Australia's economy shrank 0.5 per cent in the September quarter, well below already pessimistic analyst forecasts and its steepest decline since the global financial crisis of late-2008.

• Annual GDP growth 1.8pc, quarterly contraction 0.5pc
• Public capital spending, private building investment and net exports drive fall
• Real net national disposable income rises 0.8pc in quarter on higher export prices

The annual rate of growth came in at an anaemic 1.8 per cent, according to the Bureau of Statistics data, also below expectations.

Economists were generally expecting a slight fall in gross domestic product (GDP), with the typical forecast for a -0.1 per cent quarter and economic growth of 2.2 per cent over the year.

A range of partial figures led analysts to their downbeat predictions, with yesterday's trade datapointing to a 0.2 percentage point subtraction from economic growth, while construction data released last week were much worse than expected and business investment was also weak.

However, the final result was considerably weaker than forecast, pushing the Australian dollar down the best part of half a cent to 74.2 US cents by 11:38am (AEDT).

The final National Accounts data showed that slumping private investment in new dwellings contributed 0.3 percentage points to the GDP decline, with new engineering detracting 0.2 percentage points.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-07/economic-growth-gdp-data-abs/8099480

Voters have received a newsletter boasting about environment minister Josh Frydenberg’s commitment to green army projects just days after a report the program will be axed in December.

On Monday the Australian Financial Review reported the green army would be abolished in the budget update on 19 December, after a decision by the Coalition’s budget razor gang, the expenditure review committee.

Senior government figures including Frydenberg, prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce refused to confirm or deny the reports the program was set to be axed.

But in Frydenberg’s most recent Kooyong community newsletter the minister said he was focused on delivering election commitments including green army projects along the Yarra River and Koonung Creek. Residents received the summer 2016-17 issue of the newsletter this week.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/07/josh-frydenbergs-...

The globalisation of labour and the rise of automation has led, according to the former chief economist of the World Bank, “a crisis in the global labour market”. But Professor Kaushik Basu, in Australia to give a lecture at the Monash Business School, argues that the push by Donald Trump and political parties in Australia towards greater protectionism is precisely the wrong path to take.

Instead, governments need to focus more on distributing profits to workers.

For Basu, professor of economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University and former chief economic advisor to the Indian government, the time since the GFC has seen “one crisis after another” leading to a long period of economic stagnation. But among the biggest challenges economists and politicians have to face is that the increase of technology has spurred the globalisation of labour in a way never before encountered.

According to Basu, the big change from previous technology increases has been the “sharp rise in technology that links workers in different places”. This means that wealthy nations are now able to access “cheap labour that was earlier tucked away in faraway places”.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2016/nov/29/its-time-to...

The greatest lie ever sold is that the Australian Government can run out of Australian dollars.

This is exactly the lie Treasurer Scott Morrison wants you to believe as he rolls out the same old deception — deficit bad, surplus good — ahead of next year's budget.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter is relying on this myth as he tries to sell more cuts to the dole and other welfare benefits: by giving voters the impression that welfare bludgers are sending the country broke and that they have to be made to suffer in the cause of "budget repair".

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-08/the-great-living-within-our-means-...

see toon at top...

These geniuses remind me of Mark Twain trying to palm off the idea that “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” If the economy is so all-fired ducky, how come Americans just tossed out the party that’s claiming credit for it?

The truth is that the Obama years have been among America’s worst for the economy. His eight years will go down in history as the Great Recession, even though for much, even most, of the span, we weren’t technically in a recession.

It just felt that way. And no wonder. Obama’s is the only modern presidency that failed to show a single year of growth above 3 percent, a point Trump stressed during the campaign (and that was conceded even by the Web site Politifact).

Plus, the Obama economy failed to prosper even though the Federal Reserve had its pedal to the metal. Its quantitative easing, $2 trillion balance-sheet expansion and zero-interest-rate policy all produced zilch.

Except for pumping up Wall Street and producing what Trump calls a “false economy.” The recent declines in the unemployment rate are due less to the uptick in employed persons than to an increasing number of persons leaving the labor force.

In a “true economy” what people would boast about would be the number of employed persons rising faster than the size of an expanding workforce. In reality, the job participation rate is the lowest in decades, as millions are too discouraged to seek a job.

And the recent record Dow Jones average? It’s pumped up by the Federal Reserve. It’s nowhere near a record if the Dow is calculated in the most traditional measure of value. The gold value of the Dow peaked way back in 1999.

read more:

http://nypost.com/2016/12/07/dont-buy-the-lie-that-obamas-leaving-behind...