MB sympathises with all of those affected by yesterday’s Bondi disaster. We have only one thing to add to the fury. The Levantine war has been running in one form or another for over two millennia. Yet, in the post-OPEC era, it has never been less relevant to Australia. Why has the Australian government entered
Friday night saw a large selloff on Wall Street due to tech stocks getting out of sync with reality on earnings while some hawkish talk by Fed officials saw more bond selloffs as Treasury yields pipped higher again. The USD continued its dive against Euro and gold while the Australian dollar remained relatively strong to
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will release the official population and net overseas migration (NOM) data for the June quarter of 2025 on Thursday. Ahead of this release, the latest population indicators from the ABS are pointing to rising NOM. On Friday, the ABS released monthly net permanent and long-term (NPLT) arrivals data for
The collapse in Australia’s labour productivity is well documented. An OECD analysis published in The AFR found that Australia ranked second-last among wealthy nations in productivity growth since the COVID-19 pandemic. EY’s chief economist, Cherelle Murphy, says the decline in Australia’s productivity is partly attributable to “capital shallowing”—the fact that local companies are not investing
IEEFA wants Albo to waste another $1bn on green iron. As Australia pours $1 billion into its Green Iron Investment Fund, it can learn important lessons from the US and EU, where several low-emissions steel projects backed by capital grants were subsequently cancelled or delayed. Projects with a “gas first, green hydrogen later” approach struggled,
China printed a bit of inflation in October, but it was pretty obviously seasonal. There is bugger all momentum in prices. The PPI was worse, though it also fell over the line in the month. Anti-involution has dented deflation but it is temporary. Bloomberg has some great charts on the great deflation. Rise of
It is time to shutter the ABC. Flag burning should be criminalised, immigration should be capped based on housing supply, and the ABC and SBS should be sold and replaced by a taxpayer-funded broadcaster only for regional and outback Australia, according to resolutions to be debated at the Liberal National Party’s state council this weekend.
Last week, I reported an AFR analysis of 16 financial reports from federal agencies, which revealed that 14 had unbudgeted increases in staff expenses totaling $841 million. Budget watcher Chris Richardson warned that the wage blowout could threaten the federal budget’s March forecast of a $42 billion deficit for this financial year, as could the billions
With the election of Zohran Mamdani to the office of Mayor of New York, an event thought practically impossible just a few decades ago has come to pass: the most populous city in the United States and the centre of the financial world has an avowed socialist as its mayor. His victory speech possessed themes
OMG. The economists are panicking. “Interest rate cuts are off the table,” Mr Bloxham said. “The problem is that productivity is so weak that supply is constrained. So as input costs such as labour and energy rise there is no equal increase in output.” UBS economist George Tharenou said the underlying inflation rate would overshoot