Word: costelloism
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...life were fair, John "Boom-Boom" Howard and Peter "Put-It-on-Credit" Costello would one day get a monument honoring their services to consumerism, wealth accumulation and fat profits. Perhaps a statue at every shopping mall or a team portrait in real-estate agencies would do the trick. Or maybe the banks could issue platinum credit cards celebrating the Liberal Prime Minister and Treasurer's contribution to the Swipe-It culture. They've had some luck, no doubt, but Howard and Costello have taken taxing and spending to audacious new levels, pushed away the poor's support struts...
...household indebtedness is at a record level. Consumers are paying a higher proportion of their income to service their borrowings (and thus are more vulnerable, as is the economy, to a fall in asset prices or a rise in interest rates). Under Howard and Costello, foreign debt has doubled to $A393 billion (equivalent to 50% of national output). No wonder voters think the cost of money is the marker for economic safe hands - they're geared to the back teeth, and interest rates will only have to rise by a few points to burn the most vulnerable. As soon...
...After seven Budget surpluses, during a time of buoyant revenues, Costello could have retired more debt and spent more on public investment that will sustain future growth - in infrastructure and human capital. Indeed, these surpluses have been slight exercises in prudence in an era of prosperity. Asset sales, such as the partial float of Telstra, have helped create the illusion of fiscal frugality. Other than two hard years of spending cuts to rein in Labor's excesses, Canberra has barely been squeezed. Compared with the hard, lean predators who dominated the Expenditure Review Committee in the Hawke-Keating years...
...legacy of the profligate Whitlam era (1972-75) and the wild ride of the Hawke-Keating years is that Latham will be forced to eat up much of this campaign pleading the case that Labor can be trusted with managing the money. Howard and Costello can continue spending taxpayer funds - outbidding Labor on health spending or tax cuts - and not carry the stain of profligacy. Appearing as a pale imitation of his former self, Latham signed a low-interest-rate guarantee a few days into the campaign. The stunt reeked of the forlorn Crean years and brought gleeful ridicule from...
DIED. ROBERT LEES, 91, former screenwriter who penned Abbott and Costello comedies and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era; after he was beheaded by a transient in his home; in Los Angeles. The suspect, who is also accused of fatally stabbing Lees' neighbor, was charged with capital murder...