Blogotariat

Albo’s idiots are lying: The Australian government will have complete control over the Virginia-class submarines it plans to buy from the United States with Defence Minister Richard Marles rejecting any suggestion a deal has been done with America that the boats would be used in a war over Taiwan. Marles, speaking on ABC’s Insiders on

The post If AUKUS is sovereign, it is useless appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The last of a previous series of four articles related some of the activities surrounding the 2021 Church and State Summit convened by one David Pellowe. At that summit, Pellowe implored the audience to join political parties, while attendees George Christensen suggested that Christians should be disingenuous when running for office by keeping their real motivations covert, and Martin Iles, the recently dumped head of the Australian Christian Lobby, said that violence was a possibility1. Two years on, Pellowe is at it again, having organised the 6th Annual Church and State Summit on the 3rd and 4th of March2. So, I clearly missed the 5th.

Is it any wonder? The US and European banking crises are coming to Australia via funding costs and collapsing commercial property. Followed by another blow as recession feeds back as bad loans: A global derating of banks is underway, and Aussie versions have some catching down to do: Of particular interest is the CBA which

The post CBA bubble goes “pop” appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Over the course of this week I’ll be running through four categories of seats that seem interesting as we get closer to Saturday. Today, I’m analysing twelve classic Labor vs Liberal seats in the Sydney region.

I’ve identified ten Liberal seats and two Labor seats worth mentioning. These seats mostly lie in an arc from the south-east to the northern suburbs, arcing through the outer western suburbs.

The Productivity Commission’s (PC) latest Productivity Report (a misnomer) goes to great lengths spruiking the virtues of Australia’s mass immigration system. The PC’s key thesis is the myopic view that immigration improves the federal budget, while giving zero consideration of the impacts of immigration-driven population growth on state budgets, housing, infrastructure, the environment or broader

The latest activity indicators from Goldman show a decent recovery. Mobility is the big winner: The infrastructure pump is going flat-out still: Property, energy, and car sales have eased:   Steel production is weak, and demand is a bit better: So, what kind of recovery is it? TSLombard: China’s long-term policy priorities have been made

The post Can China save iron ore this time? appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The FOMC is on the move: The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing a coordinated action to enhance the provision of liquidity via the standing U.S. dollar liquidity swap line arrangements. To improve the swap

The post Fed cuts loom as it opens swap lines appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The December quarter’s soft wage growth data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was confirmed by SEEK’s Advertised Salaries Index, which decelerated sharply over the two month’s to January: The Q4 National Accounts also showed that average compensation of employees has fallen sharply in real terms, slumping to 2012 levels: Interestingly, the Melbourne Institute last

The post More evidence of softening wage growth appeared first on MacroBusiness.

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on.

To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such.

Plenty of sleepless weekends for regulators these days. UBS Group AG agreed to buy Credit Suisse Group AG in a historic, government-brokered deal aimed at containing a crisis of confidence that had started to spread across global financial markets. The Swiss bank is paying 3 billion francs ($3.25 billion) for its rival in an all-share

The post Australian dollar leaps on Credit Suisse rescue appeared first on MacroBusiness.

DXY fell and EUR rose Friday night: AUD popped: Oil is beginning to price global recession and gold a new GFC: Dirt did better: Miners held: EM stocks too: Junk is bleeding out slowly: Treasuries were bid bigly: Stocks fell anyway: Credit Agricole wraps us up: The SVB and Signature Bank failures as well as

The post Australian dollar boom, global bust does not compute appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The AUKUS subs plan will cost Australia way more than that

That’s the headline for my latest piece in The Conversation . Using defense procurement as a job creation policy is a really bad idea

Australian governments have a long and generally dismal history of using defence procurement, and particularly naval procurement, as a form of industry policy.