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Pictures from Florence + The Machine!

Sun, 27 May 2012 18:38:41 +1000

Pictures from Florence + The Machine!

The Ten Droid Commandments

Sun, 27 May 2012 18:16:00 +1000

From the program from Janelle Monae’s amazing concert:

BELIEVE IN THE ARCHANDROID

IF YOU SEE YOUR NEIGHBOR JAMMING HARDER THAN YOU, COVET HIS OR HER JAM

BE AWARE THAT JAMMING HARDER MEANS: NO TWEETING WITHOUT CLAPPING, NO SEX WITHOUT SCREAMING AND NO FREEDOM WITHOUT DANCING

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE SONGS THAT YOU WILL HEAR ARE ELECTRIC: BE CAREFUL AS YOU EXPERIENCE THEM AND INTERACT WITH ELECTRICAL DEVICES, DRINK WATER OR TOUGH OTHERS. THE WONDALAND ARTS SOCIETY WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR MELTED TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEVICES OR INJURIES RESULTING FROM LOCKBACK, SWEAT-TECH, LEAVEWEAVE, POPARM, SHOCKJAW, ELECTROBUTT OR ANY OTHER MALADIES OR MALFUNCTIONS CAUSED BY THE JAM

ANY SONG LYRIC YOU KNOW MUST BE SUNG. IF YOU DO NOT KNOW ENGLISH, SING LOUDLY IN ANY LANGUAGE OF YOUR CHOOSING. BE AWARE THAT THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG LANGUAGE, FOR THE ARCHANDROID WAS RECORDED ALL OVER THE WORLD

ABANDON YOUR EXPECTATIONS ABOUT ART, RACE, GENDER, CULTURE AND GRAVITY

BEFORE THE SHOW FEEL FREE TO WALK ABOUT THE PREMISES IMPERSONATING ONE OF THE MANY INSPIRATIONS OF THE ARCHANDROID EMOTION PICTURE: (CHOOSE ONE) SALVADOR DALI, WALT DISNEY, OUTKAST, STEVIE WONDER, OCTAVIA BUTLER, DAVID BOWIE, ANDY WARHOL OR JOHN WILLIAMS

IF YOU HAVE BEEN TO THE PALACE OF THE DOGS, PLEASE DO NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE PALACE OF THE DOGS. IN ADDITION, DO NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE DROID CONTROL, THE WOLFMASTERS, OR THE GREAT DIVIDE, ALL THESE TERMS OR CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THEM ARE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN, SO SAYETH THE ZOIDS

BY SHOW’S END YOU MUST TRANSFORM. THIS INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO EYE COLOR, PERSPECTIVE, MOOD OR HEIGHT

LASTLY, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT CHILDREN CONCEIVED DURING THE SHOW OR WITHIN 48 HOURS THEREAFTER MAY BE BORN WITH WINGS. THE WONDALAND ARTS SOCIETY WILL NO BE LIABLE FOR THIS PHENOMENON OR BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR PARENTING OR PROVIDING FOR YOUR FLYING CHILDREN

mrdiv: hexa OMG PRETTY

Sat, 19 May 2012 22:56:15 +1000

mrdiv:

hexa

OMG PRETTY

Republicans Stalling Obama’s Agenda By Speaking, Moving In...

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:58:28 +1000

Republicans Stalling Obama’s Agenda By Speaking, Moving In Slow Motion | The Onion

HAHAHAHAHAH Brilliant

Facebook’s IPO: Who Gets Rich

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:07:46 +1000

Facebook’s IPO: Who Gets Rich

Leica M9-P » Edition Hermès I’m not sure you...

Sat, 12 May 2012 17:38:51 +1000

Leica M9-P » Edition Hermès

I’m not sure you understand how much I want this camera right now. Like seriously.

It’s only $50,000. Like seriously.

Also, each camera is hand made. You can watch one being made here.

On JPMorgan's $2b Loss, and US Financial Regulation

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:57:17 +1000

Whoops. There goes some of JPMorgan’s reputation as an excellent risk manager.

