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https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/on-budget-eve-deflation-the -limits-to-privatised-keynesianism/ Tuesday 3rd May will see the first budget of the Turnbull-Morrison Coalition government. It is also the date of the Reserve Bank¹s next monetary policy decision. So it is an important day for fiscal and monetary policy. Like most people (including the well paid opinion-makers of the commentariat) I have no idea what the budget will contain. It is unlikely that the government will be able to break the impasse facing the state: a general tendency of slowing growth <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/australia-youre-standing-i n-it-part-1-the-pulse-rate-of-accumulation/> , rising state debt <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/australia-youre-standing-i n-it-part-2-debt-social-reproduction/> and a pool of sullen and largely inchoate opposition amongst the population to various attempts by the state to address both. The picture is complex. On this blog I have written a lot about Capital¹s Plan A <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/roads-to-nowhere-capitals- plan-a/> ¹ the stimulation of the economy via infrastructure spending to be financed in part by cuts to social reproduction and through the recycling¹ (read privatisation or leasing) of state owned assets. This plan, at a Federal level is stalled, due in part to the 2015 defeat of the Qld LNP government on the question of leasing power assets. However the recent Victorian state budget is built around increased infrastructure spending financed by the leasing of a port and a higher level of debt[i] <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/on-budget-eve-deflation-th e-limits-to-privatised-keynesianism/#_edn1> . Preceding the Federal budget there has been a warning from JPMorgan and from Moody¹s about the potential for Australia to lose its AAA rating, projections from Deloitte about the size of the increase in both debt and deficit and,what surprised everyone, the release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics of the latest CPI figures showing .2% deflation in the last quarter (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016d <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/on-budget-eve-deflation-th e-limits-to-privatised-keynesianism/#_ENREF_4> , Greber 2016 <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/on-budget-eve-deflation-th e-limits-to-privatised-keynesianism/#_ENREF_7> , Janda 2016 <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/on-budget-eve-deflation-th e-limits-to-privatised-keynesianism/#_ENREF_11> , Martin 2016 <https://withsobersenses.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/on-budget-eve-deflation-th e-limits-to-privatised-keynesianism/#_ENREF_16> ). It is this last point I want to look at. What does this latest news tell us about the both the direction of capital accumulation and the tensions and fault-lines of antagonism that constitute capitalist society in Australia? _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
