Australian real wages fell by a record 7.3% between mid-2020 and the September quarter of 2023. They have since recovered by a paltry 1.3%, leaving real wages 6.0% lower than their peak as of mid-2025. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) forecast in its November Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP) that real wages would remain
There is a problem for AI and it is serious. What mattered this week Here are 13 random observations and charts from the week that matters a lot (and some that don’t…) 1 – Testing testing 1 2 3 The 50-day moving average in S&P500 has been tested twice over the past 6 days. Will
In December last year, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil appeared on ABC’s Triple J radio to discuss the issue of housing. What followed was a confirmation of what many already believed to be true: that the Albanese government wanted ever-rising housing prices. Here is a copy of the relevant part of the transcript. Interviewer: Why don’t
The wreckers of Australian energy, and therefore living standards, as well as climate change mitigation, are shrieking like stuck pigs. At the top of the list is the corrupt Grattan Institute, sponsored by Origin. Its analyst, former Origin executive Tony Wood, famously campaigned against gas reservation in 2013. “With more than $160 billion forecast to
Chinese property is at the centre of some dark economic galaxy. Primary sales are woeful. Secondary sales are buckling. Prices are in freefall. Rent lol. Starts are now down 82% from peak Yoy. To summarise. Land sales can’t stop falling, though the fiscal pump has lifted prices somehow. The crash ahead in construction volumes remains
Equity markets have not yet gone full risk off but last week saw a lot of confidence fall out of Wall Street with a variety of causes to blame – the AI bubble, the slowing US economy due to the shutdown and tariff impacts, but also the looming release of the Epstein files. Tech stocks
Over the weekend, the nation recorded its highest volume of auctions since March, with 3,258 capital city homes going under the hammer. Despite the strong volumes, the preliminary clearance rate was 70.0%. While this was down from 71.8% last week, the result suggested that buyer demand remained robust and is absorbing the higher volumes. Melbourne
DXY had a better night. AUD is caught between fear and greed. CNY up. Gold down, oil up. AI metals look toppy. Copper H&S? The chosen one, not. EM shaky. Junk is increasingly a worry as AI issues debt. Bad signal for risk. Yields up on the US reopening. Stocks dumped and pumped again. Goldman
Claire Field, a former regulator of the vocational training sector, warned in 2022 that a large number of South Asian students were arriving in Australia in “response to the unlimited work rights now available to those on Australian student visas”, enrolling in “lower quality and cheaper vocational colleges” to live and work. The surge in
By Lucinda Jerogin, Associate Economist at CBA The unemployment rate fell to 4.3% in October from 4.5% in September. New housing lending surged 9.6% in Q3 25. Tourism and student arrival numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels. Our CommBank HSI recorded its eighth consecutive month of gains, lifting by 0.6% in October to be 6.3% higher