The Economic Reform Roundtable is ostensibly all about productivity. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has argued that cutting red tape and speeding up approvals is the key to unlocking growth. It’s the old trickle-down idea made new again by Ezra Klein’s book Abundance: make it easier to build, and prosperity will follow. It’s an appealing story. But […]
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has cut the official cash rate (OCR) by 2.5%, with another 0.5% worth of rate cuts expected by the end of 2026. As shown below by Justin Fabo of Antipodean Macro, the fall in the OCR has reduced the cost of new mortgages, which should have increased housing demand
The post The endless decline of New Zealand house prices appeared first on MacroBusiness.
It is big. Very big. The Market Ear. But it can get bigger! Or not… A period of sorting and cleansing is underway For a time, the dominant narrative suggested that AGI was only two or three years away — that “magic AI” would emerge and rapidly take off into superintelligence. As discussed on the
The post Measuring the AI bubble appeared first on MacroBusiness.
Iron ore soared overnight thanks to Jay Powell. Unsustainable. Steel demand in China remains down year to date, but up for the week year on year. Steel production is far above last year. But this is misleading. My Steel is supposed to, but obviously doesn’t, cover EAF. Steel recycling has collapsed. In raw volume terms
The post Iron ore roars as green steel dies appeared first on MacroBusiness.
Goldman with the note. As we flagged in a note earlier this year, spending on the NDIS has risen from 0% of GDP a decade ago to almost 2% of GDP currently (~A$50bn), around double initial projections, with the overshoot largely driven by higher take-up rates among children with autism and psychosocial conditions. While the
The post The great disabling to slow appeared first on MacroBusiness.
There are two key migration data sets published by the ABS. These are regularly utilised by analysts, the media, and the government. There is the official quarterly net overseas migration (NOM) data, which is published on a six- to nine-month delay. The latest official data available is for Q4 2024, eight months ago, and the
There was the Henry Tax Review, left gathering dust on the shelf. Now, there is the heavily prescribed Productivity Roundtable, which will do likewise. A cowardly Albo has ruled everything out. The Australian. Anthony Albanese has laid down his conditions for economic reform in an era of growing polarisation, declaring any policy changes need to
Australia is slowly transforming into 1984’s Ministry of Truth. First, we saw the Albanese government backflip and announce that Australians under 16 would be banned from accessing YouTube. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also wants to make Australia’s draconian media ban global. Albanese announced that he will promote Australia’s world-first social media age ban and encourage