While we won’t know exactly what screwed JPMorgan so badly (surprise, they don’t want people using the trade against them), there are some important implications arrising from this series of unfortunate events.

First, there is some debate over what JPMorgan actually did to lose $2b. This matters. The Volcker Rule of the Dodd-Frank Act bans proprietary trading, but has an exemption for ‘risk-mitigating hedging activity’. JPM obviously calls there trade a hedge, but now that the supposed hedge is the cause of massive losses, regulators may begin to raise their eyebrows.

This leads only the second implication: regulation. 90% of the types of trades JPM just lost on are transacted by America’s six largest banks. With such a big, single loss, US (and probably UK eventually) regulators will want to take another look at the Too Big To Fails are up to.

This is a problem. The US financial industry is still wading through new additions the thick goop that is the United States financial regulatory regime. Consider this: in Australia we have only three major agencies managing our financial sector. In the US, there are many times more, each with overlapping roles and responsibilities. The US Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, not to mention the rest of the Treasury Department and numerous state based regulators all have roles in regulating the US financial industry. On top of this, the Dodd-Frank Act (the law passed in the aftermath of the crisis) adds three new regulators to the mix: the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the Office of Financial Research, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan’s CEO) admitted on a conference call that their trading loss would act as ammunition to pundits and politicians calling for new rules.

Zachary Karabell sums up the worries best:

Dimon has been an outspoken critic of the spate of legislation that followed the financial crisis. He has argued that the labyrinthine laws embedded in Dodd-Frank add layers of regulation and complexity to an already chaotic regulatory structure. He has a point. The financial industry is overregulated in the sense of multiple agencies demanding compliance and looking for problems. The banks may have been bailed out, but they now face a web of new rules that are so complicated that two years after the legislation has been passed many of those actual rules have yet to be clarified.

At the same time, the thicket of regulation lacks any sense of the common good served by a free-flow of finance and capital, whether in the form of mortgage financing and refinancing, small business loans, or any of the myriad forms of capital necessary to fuel economic growth. The goal should be to enable that flow without allowing undue systemic risk and greed to imperil it. The current mass of regulations manages to inhibit banks from extending credit while simultaneously not doing enough to monitor risk. They are flawed not because, as Republicans would argue, they are a sign of government overreach, but because they are badly conceived.

There is nothing inherently wrong with regulation. It is in fact a good thing, meant to provide consumers with peace of mind that the financial industry is taking care of their money and won’t do anything to blow up the economy. Except that when finance did blow up the economy in 2008, many failed to mention the huge failures of the regulators alongside the huge failures on the part of the financial industry.

What the US needs is not less or more regulation—the country needs better regulation. Upcoming changes to the United Kingdom’s financial regulatory structure look remarkably similar to the system that currently exists in Australia. The Dodd-Frank Act by contrast, while well intentioned, is a mess, and should have sought to consolidate agencies and provide each with clearly demarcated responsibilities to ensure financial stability. Poorly constructed regulation only serves to give regulation a bad name, and gives credence to those who think there should be no regulation at all.

The presence of numerous regulators clearly isn’t working. Time to simplify.

In the mean time, JPMorgan and others would do best not to provide leviathan with meat to feed on.

For more, visit Daily Beast, Forbes, and Reuters.

UPDATE: SURPRISE!

U.S., British regulators have been in discussions with JPMorgan for nearly a month - @NYTimes
— CNBC (@CNBC) May 11, 2012

My new Henleys watch!

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:32:04 +1000

My new Henleys watch!

The Schoolkids Bonus Is Stimulus, But You Can't Call It That

Thu, 10 May 2012 20:47:00 +1000

‘Australia is a patchwork economy.’

It is a much abused phrase, but an accurate one nonetheless. You know the deal: the mining sector is driving the Australian dollar higher, making the rest of our export base less competitive with the rest of the world. What this doesn’t explain is the state of our retail sector. With imports being cheaper, you’d think that Australians would be flooding into their local shops. They are not.

Australians are having paradoxical thoughts. Low consumer sentiment appears to be linked with shoppers conflating the state of the global economy with the state of the Australian economy. This simply is not the case.

