Auspol June - Can't Afford the Education to Think of a Witty Thread Title

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Legion of One: Feb 17, 2012; You know how I don't like to use the sit-down gun but we just don't have time for mucking about

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:15

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 04:00

Blightie: Dec 27, 2004

BCR posted:

You've got some sham contracting going on.
First thing is ring ACTU, 1300 486 466 is for what union to join. 1300 362 223 is general advice.
Second, when you get an answer for your appropriate union ring them and find out when you get full service and if there is waiting periods.
Third, gather together your paychecks, contract details, and any other paperwork. Present to union lawyers.
Fairwork can investigate but aren't going to cover your back as effectively as a union.
Document every time the wife lawyer angle was brought up regarding pay/conditions because it's one case of many of bullying in the wirkplace.
/phone posting

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I'll pass the info on and see what comes out of it.

I'm NTEU myself, but I wasn't sure how to help out a speech pathologist.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:16

Mr Chips: Jun 27, 2007; Whose arse do I have to blow smoke up to get rid of this baby?

Blightie posted:

There were also some intellectual property issues where the employer is claiming ownership of work done by the employee for free on their own time.

Every fucker tries to pull this poo poo. I had a professional staff job at a uni and crossed that bit out of the contract, and their HR rep signed off on it. Like gently caress they own the things I'm working on in my own time that have nothing to do with my job.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:23

Zenithe: Feb 25, 2013; _{Ask not to whom the Anidavatar belongs; it belongs to thee.}

Mr Chips posted:

Every fucker tries to pull this poo poo. I had a professional staff job at a uni and crossed that bit out of the contract, and their HR rep signed off on it. Like gently caress they own the things I'm working on in my own time that have nothing to do with my job.

I thought that clause was to stop conflicts of interest related to your job most of the time. Is that right?

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:28

Blightie: Dec 27, 2004

Mr Chips posted:

Every fucker tries to pull this poo poo. I had a professional staff job at a uni and crossed that bit out of the contract, and their HR rep signed off on it. Like gently caress they own the things I'm working on in my own time that have nothing to do with my job.

Yeah my old job at an engineering firm tried this on, trying to take ownership of unrelated code I had written on weekends. Ridiculous.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:29

Synthbuttrange: May 6, 2007

gay picnic defence posted:

An American just posted a link on facebook with this on it:

Turns out Howard was wrong and he should have banned mentally ill people and not the semi automatics.

Ban white people.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:48

Mr Chips: Jun 27, 2007; Whose arse do I have to blow smoke up to get rid of this baby?

Zenithe posted:

I thought that clause was to stop conflicts of interest related to your job most of the time. Is that right?

At Universities I understand it's more to stop things like this happening: http://www.claytonutz.com.au/public...lia_v_gray.page

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:51

Tokamak: Dec 22, 2004

Gough Suppressant posted:

The only way you can reasonably make the claim that the liberals are not as villainish as cartoon characters at this point is if you make the claim that they possess a level of stupidity and incompetence that would never make it into a cartoon due to being far too unbelievable.

The stupidity is a result of hundreds of different stakeholders pressuring them in different ways, and having a number of different political/social obligations that prevent them from having consistent and coherent political views.

You can see this on a smaller scale with some professionals such as teachers, doctors and lawyers. You are able to hold personal views and incorporate them in your work, but there are circumstances where you must offer advice or take action which is not easily reconcilable with your own views (for the sake of the profession's integrity). Even if you don't work in these type of fields, I'm sure you've noticed at times when these people swallow their pride and offer 'objective, professional advice'. Ask a pharmacist about the homoeopathic supplements they sell, I don't think I've ever seen one happy about it.

Now imagine a profession which draws people with very strong, opinionated views. Then throw them in a party which require members to be unified on those views, and to accept compromises for 'the greater cause'. Then you need to sell your views and empathise with voters who'd likely have quite different views. Then you have 'influencers' such as business, community groups and media who all have their own agenda's which again, will have different views to the broader community, your party and your own.

So no, they are not inherently stupid. But all of the political views they are juggling make them appear stupid. It doesn't help that a few of the views being juggled are personal, and those can be incredibly stupid on their own merits. I think it's good to call personal views poo poo (when they are), and to question their support of views that conflict with the community and their own.

There are situations where politicians are in a position to emphasise with an opposing view (Hockey: Palestine/immigrants, Abbott: supporting families/gay marriage). There are also situations where is it appropriate to make noise; to de-legitimise their position of authority, or to make them worried over voter sentiment and their job prospects. And finally, when people get overly hostile on forums, it does not necessarily reflect how they conduct themselves in real life. It could be a way to get something off their chest without fear of any real consequences, or they live and work in an environment that does not discuss or encourage certain views.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 03:56

BrosephofArimathea: Jan 31, 2005; I've finally come to grips with the fact that the sky fucking fell.

gay picnic defence posted:

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? It sounds like it could be the perfect thing for bludgeoning no nothing libtards with.

Sure, but most of the important stuff is meaningless to 90% of people, so it's never going to win any arguments

(I left out a ton of background, because it was getting way too longwinded)
(I'm typing on a phone in a lecture, so its going to be riddled with typos and lovely grammar)

Important takeaway: Banks run on liquidity - especially short term liquidity.

In the US, the big IBs/hedge funds/private eq had heavily leveraged themselves to buy up a metric fuckton of asset backed securities (MBS) - essentially bonds secured by residential mortgages, where the collateral is the house and the coupon payments are funded by the mortgage payments made by battlers. These started off being secured by high quality borrowers, but in the low rate environment of the early 00s, those chasing yields accepted more and more risk in return for higher returns.

