Blogotariat

Oz Blog News Commentary
MacroBusiness Friday, January 3, 2025 - 07:00 Source

Last weekend, I was interviewed by Radio 2GB/4BC on Australia’s housing crisis. As readers know, the Albanese government has set a target of building 1.2 million homes over five years. This target requires 20,000 homes to be built per month, 60,000 homes per quarter, or 240,000 homes a year. The record 12 month for housing construction

The post Why Australia’s housing crisis won’t end appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 78
MacroBusiness Friday, January 3, 2025 - 00:05 Source

The median forecast of 36 economists polled by The Australian Financial Review is that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will begin reducing the cash rate at its board meeting on 19-20 May. This is several days after the last possible date for a federal election. Financial markets are a little more optimistic, tipping rate

The post Labor prays for RBA rate cuts appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 276
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 16:30 Source

Chinese stock markets have had their worst start to a trading year in nearly a decade due to a relatively poor performing Caixin manufacturing PMI print. The satellite Australian bourses didn’t care as New Year hangover hasn’t kicked in yet while the Australian dollar looks fierce mild just above the 62 handle. Oil futures are

The post Macro Afternoon appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 90
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 14:05 Source

Twitter (X) user AusPolCommenter claims that the Albanese government is a “good government” because it “took 66 promises to the 2022 election. To date, they’ve delivered 27 and are in progress on 29 more. That’s 84.8% and shows it’s a government that does what it says on the tin”. In my opinion, this is a

The post Is the Albanese government a “good government”? appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 319
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 11:30 Source

In 2018, Western Australia’s per capita share of goods and services tax (GST) was increased from $0.34 in the dollar to $0.47. The increase earned a strong rebuke from then Treasurer Ben Wyatt, who labelled the increase “another slap in the face to the good people of Western Australia”, which for “the sixth year in

The post WA GST controversy masks bigger issues appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 202
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 11:00 Source

Australia’s manufacturing sector has been in terminal decline for 40 years, with the sector’s share of GDP declining by nearly two-thirds since the late 1970s. As a result, Australia now has the lowest manufacturing share in the OECD. The net zero heroes will probably be happy with this outcome given that the manufacturing sector’s share

The post Australia’s manufacturing sector bogged deep in recession appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 178
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 10:30 Source

Australia’s rental market was plunged into crisis following the arrival of roughly one million net overseas migrants over 2022–23 and 2023–24. This influx of migrants flooded a supply-constrained market, creating an acute shortage of homes. The impact on the rental market was severe, with the Real Estate Institute of Australia’s (REIA) rental vacancy rate roughly

The post Slowing population growth eases rental crisis appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 83
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 10:00 Source

Australia’s politicians and media want us to believe that climate change is the biggest environmental threat. They claim that Australia needs to meet its net zero commitments in order to prevent “dangerous climate change”, willfully ignoring the fact that Australia is a tiny emitter on the world stage and that China is the main source

Read more Views: 83
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 09:00 Source

Trading between Christmas and the New Year break has been the usual tempered affair with low volume and generally low volatility although the USD strengthened considerably and Wall Street hasn’t managed to get out of its funk. Other risk markets are equally cautious with commodities and bond markets not counting on a low volatile 2025.

The post Macro Morning appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 523
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 08:00 Source

Former Treasurer Peter Costello lashed the Albanese government’s financial management, claiming that the failure to control spending had put upward pressure on inflation and interest rates, worsened the cost of living crisis, and eroded the economy’s competitiveness and productivity. “What’s happening in Australia is that tax per capita is rising and spending per capita is

Read more Views: 86
Your Democracy Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 07:36 Source

Russia has officially ceased gas transit through Ukraine to the EU as of 8am Moscow time on January 1. Russian energy giant Gazprom announced the halt after negotiations to extend the transit agreements with Ukrainian companies Naftogaz and the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, which have been in place since 2019, fell through.

