The “miracle” Australian economy (with its famous run of 24 years without a recession) is an amalgam of pre-modern and post-modern industries with very little in between.
Most economies run at least partially upon the productivity gains produced out of manufacturing and ‘making things’ but in Australia productive investment is supplanted with commodity exports (which make up half of exports) and the recycling of the resultant income is deployed as cash flow for borrowings offshore to pump house prices.
The former step is basically the selling of dirt, a pre-modern activity. The second step is managed via the sophisticated use of derivative markets and is essentially a post-modern activity.
Not that GDP cares given it is only the mindless measure of whirring widgets.
However, both of these activities systematically reduce economic competitiveness by inflating both input costs and the currency. “Dutch disease” by another name. This continuous “hollowing out” of productive activity means the broader economy relies heavily upon the non-stop import of capital, either in the form of debt or in the form of assets sold to foreigners, to generate ongoing income growth.
So long as the underlying income from dirt keeps flowing then the leveraging into house prices that supports consumption can continue, supported by both tax distortions and government spending.
If, however, the dirt income flow halts the hollowing out of modern industry will leave the Australian economy very exposed to a current account adjustment. We saw this in the global financial crisis but the flow of dirt income was restored sufficiently quickly to prevent any deep adjustment.
A second risk is that the debt accumulation simply becomes overly onerous for the underlying economy to service, also resulting in a current account adjustment. Well north of $1trillion of the debt is owned externally and household debt is a world-beating 186% of GDP so this is a real risk.
It is offset by a relatively clean public balance sheet that deploys fiscal stimulus in times of economic stress. However, in recent years, as both of the two above risks have increased, the public balance sheet has deteriorated as well, setting Australia up for a famous adjustment to end its famous bull run.
MacroBusiness covers all apposite data and wider analysis of these issues daily.
Via Martin North today: DFA has released the final dimension from our household surveys to end November 2018, zeroing in on financial confidence. As is perhaps predicable, the overall index fell again, down to 87.8, well below the neutral setting, and close to the record low we measured in 2015. Property owning household segments continue
As we know, Aussie households are mired in an historic income recession: But it’s not enough for the Coalition, who last week stacked the board of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) with business interests, thus ensuring that it remains a ‘toothless tiger’: The Australian can reveal that Jobs and Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer has appointed
By Leith van Onselen Let’s recall the damning indictment of Australia’s defacto low-skilled immigration system in the book entitled The Wages Crisis in Australia, which was released last month by a group of labour market academics: Official stock data indicate that the visa programmes for international students, temporary skilled workers and working holiday makers have tripled
This morning I spoke to Radio 2GB’s Luke Grant on Australia’s per capita economy and immigration’s impact, tearing apart the Property Council’s latest dodgy modelling claiming that NSW’s economy would be smashed if immigration into the state was halved. The interview begins 13.30 and ends at 24.20. Enjoy!
By Leith van Onselen Australia’s production, as measured by real GDP, continues to diverge wildly from the growth (or lack thereof) in ordinary Australian’s living standards. To illustrate why, I have once again deflated three measures of the domestic economy, as provided in the June quarter national accounts (released last week), by the ABS’ population
Mirabile dictu, Crikey’s Bernard Keane has finally discovered the real problem: …while much of the political and media class were obsessing about some asylum seekers last week, our understanding of the economy changed significantly in the wake of the September quarter GDP figures and the reaction of the Reserve Bank about where interest rates might
Yes, you read that right, from The Australian: British billionaire industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, backed by heavyweight Chinese investors, plans to build one of the world’s largest steel plants in Whyalla, 380km north of Adelaide. Flanked by Scott Morrison, Bill Shorten and South Australian Premier Steven Marshall at this morning’s announcement, Mr Gupta said construction of
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By Leith van Onselen The Property Council has commissioned modelling which shows that lowering immigration into NSW would boost real wages. From The SMH: The NSW economy could grow by $130 billion less over the coming decade if net migration to the state was halved, as has been called for by Premier Gladys Berejiklian… It
Oddly enough it’s coal, from Clyde Russell: It’s not shaping up as a merry Christmas for coal exporters to Asia as the region’s top buyers, China and India, pull back from the recent trend of strong imports. The Chinese authorities appear to be making good on a commitment to try and limit the country’s imports
Because the Smart Country always gets more stupid. From the OECD today: Dumbening our way to success one stupider student at a time.
By Leith van Onselen I noted last week how the Scanlon Foundation’s mouthpiece, professor Andrew Markus, rubbished most recent opinion polling, from a variety of sources, supporting lower immigration into Australia, including: Australian Population Research Institute: 54% want lower immigration; Newspoll: 56% want lower immigration; Essential: 54% believe Australia’s population is growing too fast and
From our Chris today: To APRA’s immense credit, it has managed to pull off a minor miracle: bursting the bubble during the boom. Debelle has previously noted that there was no evidence of a wealth effect, or positive feedback loop into consumption, during the upswing when Melbourne and Sydney house prices surged 50 per cent
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As we know, Aussie households are mired in an historic income recession: But it’s not enough for the Coalition. It wants even less money for workers, to wit: The Australian can reveal that Jobs and Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer has appointed six new deputy presidents — including four who have worked directly for employer groups
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It’s a long way out but not soon enough, via The Australian: Two of Australia’s biggest energy companies say they will delay investment in new generation capacity that could help drive down prices until there is more certainty around the direction of policy, after Scott Morrison’s “big stick” legislation to break up retailers who charged
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By Leith van Onselen Over the past year or so, I have ridiculed the new found push by Coalition politicians towards decentralisation, noting that this is a pipe dream based on the settlement pattern of new migrants, which have overwhelmingly chosen to flood the major cities. My view was initially based primarily on data from
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By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released retail sales figures for the month of October, which recorded a 0.3% rise in retail sales over the month in seasonally-adjusted terms, with annual sales growth steady at 3.6%: In trend terms, annual retail sales growth was flat to 3.5%. The below chart
Via FCAI: National motor vehicle sales eclipsed the one million year-to-date sales mark during November 2018, in a month which overall sales were down according to the latestdata released today by the motor industry’s statistical service, VFACTS. National vehicle sales for November reached 93,860, down 7.4 per cent from November 2017. The overall market decline
The reason we give Greg Jericho such a hard time is that it is obvious that he knows the truth about Australia’s rampaging class war. More than any other media commentator he gets that living standards are falling in an unprecedented fashion: Given that in the past year inflation grew by 1.9%, it means that
Not the stupid recession that the pet shop galahs love so much. The real kind. Growth per capita and income per capita. Yesterday’s GDP was awful. Household income is getting killed: We’ve been in the income recession almost continuously for six years and it is intensifying. This is despite the what used to thought of
By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s national accounts release for the September quarter revealed more dire news for Australian workers, with average compensation per employee falling to just 1.2% growth: And average compensation per employees falling by 4.7% since March 2012 when adjusted for inflation: On Tuesday, the September quarter Business Indicators report was released by
By Leith van Onselen With most recent opinion polls showing the majority of Australians want immigration to be lowered, including: Australian Population Research Institute: 54% want lower immigration; Newspoll: 56% want lower immigration; Essential: 54% believe Australia’s population is growing too fast and 64% believe immigration is too high; Lowy: 54% of people think the
