Has anyone heard about an “the underlying cash balance of the Federal government (that) is projected to reach surplus in the coming quarters”? I thought that we were in debt to the tune of $350 billion. Is this an economist's gobbledygook, or is there something I don't understand? A predicted surplus is expected to be reached in “quarters”. What “quarters”. Is somebody talking through his hind quarters here?

I couldn't read any more, but “commodity prices” seems to be the buzz phrase. Please note that this gentleman teaches economics!

Here we go again, squandering anything remotely like a mining boom to enhance the coalition's reelection prospects! When mining booms one and two should have been invested in an income-earning sovereign fund! Which would then made some of the recent and disastrous privatisation moves, just to balance a budget/fund recurrent spending unnecessary! We talk about tax reform and or tax relief while tinkering at the edges adding increased complexity, that alone supports tax avoidance evasion. The coalition seems to be taking stupid pills all while relying on greater and greater levels of foreign investment to fund illusionary economic growth. As more an more of our finite wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands! To the detriment of ordinary hardworking and productive Australians! It's time we took an economic U-turn and reclaimed our patently purloined economic sovereignty. We need as a first-order priority, to become a nuclear-powered economy. And as MSR thorium that can be used to burn other folk's waste. For which they will pay us annual billions if we guarantee to also safely bury it. But only after we have extracted every last erg of still unspent energy in it! This economic simplicity will have other folk fund all our new power stations/waste burners, that provide retail reticulated energy at less than 2 cents per KwH! Which alone will support economical recycling of almost any recyclable product! And enable us to be paid to recycle other folk's consumer waste. E-waste alone capable of producing better returns as precious metal than any mine ever! TBC. Alan B.

In order for this new economic model to serve us rather than this o that foreign master, it has to be based on cooperative capitalism. Which has to be supported by a government taking clever pills! As funded and facilitated by them and funded by internal social credit. which can be supported by our own super fund and government guaranteed self-terminating, thirty-year infrastructure bonds. And available for almost any new cooperative venture that has a profit curve in its conception. These co-ops can be small as family-sized operations, that e,g., turn waste tyres and or plastic into oil? Or E-waste back into platinum and gold etc. Or could be your local power company operating a microgrid or producing desalinated water using space-age desal, that produces four times the (95% potable) water of traditional desal for around the same cost. Cheap carbon free safe clean energy will turbocharge our economy and more than just resuscitate manufacture in this country. But particularly if it's rolled out under a cooperative capitalist model and by intentional design! The possibilities are limitless and only limited by the pollies we elect to allegedly serve us and Australia! Alan B.

ttbn,
A surplus is where the government takes more money out of the economy than it puts in. Doing so reduces our debt figure.

As people are scared of debt, most people consider surpluses to be good things. But in reality, surpluses are good when the economy has reached capacity (because they help keep inflation down without needing to raise interest rates) and bad when the economy is below capacity (because less money in the economy means less production and fewer jobs).

Quarters are quarters of the year.
Commodity prices aren't a buzzword - they are, and have long been, a major determinant of how our economy is doing. And they're something the government has no control over.

HTH.

Aidan,

We are all aware of your attitude to debt, and I am fully aware that 'quarters' refer to quarters of the year. If you really want to make yourself useful instead of just disagreeing with everyone at every opportunity, you could try explaining how reaching “ surplus in the coming quarters” represents a professional, definitive comment from a person who thinks he knows all the answers. He might as well say in the 'coming year', in the 'coming decades'. It seems to me that he hasn't got a clue.

BTW, you are always giving your opinions on the economy, but I don't recall you ever revealing you qualifications to do so.

You will have to explain to ignorant old me what “HTH” means.

Well, the author is one of those who pushed us into the current mess.
Basically economists do not understand that energy is the basis of everything.
They waffle about interest rates and all sorts of esoteric parameters
but do not understand simple things like ERoEI.