This is new and is a condemnation of the mental health of some in Australia ..
Balkan fans riot at Australian Open tennis guardian.co.uk, UK - 8 hours ago http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/australian-open-riot Roger Federer once dubbed it the "happy slam", a tennis tournament synonymous with a relaxed, barbecue atmosphere. But the Australian Open is fast getting a ...
Kevin Rudd confirms $4bn rescue for construction industry January 24, 2009 AAP .. video ..
* PM to create $4bn partnership with banks * Attempt to protect 50,000 jobs * Jobs in commercial property under threat
THE Federal Government had to choose between doing nothing to save jobs or joining the big banks in a $4bn partnership to prop up the commercial property sector, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.
Mr Rudd confirmed the Government would join the four major Australian banks to set up a $4bn Australian Business Investment Partnership.
The banks will provide $2bn and the Federal government another $2bn to provide financial support for major commercial property projects including shopping centres, office towers and factories.
It would reduce the risk of Australian banks having to "fill the gap' if foreign banks did not roll over their share of loans, Mr Rudd said at an Australia Day function in Perth.
"Our banks are strong and well capitalised and the (deposit) guarantee has enabled them to raise the funds they need to lend to Australian businesses,' Mr Rudd said.
"But the Australian economy is global in nature and therefore affected by the health of foreign banks, as well as Australian banks.
Related Coverage .. inside It was save jobs or do nothing $4bn stimulus to save 50,000 PM's $4b jobs rescue planPerth Rudd's plan 'only props up banks We shouldn't prop up property
"If banks do not allow clients to refinance as they would in normal conditions then companies can be forced to sell assets, often at low value.
Mr Rudd said lending by overseas banks represented half of the $285bn in syndicated loans issued to Australian businesses since 2006.
"Of those outstanding loans $75bn is set to fall due over the next two years,' he said.
"If foreign banks do not roll over their share of these loans it would be difficult for Australia's four major banks to fill this gap on their own.
"The mathematics is fairly straightforward.'
Foreign banks carried more than $48bn or 28 per cent of lending to the Australian commercial property sector and were seeking to reduce their exposures, Mr Rudd said.
"That is why today the Government confirms that it will establish a $4bn Australian business investment partnership with the four major Australian banks.'
The move was a temporary contingency measure to provide liquidity support to viable major commercial property projects, the Prime Minister said.
The initial $4bn could be extended to up to $30bn of loanable capital through the issuing of government guaranteed debt, he said.
Mr Rudd said there was two options - to sit back and do nothing or act decisively.
"The alternative is to do nothing, the Government I lead will not embark upon that course of action,' he said.
Obama tries to build support for $825 bln stimulus David Alexander .. Sat Jan 24, 2009
WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama pledged on Saturday to create jobs, improve healthcare and lay the groundwork for a clean energy future as he sought to build public support for an $825 billion stimulus plan some lawmakers fear is too costly. http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN2333934920090124
Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan play down GDP's negative growth AAP .. March 04, 2009 01:47pm
UPDATE 1.47pm: PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says Australia can reduce the effect of the global recession, but not stop it.
The national accounts released today showed gross domestic product dropped 0.5 per cent in the December quarter, the first negative result in eight years.
Over the year to December, GDP rose 0.3 per cent.
GDP figures: Economy takes a backward step Video: Economy worse than expected ABS data: Australian national accounts No relief: Interest rates on hold | Terry McCrann Tips: How are you coping with the crunch? Economic crisis: Global crunch buys time for climate .. links inside ..
The September quarter GDP was unrevised at a rise of 0.1 per cent, meaning the economy had avoided a "technical" recession of two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.
Mr Rudd said the figures reflected the effects of the global recession on 17 advanced economies.
"Australia cannot continue to swim against the global economic tide," he told reporters in Gladstone.
"Australia can reduce the impact, cushion the impact, of the global economic tide but we cannot stop it altogether."
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says the contraction in global demand has been "savage" but is adamant Australia will emerge from the financial crisis stronger than ever.
Mr Swan said the inevitable impact of the global recession was clearly evident in today's data.
But he said the Federal Government and the Reserve Bank of Australia had acted swiftly to support economic activity and jobs precisely at the time in the December quarter when there was a very sharp global contraction.
"There is absolutely no doubt that things in this country would have been far worse had the government not acted when we did with the economic security strategy announced last October,'' he said.
Mr Rudd said the government's initial economic stimulus package had cushioned the impact, as reflected by the fact that in the December quarter Australia was among the top five performing economies in the industrial world.
