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.

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.

One of the biggest mistakes one can make is expecting people, especially groups to act rationally in their self interest. South Korea is a good example of this. There are major cultural issues that have serious economic and social consequences, but there just isnt enough pressure to force change despite the extremely high stakes. In this Australia is not immune. The housing market is strangling productivity, tanking the fertility rate and undermining broader economic growth. But do people accept that change is needed, even when it comes to the value of their house? Oh my, no. The economy must be tanked into absolute oblivion and reams tore off the social fabric before many will realize the enormous harm that their chosen priority has created and propagated. Only far down the road when far more damage is done, probably when it's too late will the penny drop. Even being on course for oblivion is not enough of a catalyst for truly transformative change.

If AI and humanoid robotics are set to take huge numbers of jobs, how does it any way make sense to run a huge (per capita) migration intake. Where even its proponents admit how hard it is to get rid of temporary visa holders once they are here.

Fantastic, two more years of this please.

We have gone from a world where economic downside was a part of life and even directly confronted when necessary (Volcker, Keating etc) To one where it is avoided like the plague, even if it means blowing hundreds of billions for little good long term reason. This is part of the origin of Burnout Economics. The theory that economic downside is now so politically unacceptable that govt will gladly keep their foot planted on the accelerator while central banks slam their foot on the brakes. The problem is economic downside is never fully avoided, only deferred. And that is where Australia is now. A nation where housing market reckonings have been avoided again and again for almost two decades. Where in the process of avoiding that downside growth in the per capita private sector economy is more or less non-existent in the post-mining boom era. Now those same policymakers are trapped in a world of their own making, where there are no more good options, only less bad ones. Welcome to late stage Burnout Economics, where things get challenging until the cycle starts all over again.

There is this idea that wages can just keep rising and "catch up" with housing prices. On paper, yes. In reality, not really. We live in a massively interconnected world, that is advancing technologically by the day. And the more expensive labour in Australia gets, the more likely it becomes that jobs are lost to AI or offshoring. We are seeing this playing out at the moment and the rise of taxpayer funded employment has masked the severity of the adjustment so far. Australia lost much of its high tech manufacturing years ago and today, a car manufacturing plant in China making the exact same cars is far more efficient, particularly dollar for dollar than those in Europe. But it was thought that the so called "knowledge economy" and white collar jobs were safe, but now they are the most exposed. Yet we have a system that drives people to demand much higher wages to keep up with house prices that detached from household earnings years ago. So in an attempt to acquire something as simple as shelter, particularly shelter that reflects one's level of income relative to the median, Australia is increasingly pricing itself out of the global marketplace. Ultimately, the resilience seen so far is not going to last forever and people can forget about wages catching up with housing costs without it crushing competitiveness in the process.

Meanwhile we had the ABC pushing a 'Who will drive the Uber's" narrative in response to proposed migration cuts in recent weeks. Absolute peak modern Australia. h/t @88888sAccount

I dont think a lot people truly grasp how much social mobility in terms of housing has been absolutely decimated. In 1999, you could afford to buy a median house in every capital but Sydney on a median household income, in some cases absurdly easily. Today, a place like Albury is unaffordable and in price to income terms is roughly in the same ballpark as California. Dual income households in the top 20% of earners are today fighting tooth and nail for homes in same percentile that a bus driver and a part time canteen lady were buying at a canter at the turn of the millenium. And it is entirely underappreciated what a major social issue this is. If you cant build a decent life even with hard work and a huge income relative to the median, whats the point especially after all that tax.

There are so many lessons other nations including Australia can learn from the events in France. But for a start. - Ever larger govt that crushes productivity growth ends horribly and cant easily be turned off - Having young hard working people have little path to their lives reflecting that hard work and relative income affluence is a massive mistake - All migrants are not the same when it comes to integrating, they never were - Poorly targeted migration or migration focused on some nonsense modelled outcome, that lacks adequate consideration of real world outcomes both present and future is foolish. Once these mistakes are made, they cannot be fully undone, so its best not to make them in the first place.

The lengths that will be gone to in order to keep migration far too high and of no net benefit for the average Australian...