Archives for April, 2015
Economists spend a great deal of time developing concepts such as “market efficiency” and “rational behaviour”. Unfortunately, the models developed from such concepts only seem to work for economists. They don’t usually work for humans. Richard Thaler’s book, “The Winner’s Curse”, provides evidence that supports this dichotomy between economic thought…
The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (“SCFI”) measures the rate to ship containers from Shanghai to the US and Europe. For example, the rate to Northern Europe is now around USD399, per TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit), down more than 60% over the last year. It is a “companion” index to…
The current economic debate in Australian political circles is “how to fix the deficit”. Australia’s deficit as a percentage of GDP is small compared with other OECD countries. But after years of reliance on overpriced commodity exports to China, the country should be in a better position than it is. Read…
Just when the resource boom has collapsed. And manufacturing too. But at least the housing bubble is still going strong.I have just updated a post from February on Australia’s banking sector. I feel that a quote from Donald Horne’s 1964 book about Australia; “The Lucky Country” is apposite. He used…
Nature is cyclical. The Earth was born and it will die, albeit on a different timeframe to human life. Man’s economic systems are also part of the cyclicity of life. But, one of the absurdities of current economic thought is that growth can continue forever. This is hubris, in some…
This is one of the biggest bubbles in the world, in any sector. By any metric, Australian residential real estate is off the chart. We are approaching “blow off” territory. The Australian median house price to income ratio is around 7 nationally and approaching 9 in Sydney. The median house price…