Chart:

When the underlying asset quality deteriorated sharply (this is where right wing dummies blame 'the poors not paying back their loans' but really the majority of the losses were caused by middleclass fuckheads buying up 'investment properties' expecting to make easy money 'doin a reno and flipping for mad profit' - sound familiar?), MBSs started defaulting on their repayments and even taking capital losses, which triggered a wave of downgrades, which triggered a bunch of loan covenants, which meant that the entire sector was trying to sell the same instruments into a rapidly falling market where no one was really sure if the underlying was worth.

So, when you don't know what kind of bullshit someone is hiding on their balance sheet, it became more and more realistic that if you lend some institution money, they could collapse and you would lose your capital. And so the entire market just stopped lending. Which, taking into account the whole 'banks live or die on liquidity', is the *actual* cause of the shitstorm.

Credit markets close down
-> banks stop lending to businesses -> businesses can't fund their day to day operations -> businesses default on payments to creditors, workers, landlords -> etc

-> banks stop lending to people -> housing market shuts down -> builders faced with dropping prices and zero demand start closing down -> workers laid off, builders default on payments to creditors, workers, landlords -> etc

Which is where you get the widespread economic effects that people now call 'the GFC' - high unemployment, recession, etc. poo poo then repeated itself in the Euro zone, but entire countries started defaulting.

------------

Important takeaway, revisited: Banks run on liquidity - especially short term liquidity. Despite what the average Tele reader thinks, banks don't fund their loan book by rolling up to the RBA with a dump truck. They do it with a mix of retail (savings accounts/tds/etc), wholesale onshore and wholesale offshore and securitised instruments (mainly the nonbank lenders).

Anyways, of the four funding sources:
wholesale offshore- pre-crisis, local banks funded a big chunk of their balance sheets with cheap wholesale offshore money, which was no longer available. Even when the market thawed a little, it was only available in small amounts and at steep premiums

MBS - the non-bank lenders that popped up in the property bubble didn't have the deposit books to fund their lending, so they relied almost entirely on the MBS market, which was no longer available. Obviously, it also wasn't available for the banks trying to refinance either

Which left two main sources of funding:
retail - people will only lend you money if they think they are getting it back. if we started to see the kind of bank collapses that happened overseas, people (which includes both people and small businesses) are going to hide their money under their mattress rather than risk losing it on a TD.

wholesale domestic - as above, if businesses/banks/credit union/super funds/etc are worried about counterparty risk in the way that we saw overseas, they are just going to stop lending. And those that would risk lending would demand huge premiums for it, given the massive supply/demand imbalance

So, what did we do to avoid the kind of epic fuckup the US went through?
Retail
- Expanded the Government bank guarantee limit up to $1m, avoiding a 'run' on banks by retail customers and small-medium businesses. For the vast majority of people, putting their money in a savings account or a term deposit was the same as giving it to the Government, entirely riskfree.

Domestic wholesale
(background: the way the RBA actually controls the cash rate is by buying/selling overnight money, known as the Exchange Settlement (ES) program. This is money that the RBA makes ADIs hold in an account for settling transactions between each other. Because it's held by the RBA, it's riskfree. it's paid at OCR-25bps, so under normal circumstances, banks have a big incentive to minimise the balances held. Banks can also borrow against these balances through a convoluted scheme known as repos, which allow banks to turn trading instruments into cash.)

- they expanded the ES program from ~1bn to ~10bn. Without this, the demand for cash balances would have driven up the cash rate, consequently driving down borrowing and leading to the kind of economic slowdown seen overseas. It also meant that banks could invest excess cash in a riskfree asset, rather than just hording it and removing liquidity from the system.

- they introduced a (very) short term TD facility, which allowed banks to move cash out of overnight ES accounts and into 1-2 week terms, at higher rates, allowing the RBA to expand their lending in term markets and banks to invest short term cash riskfree.

- they also expanded the range of repo-eligible securities, which helped avoid the problem overseas where banks would be stuck with assets on their balance sheet which they couldn't sell.

Chart:

- To reduce counterparty risk, particularly for smaller institutions, they introduced The Australian Government Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding, under which the Government acted as a guarantor for any eligible ADI-issued instruments. In return for a premium (from 70bps to 150bps, depending on issuer rating), any eligible ADI could issue bonds/notes/etc with a AAA credit rating. Essentially, it's a bigger version of the deposit guarantee for regular savings accounts. At it's peak, there was around $170bn guaranteed under the scheme.

Offshore wholesale
- As above, the Guarantee Scheme decreased (perceived) counterparty risk, allowing domestic banks to issue offshore with a sovereign AAA backing.

MBS
- The crisis essentially killed the MBS market (locally, rmbs). Similar to the TARP program in the US, the RBA (and, by direction, the AOFM - up to ~$8bn) started buying up securities in the RMBS market which added both stability and liquidity to it, allowing other participants to return. Slowly.
Chart:

- When the RBA expanded the list of repo-eligible instruments, it included RMBSs. This ensures that they never went through the 'wtf is this thing worth, if anything?' phase that the US encountered, and meant that - at worst - if the market did refuse to buy the RMBSs held by local banks, they could still convert them to short term funding under the repo program in order to service their obligations.

- On top of that, it allowed banks to grab a bunch of mortgages, securitise them and sell them to themselves. This self-securitisation sounds retarded, since they essentially end up holding the mortgages anyways, but it means that if they needed to, they could repo the self-securitised mortgages and turn them into liquidity.

----------------
The takeaway from all these :words:

is that, through injecting liquidity, supporting credit markets and negating counterparty risk, we never had a real liquidity crisis, which meant that funds were always available to businesses/individuals. Combine this with the drastic drop in the cash rate (which some people think was too sharp, too far and went on for too long - and I probably wouldn't disagree), it meant that we never really saw the kind of economic slowdown and recession that the rest of the world went through.

