In what is presumably an April Fool’s joke, the Sydney Morning Domain blog has a weird-arse post up:
The affordability of iron ore for Australian households fell a further 2 per cent over the December quarter, after plunging 10 per cent in the prior three months, sharpening concerns among economists that an entire generation of younger Australians will be priced out of the market.
…The fact that an increasing abundance of local supply seems to have not flowed through to lower iron ore prices has puzzled local economists. With a number of new projects coming on line or ramping up, iron ore production is forecast to increase by up to a quarter to 851 million tonnes by 2019.
But recent anecdotal evidence from iron ore agents, particularly in some areas of Sydney, suggests that offshore buying – particularly from Chinese investors – is driving up prices.
Indeed a recent analysis by TBTF Bank suggests as much as 60 per cent of iron ore is bought by mainland Chinese.
…“My parents were able to buy as much iron ore as they wanted, and at an early age, and without selling their souls to the bank,” said 21-year old university student and aspiring acrobatist, Lucinda Bettington.
“At this rate, all I’ll be able to afford is shavings.”
More weird than funny and saddening that this kind of smugness isdi rigeur at the Fairfax dailies. Don’t they have children?
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
