The July monthly inflation indicator from the ABS showed that the disinflationary impulse had broadened. The number of items in the CPI basket with annual inflation below 2% rose above the number of items with prices growing faster than the RBA’s inflation target of 3%: Last week, the Melbourne Institute inflation gauge recorded a sharp
Michael West is among the few commentators willing to call out the billions of dollars of laundered money ploughed into Australia’s property market, contributing to the current affordability crisis: As mainstream media, particularly Nine, is funded by property ads, we don’t see many stories about money laundering. But money-laundering – often wealthy foreign buyers parking
The local gas price has managed to ease slightly below Albo’s catastrophic $12Gj price floor: Only in war have we never seen spring average power prices like this: Meanwhile, the national discussion is consumed by irrelevance: Victorian households can continue cooking with gas after the Allan government moved to exclude gas stovetops from its net
After ten years of the worst central banking in the world, unable to forecast what time the sun was coming up, we will get bugger all reform: The Coalition will block Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ attempt to create a new specialist interest rate-setting board at the Reserve Bank over concerns the government could stack the committee
Why the mainstream needs to lie to itself about everything is some PhD investigation into the human condition that I do not have time for. In the case of China, the perpetual delusion is that it is exiting deflation. It is not. Yesterday’s CPI was weak despite a rebound to 0.6% year on year: But
Politicians, economists, the media, and think tanks in Australia continue to argue that a supply shortage has caused the housing crisis. They argue that the situation would be resolved if Australia built more homes. One of the ways put forward to build more homes is to import more migrant labour into the construction sector: The following
Behold the Chicken Chalmers economy via Westpac. The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index dipped 0.5% to 84.6 in September from 85.0 in August. The pessimism that has dominated for over two years now is still showing no real signs of lifting. However, the focus does look to be shifting. While cost-of-living pressures are becoming a
The Market Ear with the lastest. Choppy After the August gyrations, equity positioning is chopping modestly above average. DB Discretionary and systematic positioning Discretionary positioning – back in the range which prevailed in the first half of this year. Systematic positioning – fallen steeply and is only slightly above neutral. DB Positioning not a problem
Australian Industry Group (AiG) CEO Innes Willox has broken rank from the other business lobbies and rejected the notion that international students are the key to Australia’s future. AiG has come out in support of the federal government’s cap on international students. Willox argues that the focus of universities should be on educating Australians and
In a report earlier this year, former ACCC chairman Allan Fels and transport expert David Cousins bemoaned Transurban’s gouging of Sydney motorists. The report also urged the NSW government to regain control of the state’s toll roads. Transurban controls 11 of NSW’s 13 toll roads, each negotiated under a distinct contract and with varying price