Way back in June 2020 when Guy Debelle was still employed by Australia’s Reserve Bank (RBA), he made a speech in response to market jitters over the unprecedented expansion of bank credit. He said it would not lead to inflation.
In November 2021, the RBA Governor Lowe said he wasn’t expecting inflation to hit the 2% to 3% pa target range until late 2023 and so there would be no interest rate increases in 2022 but maybe there would be in 2023.
Continue readingWoke won’t survive economic rationalism. That is, reality. When push comes to shove, woke will be shoved aside as keeping the heating on will be paramount. Sooner the better.
This person is giving leading modellers a bad name.
Oh dear. The Australian Energy Market Operator has suspended the market. The Operator says the market was “impossible to operate”. Does this constitute a market failure? It’s definitely a failure of something.
I say it’s not a market failure. That’s because it’s not a real market. The authoritarian left often decries market failure as reason for Government intervention in all manner of ways. Well, here’s an example of a highly restricted and distorted pseudo market failure right in front of our eyes at a time when the energy supply is tottering on the verge of blackouts.
The reason for this failure is precisely due to years of Government intervention, mismanagement and lies. Goodness knows what happens from here, but mark June 2022 as the month in which the creaking facade masquerading as an energy system in Australia crumbled.
Update from 17 June, 5:30 pm AEST: coal and gas are currently producing 78% of Australia’s electricity supply.
We need more renewables, obviously. Look at the contribution to Australia’s energy supply over the last 48 hours. After decades of subsidies to promote windmills, solar panels, hydro schemes and biofuels, the total output of renewable sources is woefully tiny. Not enough subsidies, I expect.
Price inflation data for May 2022 was released yesterday in the US. Over the full year to end May, the consumer price index increased by 8.6%. The AFR reports that this is the highest 1 year increase in 40 years. The stock markets reacted badly. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 2.7% and the NASDAQ lost 3.5% in value.
That stocks have been broadly overvalued is well accepted. Part of the reason supporting high valuations was low discount rates. A year ago, the average P/E ratio on stocks in the S&P500 was over 37. Today, it is 21.5. That reduction will have been largely driven by recent market sell offs and revaluations with higher discount rates as yields on debt markets increase. But 21 still looks expensive. I’m not sure I want to pay $21 to buy a future earnings stream of $1pa. With the high likelihood of further increases in discount rates plus risks to underlying earnings owing to economic malaise, the P/E ratios are under pressure both on the top line and bottom line.
I’d expect there is more red ink to come.
Oh wait, that’s old. 33 years and counting.
It must be rather gloomy working at the UN.
The best way to succeed in business is to give the customers what they want. This announcement from Rio Tinto clearly pleases one campaigner from the Conservation Foundation, but I’d be surprised if she is a Rio customer.
Rio customers looking for a supply of aluminium that is high quality, reliable and low cost are unlikely to be pleased with the outcome of this decision.
I can’t imagine that there is anybody left, anywhere in the world, who still believes zero COVID by lockdown, mass testing, contact tracing and so forth is possible.
Consequently, this latest action from the Chinese Communist Party cannot have anything to do with a pandemic response. It’s not about the virus. It’s much more likely to be about maintaining power and crushing dissent. The virus is just the excuse.
Further to the non COVID excess mortality data in Australia that I assessed at this post, data from the US is well established in a similar vein.
Australian Actuary 