Fallout:

1. Without the above, Gina wouldn't have been able to 'save the entire country' as she claims, because no one would have had the money to finance the bigass holes in WA and QLD or the bigass machines that she uses digs her rocks out of to hock off to China. Losing that would have also had heavy implications for trade flows, and thereby fx rates.

The cheap, ample funding also meant that projects could be dragged forward, which pulled in future infrastructure/capital projects.

Gina's self-labelled brilliance was actually just being fortunate enough to have inherited a business which gets really profitable with high demand, cheap financing and strong exchange rates. She was responsible for none of these factors, and the Government she constantly rails against was responsible for two of the three.

(actually, as below, probably more like two and a half out of three)

Mining is also a tiny proportion of employment, even when you take into account secondaries, and even if she managed to keep selling all the rocks to China through an actual crisis, it would have meant gently caress all in economic terms. We would have had a recession regardless.

2. Without the above, dumbass boomers wouldn't have been able to borrow fucktons of cheap cash against Equity, Mate in order to trade houses with each other for higher and higher amounts, using the 'profit' to lavish cash on Harvey Norman, caravan makers.

Without the glibness, the growth in residential property prices has been one of the main underpinnings of the last ~10y of retail sales, which are a massive part of the economy.

The part of the stimulus package that rightwing dickheads whine about as 'the $900 bogan bonus' and 'the pensioner pokie bonus' were actually designed to help stimulate retail turnover in order to support retail employment, which feeds back into retail turnover and so on. Retail is a heavily seasonal employer where casualisation has given them a highly elastic workforce - demand for retail drops and there is a near instant response in employment. Which is A Bad Thing� in a global crisis.

Whether it was really needed or effective or not, it's easy to slam in hindsight but at the (very scary time), it was a sensible idea.

2. Without the above, dumbass battlers wouldn't have had a rising, liquid property market and the available funds to buy up every affordable house within 20kms of the CBD and 'do a reno, mate', keeping legions of overcharging tradies and building material suppliers in business.

Without the above, the big homebuilders wouldn't have had the funds or the market support to throw up hundreds of cookie cutter, dogbox developments to flog to the Chinese for ridiculous prices, which is what actually kept the manufacturers and sellers of building supplies in business.

Again, without the glibness, homebuilders/renovations, their suppliers and all the direct and indirect employment they provide are a massive chunk of the economy.

The part of the stimulus package that rightwing dickheads whine about as 'teh gold plated school halls' and 'killer batts' was actually designed to support construction/trades/materials turnover, and thereby construction/trades/materials employment. It wasn't even 'throwing out money' to be honest, it was just dragging forward demand (ie, we would have had to upgrade lovely old school facilities anyways), so again - a loving sensible idea.

TL,DR; The RBA kept us out of the GFC, the stimulus packages supported demand which avoided economic slowdown and possible recession. Anyone who thinks otherwise because 'mines' or 'teh China' is at best myopic, at worst an uninformed Young Liberal fuckhead.

BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Jun 13, 2014

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:02

Senor Tron: May 26, 2006

Blightie posted:

To the resident union experts, a speech pathologist friend of mine was describing her working conditions and they sounded terrible.

The scenario, as it was described to me, is that each of the "employees" have their own abn's, get work from the company and pay about a 50% cut back to the employer. That sounds bad to me anyway, but basically only new graduates are employed, they are worked half to death and then spat out once they start to complain, so a stream of workers in the "do anything to make it" stage working until 2am unpaid etc.

The head honcho is some aggressive "I am a job creator" capitalist, apparently married to some fancy lawyer. I was told that the lawyer husband is mentioned as a threat whenever pay/conditions come up. There were also some intellectual property issues where the employer is claiming ownership of work done by the employee for free on their own time.

The whole thing sounded pretty bad and I wonder how many unfair dismissals or whatever have happened in the past.

So my advice was to join a union right away so that she had some recourse if (when probably more appropriate) things go sour, but neither of us were sure which would be the correct union to contact.

Any tips on this would be a big help.

Is this in South Australia, or is speech pathology just one of those things that attracts horrible bosses?

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:08

Mr Chips: Jun 27, 2007; Whose arse do I have to blow smoke up to get rid of this baby?

BrosephofArimathea posted:

Sure, but most of the important stuff is meaningless to 90% of people, so it's never going to win any arguments

words

That's a good explanation.
Do you teach this stuff? Because you explain it a fuckload better than posters ITT who've claimed to teach it.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:17

Blightie: Dec 27, 2004

Senor Tron posted:

Is this in South Australia, or is speech pathology just one of those things that attracts horrible bosses?

NSW. Horrible bosses I guess

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:19

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Blightie posted:

NSW. Horrible bosses I guess

http://www.fairwork.gov.au/Resources/fact-sheets/workplace-rights/Pages/independent-contractors-and-emplyees-fact-sheet

Hey can you have a look at the list of factors here, and see if it describes your situation.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:21

thatbastardken: Apr 23, 2010; A contract signed by a minor is not binding!

Here's a frustrating thing: https://www.facebook.com/VotenoToConstitutionalChange

A group of Indigenous people trying to get Constitutional recognition blocked because they've bought into Sovereign Citizen bullshit

quote:

We The People Oppose Constitutional Recognition Amendment

We the people of our ancestral homelands currently known collectively as Australia oppose the Australian Government's attempt to contractually bind us in social contract within its constitution by way of recognising (Recognisance-blacks law) us as its colony's first people in its upcoming referendum. The Government has promised to put forward a draft amendment by September 2014 but has not yet set a timeframe for when the referendum will be held, however the sunset clause passed through parliament last year commits the government to holding the referendum on the issue within the next two years.