Wages in Australia rose by 3.7% last year, while wages in the US grew by only 2%.
Australians have the highest median wealth in the world.
The Reserve Bank just cut interest rates by half-a-percent
Our federal budget is in surplus
Today we learnt that our unemployment rate just fell to 4.9% (the US is stalled around 8.1%, and the Eurozone is at 10.9%).

We know mean gross incomes in Australia rose by 50% in the last half of the 2000s, and we also know that household spending only increased 38% over the same period. So the economy is chugging along nicely, but people don’t feel like it is. More importantly, they’re scared about what is happening in the rest of the world. As a result, Australians aren’t spending the money we know they have.

This goes a long way to explains the lousy performance of the retail sector. Retail trade rose by a meager 0.9% in March, the latest month for which statistics are available. This follows on from the low retail growth we’ve seen for the past year now.

Framing the Schoolkids Bonus

When viewing the Schoolkids Bonus from this angle, it seems very obvious to me that this handout is akin to a second round of stimulus. The Government clearly wishes for people to spend it just as they did the $900 handouts during the financial crisis, albeit with less urgency this time around. If past experience is anything to go buy, much of the $820 bonuses will be spent quite quickly. The OECD found that forty percent of the $900 cheques were spent within three months. Assuming a similar pattern, the Schoolkids Bonus will get $840 million into the economy by September.

Here is where messaging matters a great deal. Openly calling the Bonus a stimulus package is bound to have the opposite of the desired effect. When consumers are already being overly-thrifty with their cash, reaffirming their unfounded fears about the economy by telling them the economy needs stimulus will only drive sentiment (and spending) even lower.

The aim is clear: the Government wants to provide extra support to sectors of the economy not benefitting from the commodities boom. Given the success of the previous fiscal transfer package, another round looks like a good way to achieve this aim. It also appears to be a measure that has very little downside political risk for the Gillard Government, unlike everything else it does.

Compared to the rest of the Western world, our economy is going gangbusters—most of it. It is no surprise that the Government would want to help along parts of the economy not doing so well.

The Schoolkids Bonus is most certainly targeted stimulus at these parts of the economy, especially retail.

Just don’t tell anyone that.

Barack Obama Emails Supporters About His New Support for Same-Sex Marriage

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:35:58 +1000

Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer:

I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

I’ve always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution.

But over the course of several years I’ve talked to friends and family about this. I’ve thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, I’ve gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction.

What I’ve come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens.

Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn’t dawn on them that their friends’ parents should be treated differently.

So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

I respect the beliefs of others, and the right of religious institutions to act in accordance with their own doctrines. But I believe that in the eyes of the law, all Americans should be treated equally. And where states enact same-sex marriage, no federal act should invalidate them.

If you agree, you can stand up with me here.

Thank you,

Barack

One of the funniest things I have ever read

Wed, 09 May 2012 16:43:00 +1000

One of the funniest things I have ever read:

Ben Pobjie writes about the Budget: the worst thing to ever happen to anyone, ever.

I’m seriously not kidding. This is hilarious reading. I read this in the library, which was not the best idea. I was biting my fist a coughing randomly to hide my under-breath laughter.

Here’s a snippet, but I highly recommend you read the entire thing.

And beyond all the detail and the microeconomic analysis and the so-called “facts”, the budget boils down to this: a desire to reverse the process of industrialisation and return to a primitive state. Piers Akerman warned us, but we would not listen. For at the centre of this budget stands the carbon tax, an attempt to tax the very air we breathe and turn our Coke flat all so Tim Flannery can strut around the country big-noting himself and making niche documentary series’.

Is it really worth it? Julia Gillard thinks so, but then given her attempts to set up a sovereign wealth fund to cover future backbencher prostitute liabilities, we shouldn’t be surprised any more at what that poorly-fitted-jacket-wearing succubus comes up with.

