Shareswatch Australia

As each week passes the moans of struggling businesses grow louder and finally it appears that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) board members have woken up to the fact that the economy has been sliding backwards since late 2010. Once again the RBA had made a tactical blunder and raised rates too high just as they did as the global financial crisis was unfolding back in late 2007.

Toyota’s current recall woes have generated a range of articles about the Japanese economy as journalists rush to get some Japan flavoured content served up to their masters. But often these articles simply rehash the same tired cliches about Japan and it’s economy and don’t provide people outside Japan with a balanced view of what is really happening.

It appears that finally the Australian media and by default the wider public are starting to worry about Rudd’s mountain of debt. At first many Australian’s were quite happy to pocket their Government handouts in some crazed belief that is was magic money that would not have to be repaid some day or at least, not by them. But perhaps the latest Federal Budget has finally got people thinking as opposed to living happily in ignorance in the Matrix.

Like many Australians I have been frustrated for many years over the slow progress that was made in getting affordable high speed internet connections widely available across Australia.  However in order to get a world class communications network deployed we need the private sector to be in the driving seat and for the government to be involved as little as possible.  Yet thanks to government mismanagement, Australia is now about to spend a fortune of taxpayers money to roll-out a national broadband network.

Searching the reasons for Japan’s ‘lost decade’ – the deflation and stunted growth said to have plagued Japan ever since the collapse of the Bubble economy in the early nineties – has long been popular among US and UK commentators seeking an answer to the West’s current economic problems. The interest is welcome. But some of the results are bizarre. Almost all the main US media, the conservative Wall Street Journal in particular, have run articles saying the blame lies with Japan’s post-Bubble, Keynesian-style infrastructure spending.