This the first in a series discussing the Australian legislation banning people under 16 from using social media. I’m writing from the perspective of a longstanding user of new media and also as someone with personal experience of dealing (not very successfully) with problems of under-16 screen addiction. On the other hand, I’m not a technical expert so I may get some details wrong. I’ll be happy to accept correction on these points
The ANZ is doved up. RBA to cut cash rate by 25bp in Feb and Aug 2025 We now expect the RBA to cut the cash rate by 25bp at its February meeting. The weaker-than-expected monthly CPI indicator for November has prompted us to downgrade our Q4 trimmed mean inflation forecast by 0.2ppt to 0.5%q/q,
The post Major bank pivots to February rate cut appeared first on MacroBusiness.
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
This is not complex. Through a global lens, however, the struggles of Trudeau and his centre-left Liberal Party look far from a specifically Canadian phenomenon. Across the Western world, left-wing parties are struggling for relevance as the populist right surges in popularity. …Tom Switzer, executive director of the right-wing Centre for Independent Studies think tank,
… and I am paying for it today. Feels like I smashed out an epic weightlifting session and ran a half marathon. Backwards.
I always get this reaction to whatever Covid vaccine I have, except for the original AstraZeneca, so I planned a quiet one today. I’m going to read Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and slow-cook some lamb shoulder on the Big Green Egg. By tomorrow I should be back to normal.
An outstanding note from Michael Hartnett at BofA beautifully captures 2025 dynamics. The Biggest Picture: Treasuries entering 6th year of 3rd Great Bond Bear Market of past 240 years (Chart2); global shift to populism, rising US government debt (set to hit $40tn on 6th Feb’26, exactly 400 days into Trump 2.0), inflationary central banks; recession
The post Bond and stock shocks on deck appeared first on MacroBusiness.
Cartel King should be sacked. The Australian Government will not activate the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM) for the April to June 2025 quarter. The Minister for Resources’ decision was informed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) December 2024 interim gas inquiry report and additional information on the Western Australian gas market.
Bloomberg loves a good old Chinese booster. China said it has sufficient fiscal firepower to respond to external challenges, vowing to better execute pro-growth measures ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House later this month. The country has “ample fiscal policy room and tools to deal with new domestic and external problems,” Vice Finance
The post Chinese Titanic goes down appeared first on MacroBusiness.
The Year of the Snake begins on 29 January. Over the next couple of weeks, fortune tellers will flood the press with their views, each with as much weight and reliability as the mottos in fortune cookies.
Lunar New Year predictions for Xi and Trump By Jocelyn Chey
Wall Street reopened on Friday night but I’m sure most traders would have wanted a long weekend instead as the latest US non-farm payroll aka unemployment print came in stronger than expected, pushing USD higher against almost everything while stocks lost significant ground across both sides of the Atlantic. With no one willing to bet
The post Macro Morning appeared first on MacroBusiness.
What do Panama, Canada and Greenland have in common? Could Donald Trump be getting the US back to brass tacks, to a core strategy of dominating the Western Hemisphere? Possibly, and he may be blowing away the fraudulent rhetoric about rules-based international order, territorial integrity, international law and the crusade to expand democracies.
US President Joe Biden has attacked Meta to drop its controversial third-party fact-checking program, stating the move was “completely contrary to what America is about.”
The president addressed the development on Friday during a rare Q&A session with reporters at the White House. He sharply criticized Mark Zuckerberg’s company, the parent of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads for the move.
Peter Dutton emerged from his summer break on Sunday to launch the Coalition’s unofficial election campaign.
In a 38-minute pre-prepared speech to MPs and party loyalists at a campaign-style rally in Melbourne, the federal opposition leader framed the upcoming contest as a “sliding doors moment” for Australia.
The past few years have seen Australian households sink into a protracted recession. The Q3 national accounts, released last month, showed that real per capita GDP had declined for a record seven consecutive quarters. This decline in GDP has been driven by the household sector, which has experienced a record 8.4% fall in real per