"Had the government not introduced the stimulus package at the end of last year the impact on Australian jobs and the Australian economy would have been worse," he said.
"This underlines the government's resolve to continue to take whatever further action is necessary to underpin growth and jobs in the future."
Mr Swan said the national accounts are a "sobering reflection" of an extremely difficult global environment.
Mr Swan said the government's $42 billion nation building and jobs plan will provide substantial fiscal stimulus.
"I've heard some throwing around a line that somehow the government has spent all this money and it hasn't had the impact.
"The fact is the $42 billion package hasn't begun (to flow) and it is designed to flow through over the next two years, precisely as it turns out at the time it is needed.''
Mr Swan denied that the figures showed that a large part of the government's stimulus package had gone into people's savings.
The main reason for the boost to savings was the 300-basis points cut in interest rates for the period in question, he said.
"I think the principal cause of the increase in the savings rate ... are people who are at this stage saving the benefit that has come to them through a very substantial reduction in their mortgage repayments,'' he said.
However, Mr Swan conceded some of the economic security strategy may have ended up in savings accounts.
"Yes it may be that there is some part of the economic security strategy which has been saved, and we said at the time that wouldn't be a bad thing.''
Mr Swan said it was inevitable that what was happening in the rest of the world would have a dramatic impact in Australia.
He said when growth contracted, it had human consequences.
"You could see it in the eyes of those people who were retrenched from Pacific Brands the other day. You can feel it and hear it in the voices of people you talk to,'' he said.
Rudd does as Obama and nobody, but nobody would consider Rudd far left .. except the whacko far-rights, of course .. lol .. seriously.
Rudd's recipe for recovery Phillip Coorey July 25, 2009
AUSTRALIANS should brace for high unemployment, rising interest rates, severe budget cuts and more expensive food and petrol as the nation and the world recover from the global economic crisis, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, warns.
"These four pressures will hit Australian families just as they begin to feel the first benefits of recovery," he says. "As growth returns, the economic conditions facing many families will deteriorate."
The essay, The Building Decade: The Long, Hard Road to Sustainable Economic Recovery, was written while Mr Rudd was on informal leave at Kirribilli House last week.
It gives notice of the dramatic policy changes he says are needed to put the nation on a more sustainable footing, rather than remaining at the mercy of consumer debt and global factors such as mining booms.
"Fundamentally, the shift from crisis to recovery will bring with it one of the most significant changes in global and domestic policy settings that Australians have experienced in their lifetimes," he says.
Australia and the world must start planning a co-ordinated exit strategy - using the Group of 20 nations - to wean economies off government intervention as the private sector recovers. And the lifting of government bank guarantees must also be co-ordinated, he urges.
Mr Rudd reprises his attacks on neo-liberals, whom he blamed in his last controversial essay for causing the global financial crisis. This time he extends the attack by accusing them of trying to stymie efforts to combat and emerge from the crisis.
YES, A COUPLE ON iHUB HAVE SAID THAT BEFORE .. it's even more satisfying now to have been one of them .. rotflmao!
In comments aimed at the Coalition, which opposed the economic stimulus measures and criticised the debt and deficit accrued, Mr Rudd says: "They now attack the range of policies that have been put in place by governments of the responsible centre to deal with the consequences of the crisis, in complete denial of the impact of the resulting recession on the jobs of working Australians."
He berates neo-liberals for arguing that because of tentative signs of a global recovery "none of the national and global interventions that have underpinned this improved performance were necessary in the first place".
With an election due next year, Mr Rudd has sought to get on the front foot by warning of adverse economic conditions as a consequence of fighting the recession.
"Clearly, Government action around the world has come at a cost," he says. But without it, growth, unemployment and the prospects for recovery would be "much much worse".
He says unemployment, which is running at 5.8 per cent, will rise for at least a year once the recovery begins because it is a lagging, not a leading, economic indicator. And over the next 18 months, interest rates - which have been slashed by 4.5 percentage points since the crisis struck - will start to rise as growth picks up and generates inflationary pressures, he says.
The cost of food and petrol will also increase as the world recovers and demand for commodities increases.
"For Australia, this will be a double-edged sword: providing a boost to our exporters but over time potentially inflicting higher food and petrol prices on many Australian working families," he says.
The Government plan to halve the budget deficit by 2012 and return the budget to surplus by 2015-16 "will involve tough choices and require Australians to accept difficult and unpopular budget cuts".
Mr Rudd defends his self-imposed title of economic conservative, saying it suits someone who borrows to stimulate against recession and maintains a balanced budget in good times.
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