Blogotariat

Goldman wraps a Q1 dud. Nominal retail sales rose 0.3%mom in March, broadly in line with expectations (GSe: +0.2%mom, BBG: 0.4%mom). That said, the details were softer, with ex-food sales broadly flat for a second consecutive month. The quarterly data were also weaker than expected, with volumes flat in 1Q2025 against expectations for an ongoing

The post RBA to cut as retail slumps again 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.

Australian households are suffering their longest recession in generations. The Q4 national accounts, released in March, revealed that real per capita household consumption fell for an eighth consecutive quarter. A steep decline in household incomes is behind the fall in consumption. As illustrated below, real per capita household consumption had declined by around 8% from its

I have written several pieces about the Liberal Party branches being taken over by the religious in most of the Australian states. It seems to have started in Victoria1,2, and quickly spread to other states with Western Australia2,3, Queensland2  and South Australia4,5  having fallen to the religious. The only holdouts seem to be Tasmania6  and New South Wales7.

Australia has said no to Trumpism, no to nuclear and no to a vision of a country in perpetual fear. A triumphant Labor government must now rise to the occasion.

The coalition's nuclear power plan "bombed at the ballot" and is now off the table, climate action and renewable energy groups say.

RT has released AI-generated footage of Winston Churchill highlighting the crucial role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi Germany and other Axis powers.

There are hints of the trade shock landing on China but they are so far minor. American freight route costs have pancaked. But freight volumes are still fine. Perhaps as dumping elsewhere begins. Ahead is a problem. With some offset already accelerating on the ground. It’s not going to be a banner year for China.

The post Trade shock yet to hit China appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Australia's socialist leader Anthony Albanese cruises to election victory thanks to anti-Trump bump - just six days after same happened in Canada

Australia's socialist leader Anthony Albanese has cruised to an election victory in a remarkable turnaround fuelled by the so-called anti-Trump bump.

Leaders who oppose world domination by the Coalition met in Brussels on November 17 – 18, 2005. They were invited by Voltaire Network to attend the first Axis for Peace International Conference. Political leaders, diplomats, military officers and opinion makers spoke out based on their own experiences and facts, and not based on the issues represented by the Bush administration in the media.

Imagine how this would have been reported if Russian soldiers had executed Ukrainians in this way. Not like this, you can be sure.

Here is yet another example of stunningly craven journalism from The Guardian, entirely illustrative of what is going on across the British establishment media in its coverage of Israeli war crimes in Gaza for the past 18 months.

Good morning, I have been writing this blog post after getting home to wrap my own head around the scale of the count. I expect I will have some issues with the website’s accessibility today, so some of this may also be posted over on Tally Room in Exile, my backup blog.

Firstly, it appears that there has been a significant increase in the number of contests involving minor parties and independents, but it will be some time before we can say how many seats are now non-classic.

Polls have just closed on the east coast.

You can discuss the election results here tonight.

I won’t be liveblogging tonight – I’ll be helping with the ABC’s election coverage. But I’ll be back on Sunday with some written analysis and a podcast.

I suspect the website may struggle with traffic tonight, but I am just going to let it cope as best it can.