Ross Gittins

Ross Gittins

Ross Gittins is economics editor of the SMH and an economic columnist for The Age. His books include Gittins' Guide to Economics, Gittinomics and The Happy Economist.

Naivety to put hope in new broom

Ross Gittins The way our pollies play the political game perpetuates the cycle of cynicism and the ever-declining credibility of their profession.

Ross Gittins

Tail wagging uneasy dog in budget debate

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Ross Gittins I hate to burden you with a topic as earnest as the budget deficit so close to the holidays.

Ross Gittins

It's the weak recovery that worries, not surplus

Gittins, Ross

Ross Gittins I hate to burden you with a topic as earnest as the budget deficit so close to the holidays - I had hoped to write about the idea of giving someone a goat for Christmas - but the saga of whether the...

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Ross Gittins

Opportunity knocks, but the door has to open both ways

Ross Gittins

Ross Gittins When governments make grand policy unveilings, as Julia Gillard has with her white paper on the Asian Century, it's terribly tempting for people in jobs like mine to sit back and criticise.

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Ross Gittins

Carbon tax won't hurt much but we don't want to know

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Ross Gittins When psychologists study those sects that predict the end of the world on a certain day, they find the leaders rarely willing to admit they were wrong and their true believers rarely willing to admit...

Ross Gittins

Shift minds on a tax? Unlikely

Ross Gittins

Ross Gittins People who feel carbon tax is terrible will continue to think this way, whatever the reality.

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Ross Gittins

Why health cover needs no subsidies

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Ross Gittins Despite the untiring efforts of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott to make themselves seem poles apart in their policies - he/she is hopeless, I'm really good - the ideological gap between the two sides...

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Messy end to spend after fiscal bulimia

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Ross Gittins It's taken me too long to realise it, but when I retired for a quiet meal after the federal budget lock-up this month, it struck me: there's truth to the opposition's charge that Labor is a big...

Ross Gittins

With fingers down the throat, Labor gorges and splurges into the future

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Ross Gittins A thirst to spend and a desire to stay in surplus cohabit uneasily.

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Ross Gittins

A rabble without a cause

Ross Gittins We're losing the ability to fall in behind a leader, naysayers stealing the floor at every turn.

Ross Gittins

Stop beating about the bush and talk about Big Australia

Ross Gittins

Ross Gittins Something significant has happened in this hollow, populist election campaign: the long-standing bipartisan support for strong population growth - Big Australia - has collapsed.

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Low rates not always best option

Ross Gittins I think I can safely predict this will be another year of much fuss about rising interest rates and worsening home loan affordability.

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Ross Gittins

Jobless fall by the wayside in crusade to harness grey power

Ross Gittins Are you appalled by the greedy decision by the state governments to appropriate a quarter of the hard-won $32-a-week age pension increase from singles living in public housing? Do you share the view...

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