For more than a decade, the Productivity Commission (PC) debunked the myth that immigration can overcome population ageing. For example: PC (2005): “Despite popular thinking to the contrary, immigration policy is also not a feasible countermeasure [to an ageing population]. It affects population numbers more than the age structure”. PC (2010): “Realistic changes in migration
Trump’s oil sanctions appear to be having some impact. Russian President Vladimir Putin remained defiant on Thursday (Friday AEDT) after US President Donald Trump hit Russia’s two biggest oil companies with sanctions to pressure the Kremlin leader to end the war in Ukraine, a move that sent global oil prices sharply higher. The US sanctions prompted Chinese
A new chapter for clean baseload power? Ocean thermal energy tech put to the test off Canary Islands
Various people are weighing in on Victoria disease and its causes. The adipose are calling for a police state. Eddie McGuire says Melbourne may need a Los Angeles-style crackdown on crime to encourage people back into the city centre. While the city remains electric at night and during major events, Mr McGuire said weekday activity
The post Diagnosing Hellbourne appeared first on MacroBusiness.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has launched a new propaganda campaign promising to make Australia a strong manufacturing nation again. Albo’s promise comes as Australia’s dying manufacturing sector has shrunk to a record-low 5% of GDP. “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has vowed to make Australia a manufacturing powerhouse again amid warnings from business leaders that local
The Coalition has long been accused of having a “women problem”: an inability to effectively engage with the nation’s female voters and identify key issues that resonate with this demographic. In terms of the hard data, the Coalition has been underperforming with women relative to men for over two decades. According to the ANU Election
If there is a substantial expansion of the size of the federal Parliament, it will be a rare event. It has only happened twice before since federation, and hasn’t happened at all in my lifetime. About two thirds of Australian voters hadn’t cast their first vote before the last expansion in 1984.
At that year’s election, the House of Representatives was expanded from 125 to 148, adding 23 new electorates across the five mainland states. Almost every seat was redrawn, and the map looked quite different aftwards.
The Market Ear says blowoff. NASDAQ – doing what it does best NASDAQ continues trading inside the perfect trend channel that has been in place since May, continuing to do what it does best: Consolidating, breaking above it, ripping higher. Buying the 50 day remains simple but profitable… Source: LSEG Workspace SPX loves it SPX
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The ferrous market is in a period of comprehensive excess that cannot last. Even AI can read a broken ferrous market now. Record-high Chinese iron ore imports in recent months create a disconnect with domestic steel production trends. While import volumes surge, steel mill output faces restrictions from profitability constraints and government-imposed production limits, indicating
Another gas reservation flag has gone up the pole today. The Albanese government is considering introducing an energy policy spanning the entire east coast that prioritises volumes of gas to the domestic market through a baseline credit system in a potential fix to ease fears of local supply shortfalls. Officials from the federal government have
The post Albo’s naked gas gambit appeared first on MacroBusiness.
As I said last time, Anthony Albanese has succeeded in making Labor the natural party of government in Australia, relegating the rightwing opposition to the role of “B team” and marginalizing the Greens and progressive independents. The cost has been the abandonment of Labor’s historic role as the “party of initiative”, pushing against the conservative “party of resistance”. Indeed, the reverse is now closer to the truth
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.
Friday night saw the release of the latest inflation figures in the US which came in relatively soft given the tariff push on consumers and importers, but it opens the door for a probable “safe” cut from the Fed in its upcoming meeting. Further talks between the Xi and Trump regimes on rare earth exports
The post Macro Morning appeared first on MacroBusiness.
Late last week, The AFR published two articles by the same author on the same day that neatly encapsulated Australia’s housing farce. First, reporter Luke Kinsella noted that all states were falling short of their agreed National Housing Accord targets, which nationally “fell 66,000 homes short of the 240,000 required to keep pace with the
The post The great housing contradiction appeared first on MacroBusiness.