We oppose the government's proposed amendment to their constitution under Powers of Parliament, Section 51(26): 'Special laws' for people of any race', to add a clause that will enable the government to make laws on behalf of the original peoples of the land. Our sovereignty has never been ceded therefore still remains with us and we do not consent to being recognised in the colony's constitution and rendered as its first peoples who will be situated under their constitutions Powers of Parliament section 51 as a people who the government is entitled to make law on behalf of and for.

We declare our continuing sovereignty that has never been ceded by the British crown and its colony of Australia.

We declare an unlawful occupation of our ancestral homelands whom has never sought informed consent in its attempts to usurp our sovereignty and mine our lands for resources through its Native Title Act 1993, thus rendering all existing contracts null and void.

We declare an unlawful occupation of our lands that has waged a covert war of attrition against us since it's invasion and declaration of 'terra nullius' in 1788. As evidenced through the stolen children, the stolen wages, the deaths in custody, world�s highest incarceration rates and the lowest life expectancy rates of any of the Commonwealth colonised country.

The British colony of Australia is the only Commonwealth country that has yet to sign a treaty with the continents original peoples and instead opted to claim no human beings occupied the lands with declaring 'Terra Nullius'. This untruth of 'Terra Nullius' was disposed of within the colony's domestic law with Mabo's case in 1992 thus rendering the sovereign jurisdiction over the land and waters to the original peoples within domestic law.

The government quickly sought to tire up this loose end by passing the Native Title Act 1993 which sought to sign up the original peoples to their 'Native Title' contracts which transferred their sovereign authority over their lands and waters to government registered Prescribed Body Corporates (registered land councils) in their respective homeland areas. Prescribed being the legal qualifying word of the land councils which seeks to tranfer sovereignty over the land to the occupying government under its Native Title legislation. Here is the meaning of Prescribed/Prescription:

In law, prescription is the method of sovereignty transfer of a territory through international law analogous to the common law doctrine of adverse possession for private real-estate. Prescription involves the open encroachment by the new sovereign upon the territory in question for a prolonged period of time, acting as the sovereign, without protest or other contest by the original sovereign. This doctrine legalizes de jure the de facto transfer of sovereignty caused in part by the original sovereign's extended negligence and/or neglect of the area in question.

Acquiring a piece of movable or immovable property by prescription is known as "acquisitive prescription" while losing property or a right is known as "extinctive prescription".

The other major loophole the government tired up with Native Title was to get the original peoples to agree to the contractual terms of Native Title which is to label themselves as "Aboriginals" and "Natives" which diminishes their sovereign title to land as a lessor title to land which lays under the superior jurisdiction of the crown. Refer to "Aboriginal Title" for further explanation.

We declare the same human rights afforded to all human beings on the planet and that is to be treated as humans with the right to self-determination and the right to determine our futures over ourselves and our ancestral homelands.

We are entitled to a sovereign treaty as are all humans on their lands and we demand to have our human rights respected and acted upon. We demand international scrutiny over the terms of a sovereign treaty between the original peoples and the Australian peoples of the colony directly and not its current corporate governance system.

-End

Ughhh. The Facebook page is full of references to Black's Legal Dictionary, and although I haven't found a reference to admiralty law yet I'm sure I could if I had the time.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:28

thatbastardken: Apr 23, 2010; A contract signed by a minor is not binding!

quote:

Peter Do you know what Recognise Means in legal terms. The Commonwealth Constitution Act UK & Crown. Only Applys to British Subjects We Are Not British Subjects What A Fucken Insult!! We Are Sovereign. The post just explained what recognise means. What we are unworthy until we are recognised by anglos gently caress off. We don't trust Anglos nor do we trust those who support them. Recognise that we are the highest incarcerated in the world recognise the high suicide rate caused by this societal abuse. The Constitution is invalid and the Commonwealth of Australia is a corporation address Massachusetts Avenue Washington DC. We don't want to be recognised as commodity we are human. The Government is a foreign power under their own legislation. We don't have to wait we know the truth This is our land and we will never cede our sovereignty

It's extra irritating because yeah, sure, there are valid reasons to be opposed to constitutional recognition. Pick one of them! Not "oh governments aren't real" or "laws only mean things if you agree with them".

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:33

Drugs: Jul 16, 2010; I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein

BrosephofArimathea posted:

GFC stuff

5 star posting, would and will read again.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:33

Blightie: Dec 27, 2004

Jumpingmanjim posted:

http://www.fairwork.gov.au/Resources/fact-sheets/workplace-rights/Pages/independent-contractors-and-emplyees-fact-sheet

Hey can you have a look at the list of factors here, and see if it describes your situation.

Thanks.

I'll pass this on. I'm not sure of the exact details as this is for a friend who was describing her scenario to me over coffee, but glancing at that (and thanks to my pro lurking skills) I'm aware of sham contracting and this whole thing set off alarm bells for me. That said IANAL, just a science guy, so interpreting the finer points of this stuff is difficult.

To partially answer, yes, the document does seem to describe what was said to me. I'll send it to my friend and see what she thinks. I haven't seen her contract or anything like that though.

E: phone posting typos

Blightie fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jun 13, 2014

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:37

hambeet: Sep 13, 2002

BrosephofArimathea I just wanted to say that was a loving excellent post.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:43

Nuclear Spy: Jun 10, 2008; feeling under?

BrosephofArimathea posted:

A Good Post©

I'll have to remember to archive this effortpost in the AusPol Wiki for future reference.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:48

gay picnic defence: Oct 5, 2009; I'M CONCERNED ABOUT A NUMBER OF THINGS

BrosephofArimathea posted:

Sure, but most of the important stuff is meaningless to 90% of people, so it's never going to win any arguments

(I left out a ton of background, because it was getting way too longwinded)
(I'm typing on a phone in a lecture, so its going to be riddled with typos and lovely grammar)

Important takeaway: Banks run on liquidity - especially short term liquidity.

