Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
This is an edited version of a live discussion with Leith van Onselen, Chief Economist at Nucleus Wealth and Co-founder of Macrobusiness as we pick apart the latest economic myths across property and the economy.
Original show is here: https://youtube.com/live/bT-hxYrjJ1A
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Demand for a place to live remains very high, driven by population growth from mega-high migration and low but perhaps improving vacancy rates in the rental sector. We know that roughly one third of households own their own property, outright, one third own with a mortgage, and one third rent. Those in the last two categories are expanding, while those who own outright are shrinking as a proportion of the total – though with some state variations.
Over recent decades, the Government has effectively outsourced the provision of rental housing to the private sector, via mum and dad investors, who get considerable tax breaks to hold property for rent, and more recently though the rise of the so-called build to rent sector, which is being held out as a solution to the lack of property for rent.
The critical question is do we want to go further into the mire of neo-liberalism and let big international investors build homes to rent in Australia, with rents that according to Cameron Murray are typically higher than local providers, while offering even more tax breaks, to corporates, or should the Government get back into the home building game, (see my discussion with Elisa Barwick yesterday) through a public bank, and also dial back migration to a sustainable level. Ideology apart the answer seems obvious, and yet… they still want more migrations to pump GDP and more build to rent to meet a housing target which was built in fairy land.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
In today’s deep dive, Elisa Barwick from the Australian Citizens Party shares her research on why housing has become so expensive, and what can be done about it. But this is not the normal discussion of high migration or currently government policy, rather it sheets the cause to a chapter of history dominated by neo-liberalists, austerity and the rise of technocrats who still now dominate our lives.
Links to Elisa’s research:
https://citizensparty.org.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/neoliberalism-home-ownership.pdf
https://citizensparty.org.au/sites/default/files/2024-05/hijacking-australian-banking.pdf
https://citizensparty.org.au/sites/default/files/2024-04/kennett-austerity.pdf
https://citizensparty.org.au/sites/default/files/2024-01/austerity_series-sm.pdf
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Another outing with Journalist Tarric Brooker, as we pick over the latest data, with a focus on what is happening in the real economy. We also discuss the real race many are running in terms of no real income growth, and the political and economic implications of this ahead.
You can find Tarric’s charts at https://www.burnouteconomics.com/
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
This is an edited version of a live discussion with Dr Cameron Murray, Independent Economist over at Fresh Economic Thinking.
Fresh Economic Thinking is Australia’s newest think-tank, with independent and insightful takes on major economic debates.
Cameron thinks economics could be much better than it is so he often writes very fine technical critiques of economic theory and comments on the nature of the profession. He specialises in property and housing markets, environmental economics, and corruption. I dabble in just about everything: macro, money, institutions, evolutionary economics, and more.
For the past four years, he was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Henry Halloran Trust at The University of Sydney.
https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/ for our One to One Service.
Well, last week we got a glimpse of the vulnerability of global IT systems, including payment systems, the latest and perhaps most significant of a chapter of accidents, ranging from banks systems going down, through to disruption from floods and fire, when only physical payments in cash were accepted. US cyber-security firm CrowdStrike said it was responsible for the mayhem, which started on Friday after sending a ‘defective’ update to machines running Microsoft apps. Microsoft has suggested customers try rebooting their computers 15 times to resolve the issue.
The IT outage prompted federal politician Bob Katter to demand cash remains in circulation amid the “danger” of relying on digital technology. “This a wake-up call that the risk associated with a cashless society is too high for us to pay,” Mr Katter said.
According to a recent online survey, titled Cashless Future 2024’ while fewer payments may be made in cash these days, Australians are still expressing serious concerns about heading towards a cashless society. Seven in 10 say they’ve concerned, while two in five Aussies are extremely concerned about notes and coins becoming relics.
