they do.

Now, we have the green lobby arguing for an “independent” Carbon Bank modelled along similar lines to the RBA.  With the power to borrow against the future earnings of taxpayers!

Given the RBA’s track record, this is clearly a very bad idea.

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US$ To Hit A$0.58 – Currency Experts Agree, Barnaby Was Right

9 May

More experts line up with Alan Kohler, Standard & Poors, CNBC, Deutsche Bank, and Barack Obama, in agreeing that Barnaby was right.

First, the head of ANZ:

ANZ chief Mike Smith said yesterday that the currency was likely to resume its climb above $US1.10, and one of the world’s leading foreign exchange experts predicted the dollar would continue to rise and could hit $US1.30 in 2013 and $US1.70 by 2014.

This spells bad news for non-resource sectors such as manufacturing and tourism…

“I can’t see that there is anything to knock it off its perch because it’s not only the strong Australian dollar, it’s also the weak US dollar,” Mr Smith said yesterday.

“And when you think about what is happening in the US, I can’t see them increasing rates for at least 18 months and that will have an impact.”

Next, a global currency expert:

Global currency expert Savvas Savouri, of the British-based Toscafund hedge fund, went a step further, predicting the greenback would be relegated to a “museum” …

Dr Savouri, in Sydney for a conference, predicts the dollar will reach $US1.30 by 2013 – and $US1.70 by 2014, as the greenback relinquishes its “exorbitant privilege” as the world’s default currency.

What the ‘experts’ aren’t telling you, is that the reason for the Aussie dollar’s rise is directly due to the slow-motion collapse of the US economy, and the unintended consequences caused by those trying to prop it up.

How’s that, you ask?

For several years, the US Federal Reserve has been creating literally trillions of US dollars out of thin air (“Quantitative Easing” 1 and 2).  By doing this, it believes it will achieve two things – (1) Keep interest rates in America extremely low (near zero), preventing further collapse in the housing market and broader economy; (2) pump up the stock market, creating public “confidence”. And it has achieved both those aims.

But what about the unintended consequences?

First, the immediate effect of printing money is to weaken the American currency.  That is the main reason why the Aussie dollar has risen against the USD.

It is not because our currency has strengthened.  It’s because the USD has been (deliberately) weakened.

Much of those trillions in near interest-free US money has been poured into speculation by international banks and hedge funds.  What are they speculating on?

Mostly on commodities – which our economy sells.

Hundreds of billions in “hot money” has been flowing from the Zero-Interest-Rate-Policy (ZIRP) United States into our currency, through speculation on our commodities.  Driving  up our currency’s apparent strength.

But “hot money” can flow out again just as fast.  As we saw in the GFC.  And again just last week, when the Aussie dollar hit US$1.10, and plummeted to US$1.05 in three days … due to a single bad economic news data release in the US:

Yahoo Finance - AUD/USD 1.10 to 1.05

During the peak of GFC panic in Sep-Oct 2008, the Aussie dollar collapsed from US$0.98 to just US$0.60 in barely two months:

Yahoo Finance - AUD/USD

When you compare the Aussie dollar to the Euro, for example, it’s easy to see that our dollar only “appears” to be super strong when it is being compared – as usual – only to the ever-weakening USD.

Our dollar has risen against the Euro too. But by far less. And again, only after first falling significantly in the GFC.  Then rising only after the US Federal Reserve began seriously printing money, which has been poured into commodities and commodity currencies:

Yahoo Finance - AUD/EUR

Australia is a little cork floating on the ocean of other nations’ economic decisions.

As Barnaby forewarned in late 2009 / early 2010, the US is effectively defaulting on its debt right now.

By stealth.

Destroying the value of your currency by money printing, has always been the most common way in which nations have defaulted on their debts.

Barnaby was right.

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Says It All Really

6 May

h/t Twitter users _AshleyPriest, Prronto, and LyndsayFarlow (click to enlarge):

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Swan Lies About Mortgage Payments

4 May

Proof below.

Too disgusted to comment.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The Reserve Bank’s decision to leave its cash rate unchanged is good news for households and businesses doing it tough in Australia’s current patchwork economy, Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

“Following today’s decision, an average family with a $300,000 mortgage is still paying nearly $160 less each month in repayments than they were when we came to government,” Mr Swan said in a brief statement.

“That’s a saving in the order of $1,880 a year – extra money that’s particularly important given the cost of living pressures many families are facing.”

From the Reserve Bank of Australia Statistics (click to enlarge):

Howard Government – March 1996

Rudd Government – November 2007

UPDATE:

Thanks Wayne. You super little economic manager you:

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Barnaby Rips Into Swan On Live TV

23 Aug

The highlight of the election coverage.

Wayne ‘Goose’ Swan is torn to shreds by Michael Kroger during Channel Nine’s live election broadcast.

As he lays on the mat spitting out his teeth, Barnaby lays the boot in.

If only the Coalition had got stuck into Swan like this months earlier.

Highly entertaining viewing.

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