Australian Economy

Find below a fresh (or, rather, stale) speech from the latest RBA doyen to be using the mining rear vision mirror.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: I took two separate rides with two different UberX drivers yesterday.

By Leith van Onselen Two reports are out about how Australia is losing its love affair with cars, with younger Australians shirking car ownership and the nation reaching “peak car use”.

Yesterday I attended the latest in the Melbourne Economic Forum series, on energy, and there was one paper that stole the show.

We recently saw a rather depressing take on Xmas sales this year in the Westpac Red Book.

By Leith van Onselen Little by little, Foxtel’s stranglehold on subscription television services is being loosened, with Netflix announcing its entry into Australia next year.

By Leith van Onselen A new report by Professor David Cousins and former ACCC head Professor Allan Fels has found that Western Australians taxi users are being ripped-off by the deliberate rationing of taxi plate numbers by the State Government, which has inflated taxi fares by some 16%.

By Leith van Onselen Feedback loops are an important concept in finance and economics.

By David Collyer, cross-posted from Prosper Australia Australia has two infections that compromise our economic health.

By Leith van Onselen DFP Recruitment has released its mining and resources jobs index for October, which registered a rise of 1.3% to 63.56, the first increase since January 2014.

By Leith van Onselen The Tourism and Transport Forum, which is chaired by Liberal Party luminary Bruce Baird, has called on the Abbott Government to recast its roads-only funding policy.

From Bill Evans at Westpac.

Some good news from Dun and Bradstreet: The average time taken for Australian businesses to pay their invoices has fallen to the lowest level since the third quarter of 2007, in signs that operating conditions have strengthened this year and the business sector’s cash position is improving.

By Leith van Onselen Simon Henry, the co-founder of China’s ­largest international property ­website, Juwai.com, claims that Chinese investment in Australian residential real estate is unambiguously good for the country, benefiting local sellers and making Australians rich.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) today released the minutes from its 4 November board meeting, which are uneventful.

By Leith van Onselen The ANZ-Roy Morgan Research (RMR) consumer confidence index fell by 1.8 points in the week ended 16 November to 113.0, to be just below its long-run average reading of 113.2 (see next chart).

By Leith van Onselen As noted in yesterday’s report on the Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the deal on paper makes a lot of sense.

From the West Australian: ANZ has thrown its weight behind Baosteel and Aurizon Holdings’ push to establish a big Pilbara iron ore business after today signing a support agreement with the China Development Bank.

By Leith van Onselen Commsec has released new data today showing that new car affordability is the best on record: A key reason that vehicle sales have been resilient over the past couple of years is lower prices – car affordability is the best since 1976.