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.
Late last week, Ross Gittins delivered the keynote address at the Australian government’s National Conference on Resources and Energy. The speech was an absolute barn burner delivered over dinner and one wonders if it didn’t sour the meal. Titled The Political Outlook for Reform, the address was so honest that it hasn’t made any national
Each month, following the release of the monthly labour force statistics by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Professor Bill Mitchell, Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at the Charles Darwin University, provides a comprehensive report on the data that is well worth a look. Below are some key extracts from this
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released labour force data for the month of September, which recorded a fall in the headline unemployment rate to a seasonally-adjusted 5.6%, down from 5.8% in September. The result beat expectations, with analysts forecasting unemployment to remain steady at 5.8% (see below table). The positive headline result
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