In the US, the big IBs/hedge funds/private eq had heavily leveraged themselves to buy up a metric fuckton of asset backed securities (MBS) - essentially bonds secured by residential mortgages, where the collateral is the house and the coupon payments are funded by the mortgage payments made by battlers. These started off being secured by high quality borrowers, but in the low rate environment of the early 00s, those chasing yields accepted more and more risk in return for higher returns.

Chart:

When the underlying asset quality deteriorated sharply (this is where right wing dummies blame 'the poors not paying back their loans' but really the majority of the losses were caused by middleclass fuckheads buying up 'investment properties' expecting to make easy money 'doin a reno and flipping for mad profit' - sound familiar?), MBSs started defaulting on their repayments and even taking capital losses, which triggered a wave of downgrades, which triggered a bunch of loan covenants, which meant that the entire sector was trying to sell the same instruments into a rapidly falling market where no one was really sure if the underlying was worth.

So, when you don't know what kind of bullshit someone is hiding on their balance sheet, it became more and more realistic that if you lend some institution money, they could collapse and you would lose your capital. And so the entire market just stopped lending. Which, taking into account the whole 'banks live or die on liquidity', is the *actual* cause of the shitstorm.

Credit markets close down
-> banks stop lending to businesses -> businesses can't fund their day to day operations -> businesses default on payments to creditors, workers, landlords -> etc

-> banks stop lending to people -> housing market shuts down -> builders faced with dropping prices and zero demand start closing down -> workers laid off, builders default on payments to creditors, workers, landlords -> etc

Which is where you get the widespread economic effects that people now call 'the GFC' - high unemployment, recession, etc. poo poo then repeated itself in the Euro zone, but entire countries started defaulting.

------------

Important takeaway, revisited: Banks run on liquidity - especially short term liquidity. Despite what the average Tele reader thinks, banks don't fund their loan book by rolling up to the RBA with a dump truck. They do it with a mix of retail (savings accounts/tds/etc), wholesale onshore and wholesale offshore and securitised instruments (mainly the nonbank lenders).

Anyways, of the four funding sources:
wholesale offshore- pre-crisis, local banks funded a big chunk of their balance sheets with cheap wholesale offshore money, which was no longer available. Even when the market thawed a little, it was only available in small amounts and at steep premiums

MBS - the non-bank lenders that popped up in the property bubble didn't have the deposit books to fund their lending, so they relied almost entirely on the MBS market, which was no longer available. Obviously, it also wasn't available for the banks trying to refinance either

Which left two main sources of funding:
retail - people will only lend you money if they think they are getting it back. if we started to see the kind of bank collapses that happened overseas, people (which includes both people and small businesses) are going to hide their money under their mattress rather than risk losing it on a TD.

wholesale domestic - as above, if businesses/banks/credit union/super funds/etc are worried about counterparty risk in the way that we saw overseas, they are just going to stop lending. And those that would risk lending would demand huge premiums for it, given the massive supply/demand imbalance

So, what did we do to avoid the kind of epic fuckup the US went through?
Retail
- Expanded the Government bank guarantee limit up to $1m, avoiding a 'run' on banks by retail customers and small-medium businesses. For the vast majority of people, putting their money in a savings account or a term deposit was the same as giving it to the Government, entirely riskfree.

Domestic wholesale
(background: the way the RBA actually controls the cash rate is by buying/selling overnight money, known as the Exchange Settlement (ES) program. This is money that the RBA makes ADIs hold in an account for settling transactions between each other. Because it's held by the RBA, it's riskfree. it's paid at OCR-25bps, so under normal circumstances, banks have a big incentive to minimise the balances held. Banks can also borrow against these balances through a convoluted scheme known as repos, which allow banks to turn trading instruments into cash.)

- they expanded the ES program from ~1bn to ~10bn. Without this, the demand for cash balances would have driven up the cash rate, consequently driving down borrowing and leading to the kind of economic slowdown seen overseas. It also meant that banks could invest excess cash in a riskfree asset, rather than just hording it and removing liquidity from the system.

- they introduced a (very) short term TD facility, which allowed banks to move cash out of overnight ES accounts and into 1-2 week terms, at higher rates, allowing the RBA to expand their lending in term markets and banks to invest short term cash riskfree.

- they also expanded the range of repo-eligible securities, which helped avoid the problem overseas where banks would be stuck with assets on their balance sheet which they couldn't sell.

Chart:

- To reduce counterparty risk, particularly for smaller institutions, they introduced The Australian Government Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding, under which the Government acted as a guarantor for any eligible ADI-issued instruments. In return for a premium (from 70bps to 150bps, depending on issuer rating), any eligible ADI could issue bonds/notes/etc with a AAA credit rating. Essentially, it's a bigger version of the deposit guarantee for regular savings accounts. At it's peak, there was around $170bn guaranteed under the scheme.

Offshore wholesale
- As above, the Guarantee Scheme decreased (perceived) counterparty risk, allowing domestic banks to issue offshore with a sovereign AAA backing.

MBS
- The crisis essentially killed the MBS market (locally, rmbs). Similar to the TARP program in the US, the RBA (and, by direction, the AOFM - up to ~$8bn) started buying up securities in the RMBS market which added both stability and liquidity to it, allowing other participants to return. Slowly.
Chart:

- When the RBA expanded the list of repo-eligible instruments, it included RMBSs. This ensures that they never went through the 'wtf is this thing worth, if anything?' phase that the US encountered, and meant that - at worst - if the market did refuse to buy the RMBSs held by local banks, they could still convert them to short term funding under the repo program in order to service their obligations.

