”federal government fears that growth cannot be sustained if travellers are kept away and citizens kept at home.”
(https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/budget-plan-australia-to-open-borders-next-year-to-bring-back-migrants-20210509-p57qah.html)
Just in case you were wondering!
“Growth cannot be sustained” they say. They don’t say growth of what exactly, but that’s standard EZFKA fare – let each one assume it is growth of whatever benefits them individually.
some people will think of house prices, others of rents, others of DOGEcoin, others of wages. (Some will be right, some will be wrong, obviously – but that comes later!)
Growth. Growth is good. Who’s against growth?!
Now, to some extent, this is bluster by Joshie.
Of course he doesn’t know when borders can actually be opened either from a political or medical perspective – he is nowhere near smart enough. But he is smart to dangle this carrot to send the signal:
”continue buying property – the demand is coming in the future this is your chance to front-run the flood”
Without the promise of the future flow, EZFKA units may stop spending.
+1
Just my opinion with no evidence, but I reckon this is why there are so many FHBs entering the market now with bank of mum and dad financing.
Everyone knows the game that is being played and like you note, the next 12 (?) months is the last chance to front run it before the immigration deluge begins once again.
I don’t disagree with either of what you and Peachy are saying. What will be interesting is will the Chinese and Chinese students be allowed to come back by the CCP? If not then this will put a dent in their property prices to the moon grand plans. There’s not many rich Nepali’s coming to buy million dollar properties…
Chinese are not coming back.
Chinese government may not want them to come back, but that’s not the same thing.
the bucket’s very big and very leaky. It would take some very tough action to dissuade/prevent the Chinese students.
they will do it mate. China understands the level of pain this will cause. If geopolitics don’t improve this is baked. imo
China is probably VERY aware of the problems disenfranchised students can cause, even if 1989 is a long time ago. I suspect they won’t be placing hard restrictions on students, just recommendations.
yes, that’s my sense as well. Aligns to my rotation theory, too, for what it’s worth.
It is probably worth saying that the virus does actually present a tail risk for land prices.
Bluster and pent up demand should easily be enough for the short term, but if we continue to get no heads inflow in the medium term because the virus takes a few more years to play out, the faith could dissipate and the EZFKA leadership may not be nimble enough to respond and prompt the next rotation.
The full articue honestly could be out of the betoota advocate or something, it is surreal how much reality and sarcasm converge!
Your points above are valid although still ignore the price of credit. I think as long as it stays low and we actually don’t get inflation at say 4%p.a.+ forcing the RBAs hand it’ll be ok.
Inflation won’t “force” the rba’s hand. Not in any meaningful way because an interest rate increase would absolutely crush the economy.
I think that this is right.
RBA will only raise in any meaningful way if they have first arranged something to insulate existing borrowers and bank collateral.
Like 10-yr fixed rates at 2%, or extended interest-only. Or a sale/leaseback facility. Some sort of two-tier system to have old loans at old rates and new loans at new rates.
It doesn’t seem very easy. It is generally not easy to have two tier systems as you need a lot of work to avoid seepage/leakage (or outright arbitrage). And a lot of work is hard.
And here enters the endgame of the current system and way of thinking I would guess.
How long can we have the RBA seen to be politically neutral with inflation at 4%+ p.a. and they still leave the cash rate at 0%?
I like your two tier approach, that could be one option out and another extend and pretend and throw existing logic on its head.
The RBA could also just mandate they will ignore inflation where raising rates to combat it would theaten financial stability, which is their core objective anyway, not inflation management.
well, first we have to have the Humpty Dumpty discussion – what do you mean by 4%pa inflation in the above context?
I guess the easiest way is to just blur the boundaries around what financial stability even means. If I were the RBA this decade I’d play down the impact of any one measure such as CPI because we know pending the metric they’ll all be either running hot, or busted. That way if you redefine what financial stability is, ZIRP or NIRP cannot be debated as excessive in whatever the economic environment is.
Financial stability most likely doesn’t include sending 2 million borrowers to the wall. And all the banks.
So it’ll probably be something very big an scary (scarier than banks + 2m borrowers at the wall) that would prompt any rate raising.
RB has always had multiple conflicting mandates and hence has a propensity to “look through” stuff already that affects one mandate positively and another negatively.
Absolutely bjw678. For anyone that has studied financial mathematics, you would have learnt about convexity and low interest rates have a high convexity meaning small movements have big impacts. A small movement upwards will crush the economy. We are more likely to have NIRP than a rate increase.
Hiya,
If I’m not mistaken, the RBA has a backstop on the financial system via the committed liquidity facility; if the banks find themselves in trouble, the RBA will just take all their loans on the balance sheet. Defaulters be damned.
I’m also of the view the authorities want some inflation; how else is all this debt going to be “repaid”?
If you mean the government, they really don’t know what they want.
They want people to pay back the debt but also want cheaper wages for businesses.
There is some serious cognitive dissonance going on in the government at the moment…
I think that Marxists would point to that set up and call it one of the innate contradictions at the heart of capitalism.
