Blogotariat

Westpac has released its March quarter consumer price index (CPI) forecasts, with the bank seeing inflation edging-up to a headline 0.9% QoQ/3.2% YoY (from 0.8% QoQ/ 2.7% YoY) and an underlying 0.7% QoQ/ 2.8% YoY (from 0.9% QoQ/ 2.6% YoY): Our Q1 headline CPI forecast is 0.9%qtr/3.2%yr. Core inflation, as measured by the average of [...]

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For a long time I've thought that blogging is recording History for the Future. I've acted online that way for a decade now.  Even from my little corner of cyberspace you can watch the  changes easlily.  The people who love words (who also tend to put more thinking time into stuff) are finallly getting a chance to show the Merely Verbal Folk that their minds are on an equal level.  I see it daily in the bar, and love it.

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Nielsen has this week thrown a spanner into the BludgerTrack works, producing a dramatic shift on the basis of a result that’s yet to be corroborated by anybody else. The big mover is of course the Greens, who have shot up five points to the giddy heights of 15.4%, a result I wouldn’t attach much credit to until it’s backed by more than one data point. Only a small share of the gain comes at the expense of Labor, who have accordingly made a strong gain on two-party preferred and are in majority government territory on the seat projection.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 16, 2014: And so the paper market weakness rolls on. None of these charts look especially comforting and may all be forming head and shoulders top patterns. Rebar futures fell sharply too. In physical it’s increasingly as bad with the rebar recovering stalling and the Baltic Dry [...]

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Cross-posted from Tom Conley at the Big P Political Economy Asia’s rise has been Australia’s economic gain. The rise of Japan, followed by South Korea and Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other non-communist countries of Southeast Asia had provided significant export markets for Australian commodities, though not a sustained structural increase in their value. Then [...]

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Global Macro / Markets: What Drives the Complexity and Speed of our Markets? – SEC Watch new documentary: “Bitcoin Uprising” – CNBC Bitcoin Creator ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ Unmasked–Again? – Wall Street Journal The problems of HFT – Reuters North America: Obama, Michigan in talks to free up $100M to aid Detroit pension deal – Freep.com Housing [...]

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Barry O’Farrell resigned suddenly this morning. He should have declared the $3,000 bottle of wine – or possibly returned it. And now the political game has been changed in NSW.

The focus of attention should now be on the role of the network of influence peddlers.

The Eroding Power of Central Banks

By Michael Sauga and Anne Seith

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OFFICIAL! COMPANY PUBLICIST ADMITS “ABBOTT A MUPPET”.

Barry O’Farrell, an apparatchik of capital in  New South Wales, has resigned over receiving a ‘gift’ of a 1959 Grange Hermitage, a $3000 bottle of wine. In common it seems with much of the Liberal Party O’Farrell pleaded lack of memory. He had no recollection of receiving the ‘gift’. His loving thank you note to the Australian Water Holdings’ donor gives the lie to not receiving it.

Perhaps Barry put the red under the bed?

His resignation is not some great victory for the left or the working class.