But we should be very concerned at the fundamental shift in our country that this budget ushers in. With the carbon tax hovering over us all like a great malevolent helicopter, we must now be prepared. Prepared for massive electricity price increases. Prepared for skyrocketing transport costs. Prepared for ever-more bitchy farmers. Conservative estimates from the Institute of Public Affairs’ well-respected Saying Numbers Unit suggest that the carbon tax will result in a 900 per cent increase in the average family’s energy bills, and cost over 15 million jobs in 2013 alone, while a report from the Centre for Transcribing Gerard Henderson’s Medicated Ramblings forecasts that at a carbon price of $23 per tonne, by 2015 the biggest industry in Australia will be child-meat.

These are sobering statistics indeed, and they make the 2012 budget’s one positive feature – the dedication of $30,000 to build a statue of Slim Dusty in Tamworth – seem almost insignificant. And all the compensation and cash splashes and clever fiscal fiddling won’t cover up the fact that Wayne Swan literally wants to kill us all.

Yes, even by the uniformly terrible standards of every federal budget ever, this one is pretty bad. Maybe not as bad as the 1997 Budget, when Peter Costello abolished Medicare and put the savings into a program to gold-plate his own groin, but definitely worse than the 1982 Budget, which consisted entirely of Paul Keating burping.

More Budget Numbers

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:08:06 +1000

The ABC has posted a succinct round up of the headline spending, revenue, and savings measures in the 2012-13 Budget.

This is in contrast to the rushed botch list I created during the Treasurer’s speech.

Enjoy your proper sentences, grammar, and spelling.

Winners

$1.8 billion from July 2013 so 1.5 million families can receive increase to Family Tax Benefit A, with nearly half taking home an extra $600 a year

$1.1 billion over four years to create new Supplementary Allowance of up to $210 a year for students, jobseekers and parents with young children on income support

About 1 million households claiming Tax Benefit A to receive cash payment of $820 for each high school student and $410 for each primary school student under School Kids Bonus, replacing the Education Tax Refund

$1 billion over four years to roll out the first stage of a National Disability Insurance Scheme expected to cover 10,000 people from 2013-14 and 20,000 people from 2014-15

$515 million to treat 400,000 people on the public dental waiting list and to help dentists relocate to rural and remote areas

$700 million over four years to allow small businesses to “carry back” past profits to offset current losses by up to $1 million

$475 million for 76 new health infrastructure projects to upgrade regional hospitals and doctor training support

$3.2 billion aged care package over five years including measures to almost double home care assistance and improve pay and conditions for aged care workers

$1,000 payment to companies for each worker they hire aged over 50 for at least three months

$50 million to extend bowel cancer screening program so people aged 50 to 70 will be offered free tests every five years

$3.56 billion for duplication work on the Pacific Highway in New South Wales on condition of matching state funding

Flood levy exemption extended to victims of 2012 flooding across eastern Australia

$6 million over four years for suicide prevention measures in Western Australia’s Kimberley

$56 million to expand in-home tutoring program for children in up to 100 disadvantaged areas

Losers

Government revenues down about $150 billion since start of the global financial crisis

Around $5 billion cut from Defence, including deferral of the delivery of the first Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and scrapping of plans to equip the Army with new self-propelled artillery

About 100,000 parents affected by cutbacks to parenting payments and shifting of single unemployed parents onto the Newstart allowance once their children turn eight; budget saving of about $700 million over four years.

Tax rate on superannuation contributions doubled from 15 to 30 per cent for people earning more than $300,000 a year

Around 3,000 public service jobs already gone under increased efficiency drive

Tax cuts for small business promised under the mining tax redirected to households because measures unable to garner enough support to pass Parliament

$2 billion saved by not proceeding with standard tax deduction on work-related expenses that was due to begin in July 2013

Commitment to lift spending on foreign aid to 0.5 per cent of gross national income to be met a year later than promised

Around $1 billion could be saved by crackdown on living-away-from-home allowance for executives interstate or overseas

Tightening of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and some natural therapies to be removed from private health insurance coverage

$2.5 billion saved by changes to Medicare levy surcharge and means-testing of private health insurance rebate;

$923 million saved over forward estimates by scrapping of 50 per cent discount on interest income