If only it was capitalism.
There is so much intervention going on we’re getting further away from free market capitalism every day.
With a central bank setting interest rates they are manipulating the price of the currency, the most fundamental indicator of an economy, as all other sectors take their cue from there. If there is no free market in the currency you will get distortions and miss-allocation of capital throughout the whole economy. Goods and services will have a different price (call it more honest) in a free market compared to a centrally controlled one. That’s why socialism and communism always fail, because they think some stuffy bureaucrats in some stuffy office now more than the millions of people that set prices in a free market by freely choosing which goods and services they value most. The ones that are more valued will get a higher price and vice versa.
In stead of the big wigs seeing the wrongs of their ways and letting the interest rate flow freely, they keep doubling down.
That’s what you get when you give PHD’s the title of Honourable, they think they are infallible and start believing their own BS.
Now they have created such an enormous monster that they can’t afford to let anything flow freely, least of all interest rates. They are trying to keep so many spinning plates in the air while at the same time playing whack-a-mole; anything they don’t like or doesn’t fit their narrative will be manipulated and in doing so distorted to eventually fit. But in doing so other distortions pop up and they only make it worse every time they intervene.
The way I see it all that is left for them now is just extend and pretend, hope the financial system survives one more day and prey that it doesn’t blow up on their watch.
But the longer they keep distorting the market the worse it’s going to be when it all does blow up.
I am convinced that the last chance they had to get a more honest economy was 2009. But they didn’t let all the bad debt being flushed out and eventually propped it back up with the USD750 billion TARP bail out. All the bad debt is still in the system and has to be flushed out some time. With the trillions they are throwing around now the bad debt only keeps growing.
Capitalism means if you fail, the free market will send you a signal by bankrupting you, your business, your country. What we have now is about the furthest away from capitalism you can get.
Janet Yellen as Chair of the Federal Reserve said in 2017:
“I don’t believe there will be another financial crisis in our lifetimes.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/yellen-i-dont-believe-there-will-be-another-financial-crisis-in-our-lifetimes
Now that would be something very ignorant for me to say, let alone the person in charge of the whole gamut.
Just this one phrase should tell you that these people are stark raving bonkers. Why are we even still listening to these clowns and taking them seriously. She is presently head of the US Treasury Department.
To me it is incomprehensible that anyone that dribbles such utter stupidity would have ever had any job in any sector of economics. She should’ve lost her job right there and then, her degree in economics revoked, be made to pay back all her money ever ’earned’ as a public servant and lastly, tarred and feathered and chased out of town.
My 2 Satoshis.
Well put.
I’ve always thought it hard to see that we are in a capitalist system with so much intervention going on. And the whole idea of “capitalism” being the best of all social-economic systems is that it allocates capital better than any other system. But that only relies on the ability of individuals to be able to decide “efficiently” on where capital should go. This of course relies on the pricing signal…. and as you mention the pricing signals have become more and more distorted. Starting with central banks controlling the most fundamental price – the price of money.
As you mention I always drew parallels to the Soviet PhDs controlling the economy by fixing prices/quotas and Fed/central bank PhDs basically doing the same thing. Indeed, why should they know better than the market. Okay, apparently someone needs to step in when there a big crisis happens… but that just sows the seeds for the next one.
One other point we forget is simple bureaucracy. The fundamental principle of a bureaucrat is: “not on my watch – leave it for the next person to clean up.” Pretty much would sum up the reaction function of any senior government official – intervene now, bail everyone out, and forget about the next time, because you know, “in the long run we’re all dead.”
But per the ezfka principle (which I think I have a handle on) I’ve long since stop trying to fight this. No matter what, this regime is going to keep going and going. So follow what the wealthy do… lever up, buy 100 houses, because you’ll be bailed out like the rest of them.
Good post, Pensum!
That is what Robert Kiyosaki of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ fame did after the GFC. He went balls to the wall in debt and made out like a bandit, and good on him too.
There are a lot of smart people that know how to play this game. I haven’t got the balls nor the stomach to get into so much debt, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. I guess the technicalities are different when you do it as a corporation compared to as a private person, but still it wouldn’t be my cup of tea.
But can it keep going though? They are just printing more money every time to extend and pretend. Even 10 years ago a billion was real money, now you hear nothing but trillions, a factor of 1,000x. If this was the road to Walhalla it would have been accomplished before. Are we that much smarter now? Have we finally found the money cornucopia? I can’t be convinced that this time is different.
If you’re too big to fail you will be bailed out for as long as that is possible. If you’re small fry making money riding this insanity just be sure to get out before the music stops playing.
Am I seeing it wrong?
I guess everybody just has to play this game as they see fit, and what their stomachs let them get away with.
Apparently Peachy has balls of steel. Good on you and I hope it’ll all work out for you. Just maybe sometimes take a step back and be reminded that history is against you. But if you can get out with a nice profit then you have won the game.
yeah I don’t like debt, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night taking on truckloads just to get a couple of properties. I have friends like that. I guess they are wealthier than me.
