Hi Rhian,

I just chose what was in front of me.

And I've done this quick blog post (and given you a credit) http://www.ambitgambit.com/2013/05/23/imf-says-howard-ran-structural-surpluses/.

I get angrier and angrier when I see the partisan nonsense being spouted by various organs of government, as well as some of what used to be the serious press.

Rhian, all you've confirmed is the boom and bust nature of economies, and the fact we were still enjoying quite robust terms of trade up to and including the first aspects of the GFC in 2007. Or a Chinese economy that was still growing at around 10-11%?
You also seem to be able to exclude the effect on our economic performance, by the stubbornly high dollar, arguably never the result of Govt policy, or which economic levers were being pulled.
Also apparently ignored is the role of treasury officials in providing economic advice and forecasts for all Govt.
One notes the recent response of Ford, and its plans to shut down its Australian manufacturing arm.
And or, that the end of compliance costs, as advocated by me, [as part of reform,] which by the way, cascade and multiply through every part of vehicle manufacture, could add 7% or more to that entity's bottom line.
Which would be enough to enable a break even Ford, to shelf its current closure plans indefinately.
I'm not interested in point scoring, or incredibly unimportant minutia.
Just on getting people to lift their gaze above the usual blame or kudos shifting, and instead focus on the big picture, and the best outcome for Australia and Australians!
An outcome. which is simply not served by the current economic model, or artificially created division?
I would like to see reform, e.g. which would finally allow entities, with as many as 150,000 people on various payrolls, and as much as a trillion invested in offshore accounts?
Finally get to pay some tax on their commercial ventures, in completely fair commercial competition.
Rather than endlessly sermonise about the missing morality of others?
Ditto other international entities, currently avoiding a fair share of tax and with as much as two trillion tax avoided dollars, allegedly squirreled away in secret accounts?
Rhrosty.

Rhosty

All I addressed was your claim that Howard took us unto structural deficits, which is simply wrong. The whole point of estimating a structural budget position is to estimate an underlying budget position offsetting the effects of the business cycle. Far from reflecting the “boom-bust” nature of the economy, as you maintain, it is precisely these effects that structural balance estimates adjust for. It’s not a perfectly precise science, but it is possible to come up with reasonable estimates, as the IMF has done.

As the article implies, the Government’s failure to publish its own underlying budget balance estimates is probably because they do not like what those estimates would show. In fact, the usual form is that the IMF’s estimates are calculated after extensive discussions with Treasury anyway. It’s a fair bet that any Treasury estimates would be very similar to the IMF’s.

Rhian, Howard did give away much of the rivers of gold that flowed from mining boom mark one! Undeniable! It was economic circumstance and serendipity that gave his Govt. their seemingly good results, not good economic management. He can hardly be credited for the quite remarkable performance of the Chinese economy, without which there would have been no mining boom mark one, or rivers of gold to be handed out as welfare for the rich, pork barrel vote buying and entitlements for folks who previously, were never ever entitled!
Mineral recovery money comes only once, and the rivers of gold should have been invested in an income earning sovereign fund, rather than short term political results!
He even engaged in a bidding war with Rudd in 2006 to give even more tax breaks! His bid was 32 billions and Rudd's 30 billion.
Had we retained 2006 tax rates, treasury would have an additional 39 billions today.
There is a structural deficit that can only grow, with a rising population and a shrinking taxpaying demographic.
At the end of the day, it matters little who did what and how much they contributed to a growing structural deficit.
What really matters is how we fix it.
I contend, doing what you've always done, just get you more of what you got!
It follows therefore, we need to do something very different!
And I've outlined that something else in considerable detail elsewhere.
Rhrosty.

So what is your argument Rhosty? That Howard would have been so incompetent as to leave tax cuts in place that were unsustainable? That Labor was incomptent, so they left them in place?

All this, when I thought your argument was that it doesn't matter how much governments borrow, they can't go broke, and don't need to worry about it.

Rhosty
Australian government tax receipts as a percentage of GDP hit an all-time high of 24.2% of GDP in 2004-05 and 2005-06. Under Howard.

http://www.budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs10.pdf
(Table 2)

So the best you can argue is that the Howard government would have taken us into structural deficit if it had won the 2007 election and implemented its promised tax cuts. Than may be right, but it assumes that the government would have made no fiscal adjustments at all in response to the GFC, which seems unlikely.