Read more Views: 514
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 07:00 Source

Late last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its annual review of Australia, which lectured Australia about major housing reform. The IMF claims that Australia needs a major policy package to deal with the nation’s unaffordable housing, saying everything from tax to the supply of new land should be on the table. “A comprehensive

Read more Views: 78
Your Democracy Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 06:23 Source

Read more Views: 83
MacroBusiness Thursday, January 2, 2025 - 00:05 Source

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) begins 2025 with a confusing economic picture that complicates monetary policy settings. The key factor preventing the RBA from cutting rates is the stronger than expected labour market, driven by the boom in non-market (government-funded) jobs. As a result, Australia’s official unemployment rate (3.9%) is tracking well below the

The post Two-speed economic data confuses RBA appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 216
Your Democracy Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - 19:10 Source

On this New Year’s Eve, billions of people will gather with friends to ring in 2025 with the hope of a better year to come.  For the first time in many years, free-speech advocates have a reason to celebrate.

read more

Read more Views: 505
Your Democracy Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - 17:51 Source

The world's richest man, Elon Musk, has sparked speculation after changing his name on his social media platform X to "Kekius Maximus". 

Read more Views: 505
xkcd.com Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - 11:00 Source

The most important quantity for meteorologists is of course the product of latent pressure and temperostrophic enthalpy, though 'how nice the weather is' is a close second.

Read more Views: 52
Your Democracy Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - 08:53 Source

Read more Views: 193
Your Democracy Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - 06:58 Source

White House aides covered up President Biden’s apparent mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency, shielding the aging commander-in-chief from the public and even rearranging his schedule after scatterbrained performances, an explosive report revealed Thursday.

 

Read more Views: 167
Cheeseburger Gothic Wednesday, January 1, 2025 - 06:12 Source

I dropped Thomas off at work yesterday. He’s banging the pans together at some burger place/cocktail bar on the other side of the river. It was a hot day, and the ferries were running slow and overcrowded because of New Year’s Eve.

As is his way, he casually dropped a hand grenade into the conversation, completely out of nowhere. He said, “There should totally be national service, but not for the military. Everybody should be forced to work for one year in a commercial kitchen.”

Read more Views: 511
Club Troppo Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 19:41 Source

Fibre optic cable in a pit

Read more Views: 277
Your Democracy Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 19:34 Source

King Charles III has delivered his annual Christmas Day message by thanking medical staff who have cared for him and his daughter-in-law Princess Kate, after they both underwent treatment for cancer this year.

Read more Views: 510
Your Democracy Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 18:18 Source

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has referred to Vladimir Zelensky as an “all-time champ” in a post on social platform X following US President Joe Biden’s announcement on Monday of a $2.5 billion US arms package for Kiev.

Musk’s remark came in response to another X user’s comment saying that the Ukrainian leader “has genuinely pulled off one of the greatest money heists of all time.”

Read more Views: 117
Your Democracy Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 18:13 Source

US President-elect Donald Trump has endorsed Representative Mike Johnson to continue on in the role of House Speaker, just days before lawmakers are set to decide on who will hold the position. 

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a Speaker on Friday, during the first day of the 119th congressional session. 

Read more Views: 490
Renew Economy Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 16:30 Source
Read more Views: 161
MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 12:15 Source

Vids         Oz New transparency law aims to deter multinational tax avoidance – ABC 2024 was the Great Divergence as young people copped an economic whack – ABC The biggest corporate scandals of 2024 were about power and control – ABC The Australian dollar could be heading to a 20-year low, on

The post New Years Eve Links and Vids: 31 December 2024 appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 537
Your Democracy Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 11:44 Source

 

They don’t make world leaders like they used to, as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned. Talking to a Kremlin-friendly gathering of journalists at his traditional end-of-year press conference on Friday, the Russian president spoke with fond nostalgia of the old gang, saying he’d like to spend more time with “people close to me”, such as the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, the former French president Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi, late prime minister of Italy.

Read more Views: 398
Your Democracy Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 09:09 Source

As geopolitical tensions escalate, the U.S. wields its most formidable weapon—not military might, but a sophisticated network of political and informational control that reshapes nations and regions to serve its interests.

 

read more

Read more Views: 98
MacroBusiness Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 09:00 Source

CoreLogic’s daily dwelling value index results for 2024 are in, showing that home prices ended the year in negative territory, pulled down by Melbourne and Sydney. In the month of December 2024, dwelling values at the 5-city aggregate level declined by 0.2%, with falls of 0.7% in Melbourne and 0.6% in Sydney more than offsetting

The post Gravity catches up with Australian house prices appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Read more Views: 721
John Quiggin Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 08:43 Source

I’ve avoided post-mortems on the US election disaster for two reasons.

First, they are useless as a guide to the future. The next US election, if there is one [1], will be a referendum on the Trump regime. Campaign strategies that might have gained the Democrats a few percentage points in November 2024 won’t be at all relevant in 2026 or 2028, let alone in the aftermath of a regime collapse further in the future.

Read more Views: 85

Pages