But hey being debt free actually worked out last year in a big way for me when I had to make a big move – having no debt, no obligation to pay anyone back – provided the flexibility to take the risk. so I view not diving in and levering up a premium I pay for flexibility. I guess it might be getting a bigger and bigger cost as asset prices go to the moon, but I guess it’s ok.
otherwise yes I think it can go on forever. I view history as the constant victory of the powerful over the less powerful. you know how the cards are stacked right now, right? so…
For sure, I’m not disputing that at all. It has always been like that and it always will be.
I was more talking about the unending money printing. Hasn’t history shown that at some point people lose confidence in the currency and isn’t that how hyper inflation starts? I’m just an interested amateur and am only going from what I read here and there. And probably I am confirming my own biases so I like to hear different opinions.
Different strokes for different folks.
Some people thrive on taking risks and that is good. If nobody would ever take any risk nothing would ever get done and we would still be living in caves chewing leaves because too scared to go out hunting.
It’s similar to the people that have this urge to start a business. They love doing the wheelin’ ‘n’ dealin’, work 120+ hours a week, be on the phone all the time and doing meetings, trying to make their baby grow while they never know if they will ever be successful. These are the producers, they are invaluable as they are the people that make an economy expand.
I am probably too risk averse and am quite happy to be a worker bee that after clocking out for the day hasn’t got any worries and so am able to enjoy doing whatever I want. I, like yourself, also like the flexibility one has when not being in debt.
After the GFC I had some money and could’ve bought a house for cash, nothing fancy mind you but still. For ‘reasons’ I didn’t. But I also realised that the money printing wouldn’t stop so to protect my purchasing power I bought gold and silver, and have been doing ever since.
I’ve done alright, I’m not complaining. If I had put everything in Bitcoin I would’ve been minted. But hindsight is 20/20 vision innit?
Holey dooley – SMH comments have gone feral, scanning them can’t see a single one in favour!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/budget-plan-australia-to-open-borders-next-year-to-bring-back-migrants-20210509-p57qah.html#comments
Not much “the great success of strayan multiculturalism” there……
14 mentions of the word “ponzi”!!!!
You’re right – there’s a lot of comments and they’re pretty much all feral.
Hopefully Joshie has his hounds going through and taking down names.
ahhh so the real love of the closed borders reveals itself.
although I can’t blame anyone… back to the pre pandemic levels of immigration, what was that, 3% a year, the size of canberra?
They normally don’t allow comments for articles about immigration.
The 3% a year was for Victoria. Pretty much has destroyed the liveability of Melbourne in less than a generation. I think the size of Canberra each year.
they had to open the comment section again as people stopped reading their crap. In the last few years no MSM was allowed to publish anything that criticises high immigration.
That’s quite interesting. I hadn’t realised that this dynamic had played out!
well they were writing opinions while not allowing for readers to express their own. So people saw this as brainwashing and stopped reading.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-11/hairy-ghost-pipefish-holy-grail-for-amateur-photographer-reef/100129070
chabuduo muthafuckas!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9559337/Tourist-left-dangling-330ft-air-glass-bridge-shatters.html
Love those Chinese building standards.
and how many high rise building are being built by the same mob here in Australia? Next 5 years will be interesting to watch when buildings start to be evacuated and rendered unsafe.
This is hilarious. A Brisbane carpenter touted as a real estate mogul calls out the article as a fabrication.
https://twitter.com/therealdale/status/1391348727135105027
Can see that closing these institutes might might offend Beijing who have already warned their students against coming to Australia.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/china-backed-confucius-institutes-face-closure-under-veto-laws-20210423-p57lvo.html
The institutes, which are hosted by 13 Australian universities in partnership with Chinese universities, have come under scrutiny from the federal government amid concerns they function as a plank of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda effort.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne last month warned “further decisions” were forthcoming as she exercised new veto powers to terminate Victoria’s controversial Belt and Road agreement with China, as well as two education agreements made by the state government – one with Iran and one with Syria.
Why did people think otherwise? All sides are wedded to it.
Labor and Greens want unlimited grannies
LNP want unlimited low skilled workers and students
One Nation wants white immigration
SAP want no one offended and are now a NIMBY party
The way to prosper in EZFKA is to invest in property that houses the first two groups above or buy shares benefitting from moar and moar immigration
Or to employ said cheap labour in building houses or feeding it.
Bein a bit coy about this greenacre/bankstown man’s name there DM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9560237/Man-accused-assaulting-ex-attempting-kidnap-baby-son.html
Is it Steve?
Australian men need to lose their toxic masculinity.
I had to pick something up from shopping centre in Fairfield. I have never been in that area before and decided to go for long walk to check it out. That was an experience. Every Cafe is full of men smoking and playing cards which I thought was pretty cool actually.
Probably not a safe place if you are Chinese or blonde-haired Aussie. This big guy which clearly had issues was walking around making the “slitting throat” motion with his finger and mumbling something in relation to fighting back at muslim-killing Chinese people.
DM readers don’t seem that overjoyed either
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9560829/Controversial-refugee-scheme-rolled-Australia.html#comments