Recipients of Family Tax Benefit A & B and disability support to have payments cut if they travel overseas for more than six weeks a year

Planned tax breaks for green buildings will not proceed, saving $405 million over the forward estimates

80 per cent cut to inbound duty free allowance reduced to 50 cigarettes or 50 grams of tobacco; $600 million saving over forward estimates

Passenger movement charge up $8 to $55 from July 1, 2012

Reduction in tax breaks for golden handshakes to save $196 million over forward estimates

Phasing out of mature age worker tax offset to save $255 million over forward estimates

Increased heavy road user charge to raise $166 million in 2012-13; almost $700 million over forward estimates

Yes, Bacon Will Cost More

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:48:16 +1000

Every budget has a fun fact. The 2012 Budget brings home the bacon, by making bacon more expensive.

The levy on pig slaughter has been risen from $1.35 a pig, to $2.25.

Yes, this means your pork, ham, and bacon will cost more. Realistically, you’ll only notice the $0.90 increase if you buy an entire pigs worth of meat.

And if that is going to hurt you at the supermarket, may I suggest cutting back on the bacon, fatty.

Big numbers, big graphic: Budget 2012 by the numbers.

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:39:01 +1000

Big numbers, big graphic: Budget 2012 by the numbers.

The 2012-13 budget cuts spending to a level lower than seen...

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:31:00 +1000

The 2012-13 budget cuts spending to a level lower than seen during most of the Howard years.

Graph has been compressed to add clarity.

Government tax receipts as a percentage of the economy is lower...

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:20:00 +1000

Government tax receipts as a percentage of the economy is lower under Labor than it was under the Liberal Howard Government.

Just a quick graph I created.

25.1%: Average government tax receipts as a percentage of GDP under the Howard Government
22.6%: Average government tax receipts as a percentage of GDP under the Rudd/Gillard Governments

EDIT: ‘Government spending’ should have been labeled ‘Government tax receipts’. This has been corrected.

EDIT: Added a compressed chart to add clarity.

New spending in the 2012-2013 Budget

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:30:24 +1000

New spending in the 2012-2013 Budget

Increased revenues and savings in the 2012-2013 Budget

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:28:00 +1000

Increased revenues and savings in the 2012-2013 Budget

Budget 2012: The Highlights

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:23:00 +1000

Key Points

Deficit revised up to $44b in fiscal year 2011-2012
Net debt peaked at 9.6% of GDP, higher than previously predicted
GDP growth revised to 3.25% in 2012-2013
Unemployment predicted between 5-5.5% in 2012-2013
$33.6b in savings found for 2012-2013 budget

Spending

Increase family payments by $1.8b
New Supplementary Allowance worth $1.1 billion for unemployed, students, families with young children
$1.8b in increased Family Tax Benefit A
$475m for regional health projects
$1.75b National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform
$225.1m for Jobs, Education and Training Child Care Fee Assistance
$2.1b in school children bonus
$101m for measures to support mature age workers
$3.6b to duplicate the Pacific Highway by 2016
$232m for Torrens and Goodwood rail project in Adelaide
$350m for the Roads to Recovery program
$1b over four years for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
$714m loss carry-back scheme for business for past profits up to $300k
$515m for dental care
$50m for bowel cancer research
$234m for e-health initiatives
$6m on Zelman Cowan scholarships
$3.5m to create a Children’s Commissioner
$2.2b on ‘Caring for Our Country’ over five years
$3.3m for Substance Abuse Pilot Program
$10.4m tourism incentive for Great Barrier Reef over four years

