Everything is awesome on risk markets again as the US government shutdown appears over due to some spineless and feckless Democrats (but I repeat myself) bend the knee in the Senate. Wall Street rallied taking back most of last week’s losses with other stock markets following suit. This will probably last until the Supreme Court
In the ongoing debate surrounding the Australian economy, there have always been and will continue to be defenders of the current economic strategy, whatever it may be. Historically, it was one of backing industries, boosting home ownership and strongly targeted migration. This strategy, for the most part, had goals that both sides of the political
In 2023, the media in Australia and around the world became enamoured by research claiming that ‘upzoning’ planning changes introduced in Auckland in 2016 had resulted in a building boom and lower home prices and rents. I showed at the time that the research was inaccurate because it used a “biased sample” to skew the
Risk markets in Asia are responding positively to possible news that the Republican shutdown of the US government may finally be coming to an end with the Senate passing a spending bill. Futures for Wall Street and undollars like gold and the Australian dollar have gapped higher as well with the latter leaping above the
IEEFA wants Albo to waste another $1bn on green iron. As Australia pours $1 billion into its Green Iron Investment Fund, it can learn important lessons from the US and EU, where several low-emissions steel projects backed by capital grants were subsequently cancelled or delayed. Projects with a “gas first, green hydrogen later” approach struggled,
China printed a bit of inflation in October, but it was pretty obviously seasonal. There is bugger all momentum in prices. The PPI was worse, though it also fell over the line in the month. Anti-involution has dented deflation but it is temporary. Bloomberg has some great charts on the great deflation. Rise of
It is time to shutter the ABC. Flag burning should be criminalised, immigration should be capped based on housing supply, and the ABC and SBS should be sold and replaced by a taxpayer-funded broadcaster only for regional and outback Australia, according to resolutions to be debated at the Liberal National Party’s state council this weekend.
Last week, I reported an AFR analysis of 16 financial reports from federal agencies, which revealed that 14 had unbudgeted increases in staff expenses totaling $841 million. Budget watcher Chris Richardson warned that the wage blowout could threaten the federal budget’s March forecast of a $42 billion deficit for this financial year, as could the billions
With the election of Zohran Mamdani to the office of Mayor of New York, an event thought practically impossible just a few decades ago has come to pass: the most populous city in the United States and the centre of the financial world has an avowed socialist as its mayor. His victory speech possessed themes
OMG. The economists are panicking. “Interest rate cuts are off the table,” Mr Bloxham said. “The problem is that productivity is so weak that supply is constrained. So as input costs such as labour and energy rise there is no equal increase in output.” UBS economist George Tharenou said the underlying inflation rate would overshoot