There's been enough interest rate, stock market and commodity news over just the first half of this week to fill a dozen columns, but unfortunately my attention has been seized by political folly.
Heavens knows there's nothing unusual about combining politicians and folly, especially during a free-spending election campaign, so it has to be a particularly bad example to distract me from what I'd prefer to be writing about - oil price fundamentals and whether the global economy is "re-coupling" after a period of "de-coupling".
But the bad news is that John Howard seems to have just made this election serious. Until now, there had been some comfort in the knowledge that it didn't really matter much which side won. In terms of major policy, it's pretty much Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. (Macquarie Bank strategist Rory Robertson wrote a nice piece two months ago on how similar the two sides are - you can read a summary I did about this.
Some people might well argue the similarity is disappointing, but from an investment point of view, the stability and continuity of Australian politics is very reassuring. Then John Howard had to go and spoil it all with an interview in this morning's Australian Financial Review.
The political bribery from both sides has been less than edifying and, as the Reserve Bank has warned, it adds to pressure on interest rates. There's no such thing as a free pork barrel.
But now the Prime Minister is suddenly doing exactly what every investor is warned not to do: assume that because the stock market went up a lot last year and the year before and the year before that, it will go up a lot next year and the year after and the year after that.
John Howard is trying to justify his latest batch of billion-dollar giveaways on the basis that the Treasury under-estimated the size of budget surpluses over the past few years, and therefore they must have under-estimated the size of surpluses over the next few years. Said the PM:
"Budget papers show that in the last three fiscal years, the final surplus has been at least 1.5 per cent of GDP, or 50 per cent higher than the 1 per cent figure projected in the original budget forecasts for each year.
"If you look at the experience of the past few years, then it's realistic to expect that there's still likely to be fatter surplus and therefore this idea that we're going to have to race around and withdraw tax cuts and so forth is alarmist."
No, John, it's alarming that you're so desperate to stay in Kirribilli House that you're prepared to spend beyond the budget expectations of the best brains in the Treasury Department. You really shouldn't do it. It's not realistic to assume international economic stimulus will always be more than expected. Responsible economic management, whether of the household budget or the nation, means budgeting within your means - not assuming that you'll win the lottery.
Our budget surpluses have turned out to be larger than forecast over the last few years because the global economy has run stronger for longer than anyone forecast. That doesn't mean it will continue to beat expectations. Indeed, there are plenty of reasonable arguments around that global growth next year will be good, but not as good as 2007 or 2006.
We are in a very strange political climate. One minute we have Peter Costello warning of a looming "financial tsunami", the next John Howard is saying there's no chance of a slow-down and we'll always do better than what the Treasury forecasts. One minute Joe Hockey is bashing any academic who suggests workers are better off without WorkChoices, the next the government is promising it will keep wages lower under WorkChoices.
Maybe it does matter who wins on November 24 after all.
-Michael Pascoe