Cuts

$212.5m cut to AusAID
$5.4b from Defence, including 1000 civilian job cuts
Crackdown on Family Tax Benefit A, moving adults to Youth Allowance, raising $360.9m
Crackdown on Single Parent Payments, raising $685.8b over four years
Cutbacks to Wine Producers Rebate, raising $40m
Raising of Abstudy eligibility age to 21, raising $4.1m
Cut in efficienty in the employment services arrangements, raising $162.6m
National Water Security Plan reduced, raising $25.7m
Medical Practice Incentive Program reduced, raising $83.5m
Driving Murray Basin Reform plan reduced, raising $61.2m over two years
Urban Water and Desiel Plan reduced, raising $25.7m
Reduced funding to the Environmental Water Office, raising $13.2m over seven years
Sustainable Australia’s Promoting Regional Living Program reduced, saving $10.9m
Nation Building Program reduced, raising $35.4m
Humanitarian services for refugees reduced, raising $13.1m
Health Workforce Program reduced by $67.9m
General Practice Superclinics Program reduced, raising $44m
Planned expansion of Nurse Partnership Program cut, raising $23.2m
Climate Change Department funding cut, raising $15.2m
Digital Education Revolution Program cut by $24.4m
AFP Overseas funding cut, raising $8.6m over four years
UN Food and Agriculture Organization funding cut by $2.9m
Farming Climate Change Adjustment Program reduced by $1.3m
Renegotiation of PBS pricing, raising $104.6m over five years
Scrapping the 1% reduction in the corporate tax rate, previously promised as part of the Mining Tax
Removal of 50% Capital Gains Tax discount for non-residents
Crackdown on Private Health Rebate for natural therapies
Removal of welfare payments for people who remain overseas for extended period of time, raising $127.2m
Elimination of ‘Tick and Flick’ Standard Tax Deduction returns
Scrapping tax benefits for Green Buildings Program, raising $390m
Removal of Aged Care expansion to multi-purpose services, raising $120.7m
Scrapping planned expansion of ASIS, raising $81.6m
Ending of the Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Program, raising $56.3m
Ending funding for Victoria and Queensland National Health Call Centers, raising $32.4m
Elimination of the Workforce Innovation Program, raising $26.3m
Ending of funding for overseas university study placements, raising $25m
Ending of Community Based Service Deleopment Program, raising $15.7m
Suspension of the Community Festivals Education Program, raising $10.7m
Elimination of funding for Baccalaureate Program, raising $8.5m
Scrapping of funding for football field in Western Sydney, raising $8m
Ending Joint Replacement Prostheses Program, raising $5.8m
Ending Fraud and Compliance Medicare and PBS Scheme, raising $4.4m over five years
Ending plans to relocate Woollongong’s weather radar to Jervis Bay, raising $1.3m
Deferring program to increase AFP recruitment, raising $25.9m
Deferring Illicit Drug Testing and Research Program for sport, raising $5.8m
Phasing out of Wheat Export Levy

Taxation

Passenger Movement charge increased by $8 to $55, raising $610m
Cost of visas increased, raising $67m over four years
Pig slaughter levy increased to $2.25, up from $1.35
Increase for milk and dairy levies
Airports to pay for Australian Federal Police presence, raising $118.1 over four years
Decrease in net Medical Expenses Tax Offset
Higher tax on ‘Golden Handshake’ payments for executives
Increase in the Heavy Vehicle Road User Charge, raising $698m over four years
Cut in Living Away From Home Allowance for executives, raising $1b over four years
Elimination

RBA Cuts Rates By Half A Percent

Tue, 01 May 2012 18:57:00 +1000

RBA Cuts Rates By Half A Percent:

We as Australians obsess over the central bank cash rate far more than any other country. From the US, to the UK, and Europe, no one knows how to hype interest rate announcements quite like us.

As a result, the key policy tool of the Reserve Bank (Australia’s central bank) has been highly politicized. Our discourse around interest rates is that they must always go down, to help home owners the reasoning goes. It’s a nice sentiment, but with only around 36% of households holding a mortgage, there is a far greater number of us who should have our minds on the interest rate on our savings rather than on other peoples’ homes.

On the up side, the rate cut should help 36% of households save a bit of money. I swear if these people don’t rush out and spend this extra money on retail I’ll get angry. More importantly, businesses should find it easier to borrow.

What I’m really upset about is the Australian Dollar plunging against the US Dollar. I’m going to the US in August, and I’d like our exchange rate to stay high, pretty please.

Bloomberg has more details, including videos.