Kohler glimpses the recession we have to have again

Monday, 7 December 2015

At BS, Alan Kohler wrote a very good piece over the weekend that should send a shiver down everyone’s spine:

Australia’s last recession was mainly caused by the current account deficit getting to 6 per cent of GDP.

The reason we “had to have” the recession, as Paul Keating said, was to try to bring demand for imports back to within sight of exports. The sledgehammer duly cracked the nut, and the current account was brought back to minus 3 per cent of GDP.

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About the author

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.