Hi all, A quick note to offer guidance on the new website. As well as the layout changes that make it easier to access content for new readers, it comes with a dramatically improved sign-up and resubscription process, greatly enhanced speed, and a much better mobile experience (since 95% of traffic is now phone!). The
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spent time late last week softening up Congress for an expansion of dollar swap lines with Gulf allies. Swap lines, whether it’s from the Federal Reserve or the Treasury, are to maintain order in the dollar funding markets and to prevent the sale of the US assets in a disorderly way.
The former Turnbull Coalition government initially announced that the Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped-hydro scheme would cost $2 billion and be completed by 2021. The government increased the cost to $6 billion, then to $12 billion by 2023. The government-owned Snowy Hydro confirmed in October 2025 that the project’s costs would easily exceed its $12 billion
The electricity “death spiral” arises when demand for power declines, due in part to customers taking up solar PV, leading to higher prices to cover fixed network costs. That is, the more people that take up solar power, the faster the decline in electricity demand, and the more fixed costs must be spread over a
Steel prices have been rising, which does not make much sense. Let’s put it down to seasonality. CISA steel ouput remains down 6%+ versus 2025. Steel inventories are much higher than 2025. MySteel indexes and less bad. There is some demand trickling through from stimmies. Nonetheless, with weak exports, especially in steel, driving abundance, I
I noted last week how the construction industry has experienced an unprecedented surge in insolvencies since the COVID-19 pandemic: This surge in insolvencies was caused by a ‘perfect storm’ of factors, including material cost inflation, supply‑chain disruptions, and labour shortages, which drove up construction costs by more than 40%: Rising interest rates, which increased financing
The Australian press has gloried in the failure of American (or at least Trumpian) policy in the Middle East. But markets and economic logic tell a different story. The world may be losing its collective mind, but the United States has clearly won the war with Iran. The most obvious indicators of this victory are
Michael Hartnett at BofA describes the Trump TACO. On Love: proper collapse in Trump approval on inflation (Chart 6 – now 30%…37% economic approval, 41% job approval at/near lows); note Biden inflation approval low 28% in Jun’22 coincided with CPI up 9.1%, gasoline prices $5/gallon (3.3% & $4/gallon today…tells you there’s structural frustration on Main
This is superb analysis from JPM. In practical terms, commodity markets are always forced into equilibrium: the market must clear. For physical commodities, the daily accounting is straightforward: supply + inventory withdrawals = consumption + inventory builds. If production falls short of desired demand, the gap can’t persist. The system adjusts first through spare production
As leaks surrounding prospective policy changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount continue to percolate from Canberra to the press, the proposals have met swift disapproval from some commentators. In the latest instance of a theme that has now persisted in Australian federal politics for decades, they have been dismissed as “The
Productivity Commission (PC) chair Danielle Wood has admitted that it is “going to take decades” for fixes to improve housing supply to make home ownership more affordable, “to filter through”. Wood also admitted that the Albanese government’s fantastical target to build 1.2 million homes over five years, which is currently tracking around 27% behind its
Sydney’s and Melbourne’s house price corrections continue to accelerate. According to Cotality’s daily dwelling values index, home prices in Sydney and Melbourne have declined by 0.5% over the past 28 days, with the pace of decline steepening. Both cities have recorded their sharpest declines since early January 2025, just before the Reserve Bank of Australia
International Reading: Over 50,000 home deals collapse in weeks as panicked buyers pull out in droves in grim omen for US economy – Daily Mail How Trump’s Billionaire Money Machine Is Crushing Democracy – Fact Keepers Democrats top Republicans on economy for first time since 2010: Fox News poll – The Hill Trump’s net approval
Earlier this week, I exposed Labor MP Dr Andrew Leigh’s bald-faced immigration lies. On three separate occasions over the past six months, Leigh has erroneously claimed that the Albanese government has reduced net overseas migration by 40% from its peak under the former Coalition government. Yet, the actual migration data shows unequivocally that immigration has
Australia’s construction sector experienced a wave of construction insolvencies following the COVID-19 pandemic, as illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro: Australia’s post-pandemic construction insolvency wave was driven primarily by fixed-price contracts colliding with soaring material and labour costs, supply chain delays, rising interest rates, and weakened cash flow. This combination of factors was
TME with the charts. Crowded And Running Out Of Fuel Price is pressing into key resistance, flows that powered the move are starting to fade, and positioning is getting crowded fast. The tape feels bullish, but under the hood things aren’t confirming in the same way. This is where it shifts from chase to risk
The federal government will introduce new eligibility criteria for the National Disability Insurance Scheme as part of changes announced by Health Minister Mark Butler on Wednesday. All 760,000 current participants will be reassessed using the new criteria, and the government aims to remove 160,000 people from the scheme by 2030. Butler says the NDIS was
It is not easy keeping pace with President Donald Trump’s destruction of the world as we know it. In recent months, he has effectively torn up NATO, launched his anarcho-imperialism worldwide and, now, blockaded Persian Gulf oil from the world. This lurching around, spilling aircraft carriers into dark corners, is not some game of five-dimensional chess. It is
Australia’s federal budget uses two main deficit measures, and they differ because they treat certain transactions differently—especially asset sales, loans, and off‑budget funds. The headline balance captures all cash flows in and out of the Commonwealth government, including: day‑to‑day spending tax revenue capital spending asset purchases and sales loans issued and repaid equity injections transactions
Due in large part to geopolitical tensions and worries about energy security, fuel scab Albo appears set to kybosh the gas tax. Government sources claim that the consequences of Donald Trump’s battle with Iran have created a precarious global fuel environment, making decision-makers cautious of actions that would sour relations with important international allies. Australia
It’s best to read this article with the music playing. Yesterday’s Iran War developments were not encouraging. Donald Trump gave the order for American military to attack boats planting mines in the Strait of Hormuz and the US Navy boarded a supertanker carrying Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean. The oil will be sold off,
When evaluating any government policy, a fundamental question arises: What is the policy’s objective? Only by understanding the policy’s intended purpose can it be judged. This is where Australia’s current migration policy utterly fails to clear even the first hurdle of a meaningful assessment. Is it meant to boost productivity, end skills shortages and help
I noted on Thursday how in 2000-01, Australia’s regions accounted for 35% of the population. As of 2024-25, the latest available data from the ABS shows that the regions’ share of Australia’s population has declined to 32%. The Centre for Population’s 2025 Population Statement projects that Australia’s population will grow by 13.4 million people over
By Dr Cameron Murray from Fresh Economic Thinking I explain how a scaled variable royalty does the job of a super-profits tax while avoiding the accounting trickery in order to share risk and get a better public return from resources. Have you heard that Norway taxes their gas at 78% of profits, but Australia’s offshore gas pays
On Tuesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data showing that Victorians pay the highest state and local taxes in the nation. As illustrated below, state and local government taxes in Victoria were $6,605 per capita in 2024-25, $582 (9.7%) higher than the state and territory average. Victoria’s state and local government taxes have
In the Trump dimension, stocks only go up, all by themselves. TME with the charts. SPX Pushes Higher… Alone SPX keeps grinding higher… but the cross-asset picture is starting to diverge. Oil, vol, rates, and macro are all telling a different story, with gaps widening across the board. These setups tend to resolve one way