Significantly, even people who don’t use cash can be concerned about moving towards a cashless society for reasons including privacy concerns, security risks and dependency on technology. This includes concerns about their transaction data being tracked and analysed by corporations or government agencies, and digital payment systems can sometimes be vulnerable to technology outage, hacking or fraud. A recent report said: “Concerns about technological glitches, network outages, or power failures could lead to worries about being unable to make payments in the absence of cash.”
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Households will see Inflation around for much longer than expected and while the pressure on households continue to build, so does distrust across the economy in Australia, according to data from the IMF and a special Roy Morgan End of Financial Year webinar.
Despite the better-than-expected US inflation figures, the International Monetary Fund in its quarterly update of the World Economic Outlook just warned that momentum on global disinflation had slowed, largely due to ongoing elevated rates of services inflation.
For example, the latest data today for the UK showed that The Consumer Prices Index inflation unexpectedly stays at 2% in June, higher than economists predicted and causing a paring of bets on when the Bank of England will cut rates at its next meeting. The news sent the pound above $1.30 for the first time in a year. Services inflation that has been a special focus of the BOE was also unchanged at 5.7%. Economists had expected the headline rate to drop to 1.9%, while the central bank had forecast services at 5.1% by now. Traders pushed back bets on a rate cut next month, pricing in a roughly 30% chance of a move on Aug. 1, down from almost 50% yesterday.
In Australia, the June quarter consumer price index on July 31 will be decisive in determining whether the Reserve Bank of Australia will be forced to deliver a 14th interest rate rise at its August 6 board meeting. With underlying inflation running about 4 per cent, markets are pricing in a 16 per cent chance the RBA will raise the cash rate to 4.6 per cent, from 4.35 per cent, when it next meets. That said, bets on another rate rise from the RBA eased over the past week as bond markets rallied on the back of an outright decline in the US consumer price index, though I think the read across from the US by the markets is over done.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
Back in 2021 the Census revealed a shocking “one million homes were unoccupied”.
But now we have a new survey from economic research organisation Prosper Australia, looking at empty homes in Melbourne from 2019 to 2023. The report SPECULATIVE VACANCIES 11 makes the point that while around 30,000 people in Victoria have no home, it is hard to quantify the number of homes that have no people. This they attempt to do.
To access vacancy, Prosper measures vacancy rates across metropolitan Melbourne using data from Melbourne’s three water retailers – Yarra Valley Water, South East Water and Greater Western Water.
They found that of the 1.9 million dwellings with active water connections in the study area, in total 97,861 dwellings sat empty or under-used over the entire year: 5.2% of all dwellings in metropolitan Melbourne, or one in 20 homes. These vacant dwellings represent a huge pool of valuable resources not being used productively. At the average household size they could accommodate over 250,000 people.
If this were replicated across Australia, it could be there are sufficient spare homes to meet current need! This should be a top political issue, but one no-one wants to touch!
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
Continuing my occasional series with George, where we go deep into tin-foil hat territory, we chat about democracy, and power, and how corporations interact with Governments and international non-governmental organisations, like the UN and WEF, and how this impinges on our lives.
Who are politicians working for really?
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
When I landed in Australia in 1995, I was immediately struck by the concept of a “fair-go” being right at the heart of the Australian psyche. But more recently it appeared to me that this was becoming something of a myth, as inequality and poverty started to expand and impinge on people who previously were able to get on, buy and house, and enjoy the Australian dream.
The Productivity Commission just released a research paper titled “Fairly equal? Economic mobility in Australia” and make the point that Inequality is a serious concern when people at the bottom of the income distribution cannot meet their basic needs or where they experience the stress of economic insecurity. And inequality is a serious concern when it limits people’s future opportunities. The countries with the highest inequality are also the countries with the lowest intergenerational mobility, with children from poor families more likely to be poor themselves.
https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/fairly-equal-mobility/fairly-equal-mobility.pdf
The truth is the fair-go ideal is dissipating, and people are becoming less mobile economically speaking. Those with wealth in the family will enjoy the benefits, but a larger proportion of people are stuck in a poverty rut, and have few ways to escape. Bye-Bye Fair Go Australia.
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
