The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The world's best economies, past, present and future > Comments

The world's best economies, past, present and future : Comments

By Alan Austin, published 26/3/2014

The new formula will also be directly applicable in the future: how will Australia rank after a full year of Coalition government? After three years? Beyond?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 16
  7. 17
  8. 18
  9. Page 19
  10. 20
  11. 21
  12. 22
  13. ...
  14. 24
  15. 25
  16. 26
  17. All
Thanks, WmTrevor.

Still can’t understand Legatum’s economy calculations.

Just compare Australia and Canada:

From tradingeconomics.com:

Australia leads Canada on GDP growth 2.8% to 2.6%.
Canada has a higher jobless rate, 6.9% to 6.0%.
Australia interest rate is a near-perfect 2.5%; Canada only has 1.0% which offers no reward for savers.
Australia kills them on debt to GDP, with only 20.7% to Canada’s 84.6%.
Australia leads Canada on current account deficit, -2.90% to -3.20%.

Then, from the CIA world factbook:
Australia has a tax rate of only 33.2% compared with Canada’s 37.7%.
Australia has higher national savings, 24.4% of GDP to 21.5%.
Australia thrashes Canada on industrial production growth, 3.2% to 1.4%.

Then Heritage Foundation gives Australia a higher score on economic freedom, 8.20 to 8.02.

So on what measures did Legatum determine that Canada’s economy ranked 4th and Australia merely 10th?

Bizarre. Looks like I’m off to Mayfair, WmTrevor …

Cheers, AA
Posted by Alan Austin, Sunday, 6 April 2014 10:12:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
That doesn't mean that it is wrong, Ludwig.

>>But I’ve got to say that your argument just completely leaves me bewildered.<<

There might be other reasons. The most obvious being that you haven't quite grasped it yet.

It would help if you stopped making assumptions, and concentrated on facts.

>> It is reasonable to assume that the recovery effort from bushfires, floods, cyclones, etc, does indeed result in considerably increased government expenditure and private-enterprise economic activity. It DOES lead to increased value of final goods and service.<<

Government expenditure does not lead directly to economic growth. If it did, the US economy would have gone through the roof, with $85 billion by way of QE injection, every month. Here is an interesting discussion thread on that very topic.

http://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/1qtpuq/what_growth_of_our_gdp_is_the_85b_monthly_qe_a/

When the money is directed - not to productive enterprise, but to repair and remediation work, it cannot possibly cause an uplift in GDP.

>>Money that is sitting there, either in insurance company coffers or peoples’ private accounts was not necessarily going to be used for business investment or other economic activity in Australia.<<

Oh? Then where do you imagine that it goes, Ludwig? You seem to think that this money is sitting in a vault somewhere gathering dust - I can assure you that it does no such thing. Any bank that did not invest your savings in order to earn a return would close in a week. Think about it.

>>...you still have the issue of them being spent now rather than later as result of the fire<<

Absolutely. So the money spent on the firies, builders etc. is of course measured as part of the current GDP. But - and this is the bit you are having difficulty with - it has been displaced from other potential spending, which makes it net zero, at best.

>>...it is still absurd that this sort of thing should appear as a positive in our primary economic indicator.<<

That is your opinion,which is fine. But GDP does at least have the benefit of being factual, rather than subjectively assessed, and also measurable
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 6 April 2014 11:28:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
AA,

No one is querying the relative strength of Australia's economy today, the problem we have is with your completely phoney ranking of Australia'a economy under Howard, that compared to all major developed countries had the highest growth, the lowest unemployment and the lowest debt.

The Labor years increased unemployment produced record debt year after year, and was characterised by a litany of broken promises, financial incompetence, an unbroken record of disastrous projects and policies, and an unearthing of corruption by many senior MPs and leaders of the Labor party enriching themselves at the expense of the lowest paid, and the taxpayers.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 7 April 2014 6:00:52 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
SM is spot on.

As events turned out, the vast majority of Australian, in an election contest, which is the only thing that counts in a real world of democracies, also agreed and voted Labor out.

Alan you are such a poor scholar, but you would be good in an authoritarian country like china where propaganda may be a virtue for success in the media.

Here at least, bs artists like Rudd got found out.

As for my own work, well I am getting published here, as well as in academia in Aust and abroad, and read by people that count.

And stay tuned, in the coming months I will be exposing real bias in academia.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Monday, 7 April 2014 6:57:20 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The same way as all people do on these forums, Alan... by looking at the topic by concentrating on different things and ignoring others.

(Other things that is. Okay, people too sometimes. But only when it is for their own good.)

"So on what measures did Legatum determine that Canada’s economy ranked 4th and Australia merely 10th?"

That would be pp. 45-46 of the Technical and Methodolody Appendix and in the later Index Variables, Gallup Data and the Regression sections. Their Factor Analysis and Variable Weightings are shown on p.57.

Notes on the Income Regressions, estimations techniques their coefficients and interpretations and the construction of the incomes scores (all well beyond my mathematics) are found earlier on pp. 36-37.

Doesn't mean you have to agree with them.

Nor does it rule out a visit to Mayfair... with a bit of shopping on the side you could help the United Kingdom improve from 28th place on the economy sub-index for next year's results.
Posted by WmTrevor, Monday, 7 April 2014 7:46:52 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
When it isn't nasally occupied I use the same finger to type dees and gees so, 'Methodolody' should read 'Methogology'... if you average those two attempts you get the correct word.
Posted by WmTrevor, Monday, 7 April 2014 8:01:41 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 16
  7. 17
  8. 18
  9. Page 19
  10. 20
  11. 21
  12. 22
  13. ...
  14. 24
  15. 25
  16. 26
  17. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy