Blogotariat

By Leith van Onselen In last year’s member’s report on Perth property, released in July, I warned that risks were building fast and that the market faced a repeat of the mid-1970s experience, whereby dwelling values retreated by 30% in real terms over an eight-year period: Risks continue to build for the Western Australian economy,

The post Get out of Perth housing now appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

It appears Colin Barnett’s ineptitude is to be rewarded, from the ABC: Treasurer Joe Hockey has given a strong indication that the formula for dividing GST revenue amongst the states will be changed. …”Clearly it is unfair to have one state receiving less than one-third of the GST paid by its citizens,” he said. “Its

The post Barnett bailout the new model for economic reform appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Click to view Core Logic-RP Data’s latest weekly housing market update, which provides a useful snapshot of the housing market as at 19 April 2015. This week’s report includes: Latest weekly dwelling value results; Auction results & clearance rates; Latest median house & unit prices; Average time on market & vendor discounts; Mortgage market activity;

The post RP Data weekly housing market update appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

After several weeks of curve steepening, the Australian bond curve is once again flattening, broadly thought to be indicative of weakening growth. Short and long yields have been rising but the short end more so as doubts grow around a May rate cut: The to 2/5 year slope is now just 11bps, only 2 points from

The post Australian bonds are cheap appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Main stream media is currently in self-congratulatory mode. The Daily Examiner 14 April 2015:Who had the power to help reduce street violence by 40% in Australia's biggest city? Who made Queensland's Government aware of the need to protect local jobs and forced them to backtrack on allowing 100% fly-in, fly-out workforces? And who is on the cusp of significant changes to domestic violence legislation that will better protect women?The answer?

Here are the iron ore charts for April 17, 2015:    Spot was firm, following paper with Tianjin benchmark up 70 cents to $50.70. Dalian closed up 1 point but fell 3 points to 392 overnight. Rebar has loosened again and port stocks fell a lousy 200k on the week. Texture from Reuters: “Those mills

The post Daily iron ore price update appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Cross-posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks. Another article, this time from China Finance Online (CNFOL), argues that property price increases will fade in the coming weeks. Developers remain skeptical of a major rebound, with many seeing govt intervention as helpful, but unable to reverse a market that has, in their view, permanently shifted, iFeng: 楼市一大信号证明房价不会大涨

The post China BTFD appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Markets appeared to take fright at US inflation Friday night but for no obvious reason. Headline CPI is above the Fed’s target but has been for months. More significant are the analytical measures, from the Cleveland Fed (chart from Calculated Risk): According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.2%

The post US inflation remains soft appeared first on MacroBusiness.

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

This post compiles some reaction to the Federal Government’s recent announcement of the successful tenders for 28 of the 31 Primary Health Networks (more details here; map of boundaries here - or see the list at the bottom of this post). The PHNs...

Read more on the blog...

To be in public life you need to have a sense of self-belief. How else would you cope with those that feel they can criticise your actions, private life, as well as decisions you have made in the past? ‘Stars’ such as elite sports professionals, actors, performers and so on can demonstrate that they excel in their field of endeavour. While you personally may not like how people like Michael Clarke or David Bowie perform their job, there are plenty of people that do — and they are entitled to their opinion. ‘Stars’ also usually keep their public pronouncements to areas where they have demonstrated expertise and considerable knowledge.

And you thought Woolworths’ exploitation of Anzac Day was bad. Wait till you see what News Corporation did over the weekend. Chris Graham explains.

While their philosophy remains to cut spending and lower taxes, the Abbott government are unlikely to produce an equitable budget.

As John Daley of the Grattan Institute put it,

“If you try to fix on the spending side, you only hit the bottom half. If you fix on the tax side you more or less hit the top half.”

Abbott and Hockey recently attracted the ire of the business community for scrapping the planned cut to company tax.

Why did I choose Robert Mapplethorpe as the subject for this essay? On my library shelves sits a book titled “ Image of the Body “( Michael Gill ) and its cover is adorned with a photograph by Mapplethorpe entitled. “ Ken and Lydia and Tyler 1985 “The work is of a group of three people. A white female one black and one white male. I have always been absorbed by this photograph.( above left.)

Note. Quotations in italics are by the artist.

Robert Mapplethorpe was born in November 1949 of English and Irish parentage in Floral Park, New York a suburb of Long Island and grew up a Roman Catholic.