Labor's primary vote has collapsed to be down over 47% in an electorate (and its predecessors) it has held since their inception almost 40 years ago.

I just checked the view count on this video this morning and this is huge. People really liking the Australia vs Kiwi housing price comparison. A big thanks to all who support my work and watch my content 👍 youtu.be/DVTAghS-1vw

As Albanese and the govt calls to "Turn down the temperature", the RBA is consistently being attacked for doing its job. Despite the fact that economists, including some of the most prominent in the country hold the view the RBA is entirely correct. Its rather disingenuous claiming to want to fix discourse, then poison it at the same time with pro-government narratives when domestically derived inflation is clearly the bigger driver of Australian inflationary pressures, by even the ABS' own analysis.

I have seen some people comparing some bad new build Australian houses and apartments with Favela's and Shanty Towns overseas. This is entirely unfair. The Favela's and Shanty Town homes will easily outlast their Australian counterparts.

While I was disappointed with their later games, Bioware made some amazing games in their day. Games like Mass Effect that in their updated form are absolutely top tier to this day. Or Knights of the Old Republic which quite literally created another version of the Star Wars universe. Even Mass Effect Andromeda may have been salvaged if given the same treatment as Cyberpunk 2077 after its disastrous launch. But by then the Bioware that was great was gone, there simply wasnt the willingness to fix their mistakes. I hope that their great franchises, KOTOR, Mass Effect etc find new homes that will do them justice and that the stupidity that led Bioware to its end will not be repeated in other great studio's.

When you consistently piss away money and resources on BS you end up with this and potholes in your roads...

Wow, my latest video on YouTube is absolutely taking off with over 1.1k views in less than 2.5 hours. It charts the first 4 months of Australia's price falls at a 5 capital city level vs NZ during its housing crash. youtu.be/DVTAghS-1vw

There are an enormous proportion of major defects in new builds. Policymakers know this. We have data that shows huge issues particularly with high rises, driving huge remediation costs and collapses in property values. I have discussed this with several experts and they suggest its a huge blindspot for public data in terms of the real world implications of these issues and the additional strata costs imposed on owners. We know that more dodgy homes are being built by the day enmasse. Yet the fantasy persists we are somehow going to build enough quality homes to last the test of time. When in reality a larger and larger number of new homes will not result in net additions to dwelling stock as garbage is torn down and existing homes reach the end of the lifespan.

Confucius once said: "Housing will never be truly affordable if a small block of land 90 minutes from the CBD costs ~5x income and you can hear you neighbour next door when they take a piss"

The idea that interest rates can't be trusted to bring down inflation is really quite weird. It can be almost guaranteed that high enough rates can bring down inflation on reasonably long time horizon. The only question is the other side effects that occurs in the process.

Yep and it doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever. Some have simply taken on a deeply religious level of fervor in pursuit of their ideology, which has far too little in common with reality.

On a scale of 1 to Nicki Minaj becoming White House Press Secretary, how crazy is your timeline...

The country is already paying and it will for a long time to come. Politicians and their supporters can attempt to rationalise things however they please, but the perception of the electorate is everything. And the data shows that perception is largely accurate.

Australia's stimulus program at the next recession......

Amidst the debate surrounding migration levels, I have had several people cite the AFR article from the pandemic era talking about dishwashers allegedly being paid $50 an hour. So let's explore that shall we. If dishwashers were suddenly being paid $99k per year over a protracted period, you would see all manner of unskilled individuals (or even some skilled ones) move into washing dishes. After all why would someone work their ass off in a dead end job in cleaning or aged care for less money, when they can earn above median full time earnings. It's here that Australia has a good insight into what can be challenging work and labour market economics, which comes from the RBA. Amidst the enormous rise in healthcare employment (Chart 1) and superior relative wage outcomes in the sector for some workers, it has been sucking in labour from other industries. As Chart 2 illustrates, this has occurred across every industry to vastly varying degrees. It's clear in the data that the healthcare sector is pulling in employees from other elements of the economy at quite a pace, far outstripping those coming to or back to the sector via previously being unemployed. In short, basic labour market economics are working. The healthcare sector is demanding additional workers, it is paying the wages required to get those workers from other industries and the labour market rebalances accordingly. It's absolutely true that labour market rebalancing takes time and can throw up challenges, but that doesn't mean it should be avoided. That is part of how productivity is enhanced in a well functioning economy, in an ideal world the labour goes to the jobs and industry where it can produce the most relative value, whether it be social or economic. Graph source: rba.gov.au/publications/smp/…

This is what a property bust looks like when government and central banks aren't riding to the rescue when price falls start to reach mid to high single digits (aka Australia in almost every property downturn in the last 40 years)

There is a common narrative that job X or Y is low paid, and needs to be paid better. Well okay. Why isnt it being paid better? In anything approaching a free market economy on a long enough time horizon, wages will rise to a level that ensures demand will be met or productivity will rise so more can be accomplished with less labour. But when you have a massive artificial expansion of the labour force in an age demographic, say 20-30 years of age, its unsurprising that there is now more supply than demand for these roles, suppressing wages growth. Throw in that at the average temporary visa holders are exploited and underpaid according to some studies, why would an unscrupulous business owner pay more When there is a large supply of additional labour, that is heavily exploitable. Its basic supply and demand level economics, and if the current economic strategy worked as advertised, we wouldnt have had near 0% growth in the private sector economy in per capita terms foe the last 14 years.

Auction results - Sold To Listed - Sydney 24.6% (30.8% last weekend) - Melbourne 40.9% (36.7%) Sydney absolutely collapses to its worst result since my records began. If this is reflected in SQM's results come Tuesday, this is a market deeply in trouble. Melbourne a strong bounce vs last week and a massive divergence developing between the two cities. Although to what degree the now required auction disclosure rules in Victoria could be boosting clearance rates is unclear. Overall auction volumes in both locales remain depressed compared with this time last year, which is playing a major role in supporting the market. Without this factor results would be significantly worse. If you want the normal full round up let me know in the comments, I'm out for the night. Both cities markets remain in a deeply challenging place and on these numbers within the zone of major price falls. Methodology in graphic below. I produce this data entirely unpaid, so if you would like to make a one off contribution to support this effort you can do so here: buymeacoffee.com/tarric #AvidAuctions