- On top of that, it allowed banks to grab a bunch of mortgages, securitise them and sell them to themselves. This self-securitisation sounds retarded, since they essentially end up holding the mortgages anyways, but it means that if they needed to, they could repo the self-securitised mortgages and turn them into liquidity.

----------------
The takeaway from all these is that, through injecting liquidity, supporting credit markets and negating counterparty risk, we never had a real liquidity crisis, which meant that funds were always available to businesses/individuals. Combine this with the drastic drop in the cash rate (which some people think was too sharp, too far and went on for too long - and I probably wouldn't disagree), it meant that we never really saw the kind of economic slowdown and recession that the rest of the world went through.

Fallout:

1. Without the above, Gina wouldn't have been able to 'save the entire country' as she claims, because no one would have had the money to finance the bigass holes in WA and QLD or the bigass machines that she uses digs her rocks out of to hock off to China. Losing that would have also had heavy implications for trade flows, and thereby fx rates.

The cheap, ample funding also meant that projects could be dragged forward, which pulled in future infrastructure/capital projects.

Gina's self-labelled brilliance was actually just being fortunate enough to have inherited a business which gets really profitable with high demand, cheap financing and strong exchange rates. She was responsible for none of these factors, and the Government she constantly rails against was responsible for two of the three.

(actually, as below, probably more like two and a half out of three)

Mining is also a tiny proportion of employment, even when you take into account secondaries, and even if she managed to keep selling all the rocks to China through an actual crisis, it would have meant gently caress all in economic terms. We would have had a recession regardless.

2. Without the above, dumbass boomers wouldn't have been able to borrow fucktons of cheap cash against Equity, Mate in order to trade houses with each other for higher and higher amounts, using the 'profit' to lavish cash on Harvey Norman, caravan makers.

Without the glibness, the growth in residential property prices has been one of the main underpinnings of the last ~10y of retail sales, which are a massive part of the economy.

The part of the stimulus package that rightwing dickheads whine about as 'the $900 bogan bonus' and 'the pensioner pokie bonus' were actually designed to help stimulate retail turnover in order to support retail employment, which feeds back into retail turnover and so on. Retail is a heavily seasonal employer where casualisation has given them a highly elastic workforce - demand for retail drops and there is a near instant response in employment. Which is A Bad Thing� in a global crisis.

Whether it was really needed or effective or not, it's easy to slam in hindsight but at the (very scary time), it was a sensible idea.

2. Without the above, dumbass battlers wouldn't have had a rising, liquid property market and the available funds to buy up every affordable house within 20kms of the CBD and 'do a reno, mate', keeping legions of overcharging tradies and building material suppliers in business.

Without the above, the big homebuilders wouldn't have had the funds or the market support to throw up hundreds of cookie cutter, dogbox developments to flog to the Chinese for ridiculous prices, which is what actually kept the manufacturers and sellers of building supplies in business.

Again, without the glibness, homebuilders/renovations, their suppliers and all the direct and indirect employment they provide are a massive chunk of the economy.

The part of the stimulus package that rightwing dickheads whine about as 'teh gold plated school halls' and 'killer batts' was actually designed to support construction/trades/materials turnover, and thereby construction/trades/materials employment. It wasn't even 'throwing out money' to be honest, it was just dragging forward demand (ie, we would have had to upgrade lovely old school facilities anyways), so again - a loving sensible idea.

TL,DR; The RBA kept us out of the GFC, the stimulus packages supported demand which avoided economic slowdown and possible recession. Anyone who thinks otherwise because 'mines' or 'teh China' is at best myopic, at worst an uninformed Young Liberal fuckhead.

Wow, thanks. I'm not going to pretend to totally understand how those things you mention actually affect liquidity but I can see how making sure there was plenty of money on hand to loan out would help. The biggest developer in the country wouldn't have millions in cash just waiting around in case the banks couldn't finance their latest contribution to urban sprawl.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:52

Negative Entropy: Nov 30, 2009

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...f-1226952970709

POTUS agrees Tone has a mandate to repeal 'Carbon tax', Tone considers himself a Conservationalist.

quote:

BARACK Obama has offered an olive branch to Tony Abbott on climate change, conceding the Prime Minister won a mandate in 2013 to get rid of the carbon tax.

But Mr Obama, who discussed climate change with Mr Abbott at the White House, urged Australia and other nations to adopt �ambitious domestic climate policies as the basis of a strong international response��.

The two leaders agreed climate change would be an issue for discussion at the G20 leaders� summit in Brisbane, under the topic of �energy efficiency�� and cleaning up the most polluting power plants.

Mr Obama mentioned the carbon tax, acknowledging that the Abbott government had a clear electoral mandate for a different approach.

Mr Abbott told the President he was committed to delivering Australia�s bipartisan target of cutting emissions by five per cent by 2020 by spending $2.5 billion on his direct action plan.

He later told the Nine Network that by 2020 Australia would have an �overall reduction of some 20 per cent in our emissions off a business-as-usual model��.

Mr Abbott said earlier he had had �constructive and genial� talks on climate with Mr Obama, citing his direct action plan and the rising petrol excise as examples of Australians �doing the heavy lifting�.

Mr Obama, whose efforts to legislate a carbon price have been blocked by congress, is spruiking new air quality regulations forcing electricity generators to cut their emissions.

Mr Abbott said he had �a very constructive and genial discussion� with Mr Obama about climate change �because we all want to do the right thing by our planet�.

�I regard myself as a conservationist. Frankly we should rest lightly on the planet, and I�m determined to ensure we do our duty by the future here,� Mr Abbott told ABC Radio after the meeting.

