Adrian Beaumont let me know of a comprehensive overview he’s just undertaken of the results of the US Presidential Election (pdf file) that can be found over at The Green Papers. It covers – well, it covers literally everything. Exit polls, historical results, approval breakdowns, demographic breakdowns, swings of actual results – it’s pretty spiffy.
David Bergman has created the most amazing 1474 megapixel photo of the Presidential inauguration. You can zoom in, pan around – it’s quite a piece of kit. His blog seems to be down from traffic at the moment, but the link to the pic still works.
Finally a question; if the government is going to put $2 billion into a fund to help finance loans to the commercial property sector that are at risk by foreign banks repatriating their own capital, how does this play out on the balance sheet of the Federal Government as far as the budget is concerned?
I’d imagine that the government’s component of the funds loaned would become government assets (unless there’s some other way the government budgeting system treats such a thing?) – now, assuming that there will be no defaults on the loans and that the interest rate charged would be the standard going market rate for these things, would the government end up improving their budget position by virtue of contributing to such a fund? How does this actually play out as far as the government’s balance sheet is concerned?
One Comment
I dont really know, but I imagine the fund would become part of the Reserve Banks portfolio of investments, and part or all of the profits would be paid as a dividend to the Treasury at the end of each financial year, as happens now for other portions of the portfolio.
With the Govts capacity to raise funds at a low rate and with lower transactions costs, there should be a good dividend at the end of the project..