All key inflation indicators point downwards. The inflationary crisis seems to have passed Australia by with the key measurements that influence the Reserve Bank when it comes to fixing interest rates all pointing downwards.
While the headline All Groups CPI rose 0.4 percent in the September quarter when seasonally adjusted making 3.5% for the year, the trimmed mean and weighted median measures were up only a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for the quarter with annual rises of 2.3% and 2.6% respectively.
In the graph below I have plotted the course of these three seasonally adjusted measures of inflation with the quarterly figures shown at an annual rate.
Whichever one you look at, the trend is down.
The initial reaction of the market is that the Bank is now more likely to reduce interest rates than increase them whereas when I made a reduction of 0.25 percentage points my best bet for Melbourne Cup day the status quo was the clear favourite.
Seems like common sense to me. With all the fuss about corporate governance in the Murdoch media empire — not least of all in Crikey — this quote from Rich Greenfield, a Wall Street analyst with BTIG appealed to me:
“If you don’t like the Murdochs, you shouldn’t invest in News Corp.”
Personally I’m not the slightest bit concerned about the power Rupert and his family exercise over the shareholders who opened their wallets with their eyes open. What does concern me is the influence a corporation with dubious ethical standards has on public opinion in so many democracies world wide.
And the latest example. The headline prominently displayed on page one of The Australian on Tuesday:
And tucked away on page five today:
I’ll leave it to my colleagues at the Power Index to remind all us journalists of the risks involved in taking literally anything in a paper which regularly goes out of its way to put the slant it believes in on what someone else says.
One for an old tobacco lobbyist. It’s potentially against the law to do this in an Australia where doing anything to promote smoking can get you into trouble but what the hell!
As a once-upon-a-time election campaign manager and tobacco industry lobbyist I feel duty bound to give a run to this advertisement for Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. And it’s not as if watching it is likely to influence anyone to convert to smoking.
In fact it’s pretty hard to see just what the Cain campaign is hoping to achieve from it but here’s the official justification from the star himself appearing on Fox overnight:
Another “Greenie” misquoted, to fit “the narrative”, in the continuing “Oz agenda”?
Another of those “most humbling days in the life”?
(And Fran Kelly reckons it’s “the most committed of all the papers to federal politics” – in one way more than another?)
Did you read the stories in the Australian?
The page one story on Tuesday directly quoted the professor saying things that backed their headline and showed his middle of the road views about mining.
Though Flannery may have found it distressing to be quoted that way, I note that he did not refute any quotes attributed to him. His problem is that he has become a pin up boy for the green left in an increasingly polarised debate. So any headline that challenges this public perception makes him look superficial and lacking conviction. I blame the absolutist, self righteous rhetoric of the Green Left for this. For them, there is no mining. Period. What is it Bob Brown said? Shut down coal? Make coal pay for the Brisbane floods?
Flannery is doing a good job in a difficult political space but any sensitivity he may have about how he is reported does not deserve page one treatment. His sympathy for mining does. The Australian did him a favour with its follow up story.
What was Brown reported as saying?
What did he actually say?
Herald Sun 28 June 2011 “Julia Gillard rejects Bob Brown’s call to end coal mining”
“As political negotiations for a carbon tax intensify, Senator Brown declared at the weekend that the coal industry’s demise “has to be the outcome”.”
SMH 18 Jan 2011 “Brown assailed over comments”
“THE Greens leader, Bob Brown, has sparked a barrage of criticism after he sought to link the country’s widespread flooding to climate change.
Senator Brown has been labelled insensitive after his suggestion the mining sector be taxed to cover its perceived responsibility for the disaster”
Jan 28 that report quoting “politicians” Abetz and Ferguson – as well as Will Steffen?