�We wouldn�t be putting $2.5 billion on the table to fund direct action measures against climate change if we weren�t serious about it, and I think that it needs to be remembered that in an American context our direct action policy would be the equivalent of a $40 billion fund and that�s serious money.

�In Australia, taxes on petrol are about $1.50 a gallon. In the United States, taxes on petrol are 40 cents a gallon. So, we are doing far more, if you like, to reduce at least those emissions than the United States and I think that we can say that we are doing the heavy lifting.�

The May budget included the reintroduction of indexation to the petrol excise, which is levied on motorists for the cost of maintaining public roads.

Mr Abbott said critics should not �run around pretending there is disagreement� between the nations on climate change �where none exists�.

�What the US has done recently is actually very similar to what the Coalition is proposing to do,� Mr Abbott said.

The carbon tax is likely to be repealed when the Senate changes after July 1, although it is unclear whether the Coalition�s direct action policy will be passed into law.

The policy is opposed by Labor and the Greens and will need the support of at least six crossbench senators to pass, including from the Palmer United Party.

Labor environment spokesman Mark Butler yesterday said: �Tony Abbott�s refusal to accept the importance and urgency of climate change is pushing Australia further out of step with the world.�

With AAP

# ? Jun 13, 2014 04:55

Zenithe: Feb 25, 2013; _{Ask not to whom the Anidavatar belongs; it belongs to thee.}

Kommando posted:

Tone considers himself a Conservationalist.

Of course he does.

quote:

"When I look out tonight at an audience of people who work with timber, who work in forests, I don't see people who are environmental vandals; I see people who are the ultimate conservationists

People who like cutting down trees for profit are conservationists, so he must be too.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:01

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

On a scale of 1 to 10 how angry is Tone that he finally gets to be the big prime minister he always wanted to be, only to discover he has to talk about climate change all the time?

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:10

Gough Suppressant: Nov 14, 2008

Am I the only one noticing the lack of a direct quote from Obama anywhere there on tones man dates?

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:29

You Am I: May 20, 2001; Me @ your poasting

quote:

�I regard myself as a conservationist. Frankly we should rest lightly on the planet, and I�m determined to ensure we do our duty by the future here,� Mr Abbott told ABC Radio after the meeting.

I guess that's in the same way how Phil Ruddock is a humanitarian

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:32

Drugs: Jul 16, 2010; I don't like people who take drugs. Customs agents, for example - Albert Einstein

You Am I posted:

I guess that's in the same way how Phil Ruddock is a humanitarian

Amnesty sending Ruddock a letter asking him to stop wearing their badge because he is a reprehensible monster is one of my favourite Howard-era anecdotes

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:34

Tokamak: Dec 22, 2004

Jumpingmanjim posted:

On a scale of 1 to 10 how angry is Tone that he finally gets to be the big prime minister he always wanted to be, only to discover he has to talk about climate change all the time?

Well, his election campaign was pretty much: stop the boats, axe the tax, and strengthen the economy. I don't know how you make it one of your key election issues, and expect people to forget about it. He knows its a losing proposition, so he must have some personal stake in defending his policy against strong, and scientifically backed criticism.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:35

Cartoon: Jun 20, 2008; poop

Gough Suppressant posted:

Am I the only one noticing the lack of a direct quote from Obama anywhere there on tones man dates?

As far as I can tell The Arsetralian is making it up.

Actual journalists posted:

At their media conference after their meeting, neither Mr Abbott or Mr Obama raised the issue of climate change in their statements and did not take questions from the media.

Actual journalists posted:

While Mr Abbott's meeting with Mr Obama dealt with security and foreign policy issues, it is also understood that climate change was raised in the context of energy efficiency being discussed at the upcoming G20 meeting.

So no direct quote will ever be forthcoming. It's heresay at best.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...0613-3a192.html

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:42

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Try to read this interview with Ruddock without breaking your brain:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...ruddock&f=false

I think the genuinely thinks he is some sort of humanitarian. Not the Darth Vader character we all thought he was. He even created harmony day ffs.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:43

BrosephofArimathea: Jan 31, 2005; I've finally come to grips with the fact that the sky fucking fell.

gay picnic defence posted:

The biggest developer in the country wouldn't have millions in cash just waiting around in case the banks couldn't finance their latest contribution to urban sprawl.

Precisely. Building poo poo is really expensive. That new stupidly named Central Park complex on Broadway topped $2bn. Westfield Pitt St was $1.2bn. Even behemoths like Frasers and WDC can't afford to build it with their own cash, and it would be retarded if they did.

So they (optionally) lay off some of the risk to other investors, then fund their future cash outflows with a mix of short term liquidity facilities, medium term notes and longterm bonds. That lets you match your current cash outflows (ie, the cost of building poo poo) to your future cash inflows (rent, future part-sales, etc) over time.

If those markets close down, the guy in fluro raging about 'bloody bankers who broke the economy and now us workin mans had to fix it' is going to find himself sitting around doing a whole lot of nothin pretty soon.

Same deal for the * Ponds/Lakes/Mews/Meadows sprawl on the urban fringe. You try and sell as much as you can upfront (which relies on either banks writing mortgages on houses that dont yet exist, or mezzanine finance), then you use debt markets to fund the rest, repaying the principal through the proceeds when you sell your overpriced lovely mcmansions.

Ditto on mining, except the uncertainty in future cashflows makes them even more reliant on financial markets.

Mr Chips posted:

That's a good explanation.
Do you teach this stuff? Because you explain it a fuckload better than posters ITT who've claimed to teach it.

Sadly, I don't think anyone would pay to have me ramble financial economics and swearing at them.

BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jun 13, 2014

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:49

Ol Sweepy: Nov 28, 2005; Safety First

Gough Suppressant posted:

Am I the only one noticing the lack of a direct quote from Obama anywhere there on tones man dates?

quote:

Mr Obama mentioned the carbon tax, acknowledging that the Abbott government had a clear electoral mandate for a different approach.

Acknowledged as in:

Abbott: The voters of Australia don't want a Carbon Tax
Obama: *clears throat* (mistaken for affirmative grunt)

efb; Australian full of poo poo again already confirmed.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 05:54

Nibbles!: Jun 26, 2008; TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

make australia great again as well please

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Try to read this interview with Ruddock without breaking your brain:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...ruddock&f=false

I think the genuinely thinks he is some sort of humanitarian. Not the Darth Vader character we all thought he was. He even created harmony day ffs.

Watch Go Back to Where You Came From when he was on. There was an episode where they were in Afghanistan speaking to someone who was part of a group Ruddock personally sent back and what happened to them. He stared at his feet the whole time then tried to justify it afterwards.

Edit: oops, that was Peter Reith

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:02

Cartoon: Jun 20, 2008; poop

Nibbles141 posted:

Watch Go Back to Where You Came From when he was on. There was an episode where they were in Afghanistan speaking to someone who was part of a group Ruddock personally sent back and what happened to them. He stared at his feet the whole time then tried to justify it afterwards.

Edit: oops, that was Peter Reith

If it helps Ruddock is almost as big a shitlord as Reith. He was known as the Minister with no ears in Canberra amoung high ranked public servants.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:08

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=765594646807983

Does Malcolm have a soul? Cause it looks like it just up and left him.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:10

Luceid: Jan 20, 2005; Buy some freaking medicine.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=765594646807983

Does Malcolm have a soul? Cause it looks like it just up and left him.

He looks ready to lean on someone's shoulder and have a good, solid cry. That's astounding. I'm not sure I've seen Turnbull ever wear an expression like that, could it be that he's worn out and ready to give up?

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:25

thatbastardken: Apr 23, 2010; A contract signed by a minor is not binding!

Jesus, I almost feel sorry for the fucker.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:27

SadisTech: Jun 26, 2013; Clem.

thatbastardken posted:

Jesus, I almost feel sorry for the fucker.

Don't. That is not the face of someone going "drat this man is so right, my party is terrible and I am a terrible person for being on side with them, I have no response." It is the face of someone going "This opponent is using very effective rhetoric and I am displeased at having to think of a counter argument. What talking points might be effective here? Oh goddamn, did the host just end this before I get to respond? poo poo."

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:42

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Some more fall out from the budget that fell through the cracks and has only been noticed.

quote:

Chef loses dough as grant turns into a loan

Date
June 10, 2014

Anna Patty, Rachel Browne

Apprentices who have yet to complete their qualifications stand to lose thousands of dollars in an axed tax-free cash payment that will be replaced by a HECS-style loan from July 1.

Thousands of apprentices eligible for the federal government's Tools for Your Trade payment, worth up to $5500, have been told they will not get future instalments and can instead apply for the newly introduced Trade Support Loan.

Students close to finishing their apprenticeships are furious that the payment, which helps with training costs and is paid in five instalments during an apprenticeship, will not be honoured.

Alex Martin, who is due to finish her chef apprenticeship in October, will lose $2700, as will her classmates at Ultimo TAFE.

The 25-year-old from Dulwich Hill will miss out on the last two instalments, worth $1200 and $1500 respectively.

''This is something we have all been working towards and � have all been expecting to get,'' she said. ''Just to be told it's not happening any more is so disappointing.''

The Tools for your Trade payment, worth $915 million over four years, was axed in the federal budget. The government announcing eligible students could apply for the $20,000 loans instead.

But Ms Martin, who is working at Surry Hills restaurant Porteno, questioned how recently qualified apprentices would afford to pay the loan.

''For a chef, when you finish your training you are lucky to get a base salary of about $45,000 a year,'' she said. ''It's not a lot of money to be thinking about taking on $20,000.''

Under the scheme, apprentices have to start repaying the loan once their income reaches $53,345 a year.

The Greens have raised concerns about the loan scheme. Their analysis showed that it would take a carpenter on a starting salary of $40,000 up to 34 years to repay a $20,000 loan.

The estimates take into account the 20 per cent bonus an apprentice receives for completing their training and a 3.9 per cent pay rise.

The findings show an electrician on a starting salary of $62,000 would take seven years to pay off the loan, and a plumber starting on $55,000, eight years. A welder would take up to 13 years and an automotive engineer, 23 years.

Greens higher education spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon said: ''The Abbott government is trying to portray itself as a supporter of apprentices when in reality it is ripping more than $900 million out of apprentice training programs.''

The national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Dave Noonan, said the loans scheme would discourage young people from entering into apprenticeships and exacerbate the skills crisis.

A spokesman for the Department of Industry said the Greens' modelling was flawed and that the loans, which are indexed annually to the consumer price index, would take an average of eight years to repay once an apprenticeship is completed.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/chef-loses-dough-as-grant-turns-into-a-loan-20140609-39t7q.html#ixzz34UmX9yUM

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:49

Tokamak: Dec 22, 2004

Lid posted:

Some more fall out from the budget that fell through the cracks and has only been noticed.

It was noticed, there was just an overwhelming amount of bullshit that this was the least of people's concerns.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 06:58

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 04:00

Murodese: Mar 6, 2007; Think you've got what it takes?
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Yeah, don't worry. It was noticed by all the apprentices when they got letters saying the payments were being discontinued.

# ? Jun 13, 2014 07:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol June - Can't Afford the Education to Think of a Witty Thread Title

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