Australia is dying. It’s being killed by neglect and corruption. At the head of the destruction is Do-nothing Malcolm and his vacant non-plan for the country. Consider what “Australia” is. An Anglophone nation in Asia defined by a working class ethos of the “fair go”, English pragmatism, sport and self-effacing good humour. In recent decades
The headlines yesterday were for improving Australian growth as the Botox Boom takes a hold, but under the hood it was ugly. Domestic demand is now hanging by a single fiscal thread and the outlook is for more of the same: Private investment is still shrinking and household consumption is very weak despite a tumbling savings
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s national accounts release for the June quarter revealed some depressing news for Australian households. While the broader economy posted a 1.8% rise in real GDP over the year, Australian workers’ continued to slide backwards. The key chart was the following showing that the average compensation of employees fell by 0.2%
By Leith van Onselen The June quarter’s national accounts, released yesterday, revealed that Western Australia’s economy remains in a slump, with state final demand registering zero growth over the quarter and falling by 3.8% over the year: Western Australian workers continue to suffer big pay cuts, with real per capita wages & salaries declining by
By Leith van Onselen The RBNZ has released several pieces of data suggesting that the RBNZ’s recent loan-to-value ratio restrictions targeting investors has been successful in cooling mortgage demand amid record population growth. As shown in the next chart, New Zealand household borrowing continued to retrace sharply, recording annual growth of 7.1% in July: Most
Global Macro / Markets / Investing: Those 3% of scientific papers that deny climate change? A review found them all flawed – Quartz US trade wars with emerging countries in the 21st century – VOX Inequality caused by urban renewal is “the central crisis of capitalism” says Richard Florida – Dezeen When the hedge is
by Chris Becker The lack of volatility as safe havens are bid up left right and center is still pushing stock markets down across Asia today, as tensions over North Korea remain high. The Yen is nearing a year high while gold remains highly elevated as managers switch from cautious mode to risk-off mode leading
Dalian is trying to rebound: BHP is still nudging breakout: Big Gas continues its re-rating with exporters down and the domestic gougers flying: All I can say to that is, what a pack of bloody idiots we are. Big Gold is powering, working beautifully as portfolio insurance. I’m still a seller here for the short
By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released the national accounts for the June quarter, which registered 0.8% growth in real GDP over the quarter and a 1.8% rise over the year. On a per capita basis, real GDP rose by 0.1% over the quarter but was up by just 0.2%
The ABS has released June QTR national accounts and the news is Botox but no boom (given expectations had soared): JUNE KEY FIGURES Mar Qtr 2017 to Jun Qtr 2017 Jun Qtr 2016 to Jun Qtr 2017 % change % change GDP (Chain volume measure) Trend 0.7 2.1 Seasonally adjusted 0.8 1.8 Final consumption expenditure
According to Gotti, yes: A big part of the energy problem is gas prices. There are two “real, practical solutions” required. The first is to divert gas that was ear marked for Queensland LNG exports to NSW and Victoria. As far as I can tell the federal government has done this. Well-done Josh Frydenberg. The
Vimal Gor’s latest. Spot on as usual.
By Leith van Onselen The Adelaide Bank/REIA Housing Affordability Report has been released for the June quarter has been released, which reveals that the percentage of household income required to service the typical Australian mortgage has increased by 0.2 percentage points to 31.4% – breaching the widely accepted threshold to being a manageable housing repayment.
Via the AFR: “Home sellers can’t enter this spring selling season with the arrogance of last spring,” auctioneers say as the spring auction season kicks off. On the first big mid-week auction on Tuesday night at Domain Auction House in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, only 53 per cent of the 13 auctions sold, with four selling prior to auction
The last four months of the Melbourne Institute monthly inflation reading have delivered a total of a a 0.3% rise. The CPI is still weak. The PPI is weak and going to get weaker on oil and the AUD. Next year it’s resumed terms of trade falls, house prices and the dwelling bust. And now
It appears Do-nothing Malcolm can’t even write a press release: Energy company AGL has stressed it has no plans to operate its Liddell power station beyond the 2022 closure date and insists it has not yet agreed to sell the station to enable another operator to keep it functioning for another five years. After Prime
By Leith van Onselen In the lead-up to last year’s Australian federal election and since, we have witnessed politicians from both sides feign concern over Australia’s poor housing affordability while at the same time soothing concerns that house prices would necessarily fall. It seems New Zealand’s politicians have followed the same script in this week’s
Mirabile dictu, peace has broken out between The Kouk and MB: Let me return the complement before we all blink and say The Kouk’s dovish positioning on the RBA is ahead of most in the market, including Phil Lowe. We’re in this together, I suspect, because we’re mutually disgusted by the war on wages.
A reminder that if you’re in Adelaide tomorrow night your social standing is at risk if you miss the hottest event since The Beatles visited in 1964. Presentations will include: LVO dishing dirt on the disaster that is mainstream economics; DLS dishing dirt on the disaster that is market economics; DK on how to make a
Iron ore price charts for September 5, 2017: Tianjin benchmark rose 30 cents to $77.50. Paper fell sharply overnight. Rebar is at new highs. Retuers has texture: China’s iron ore futures dropped on Tuesday for the first time in four sessions after a fire at a government-owned steel mill raised concerns that planned safety inspections may
At last some clarity on the Chinese steel sector reform that has so disrupted the market his year. Via Macquarie: China commodities trip: Update on government policy and steel At the start of this year, we highlighted that Chinese commodity demand would be intertwined with government policy in 2017. Government intervention has stepped up
It was headline news yesterday at the AFR: Australia Inc. employers have delivered workers the equal-best quarter of wages growing in 3 1/2 years, offering a glimmer of hope that a long slide in income growth is coming to an end. In news likely to be welcomed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which says it has
By Leith van Onselen Last week, billionaire retailer, Gerry Harvey, pronounced that Australia would become an “Asian country” with a population of 100 million in the next century, saying there is “not a chance in hell” immigration can be dialed back. On Monday night, Harvey appeared on ABC’s The Business (video above), where he gave
By Chris Becker Stocks are finally feeling the heat of the tensions brewing across Asia, with US markets off 1% or more as risk scrambles for havens like Treasuries, Yen and gold. The USD lost ground and gave it back to commodities with oil and copper both rising. US Treasury yields are now on
DXY was weak again last night: Aussie was strong against USD and EUR: Flat against EMs: Gold jumped: Base metals took profits: Big miners were mixed: EM stocks fell: High yield is still stalled: US yields plunged across the curve: Europe too: Stocks slipped: A series of events hit the USD. Hurricanes, North Korea, debt-ceiling
