Australia’s Economy is a House of Cards

BuggedOut

BuggedOut

Well-Known Member
Silver Stacker
This is a monstrous read but well worth pulling apart if you have the inclination for it.

https://medium.com/@matt_11659/matt-barrie-australias-economy-is-a-house-of-cards-6877adb3fb2f

Topics covered :-

* Australian dependance on export to China
* Central Bank policy - Interest rates, QE and ETF Buying
* Steel, Iron Ore and Coal industry challenges
* Australian miner profitability
* Property bubble and housing affordability metrics
* Australian banks residential mortgages (% of total loans)

...and more.

Very thorough and lots of sources cited. I'd be interested to hear silverstacker members thought on it.
 
I read that a few days ago and there is a storm coming.

This footnote is it in essence:


I’ll leave you now with one final thought.

Harvard University created something called the Economic Complexity Index. This measure ranks countries based upon their economic diversity — how many different products a country can produce — and economic ubiquity — how many countries are able to make those products.

Where does Australia rank on the global scale?

Worse than Mauritius, Macedonia, Oman, Moldova, Vietnam, Egypt and Botswana. Worse than Georgia, Kuwait, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and El Salvador.

Sitting embarrassingly and awkwardly between Kazakhstan and Jamaica, and worse than the Dominican Republic at 74 and Guatemala at 75, Australia ranks off the deep end of the scale at 77th place.

77th and falling. After Tajikistan, Australia had the fourth highest loss in Economic Complexity over the last decade, falling 18 places.

Thirty years ago, a time when our Economic Complexity ranked substantially higher, these words rocked the nation:

“We took the view in the 1970s — it’s the old cargo cult mentality of Australia that she’ll be right.

“This is the lucky country, we can dig up another mound of rock and someone will buy it from us, or we can sell a bit of wheat and bit of wool and we will just sort of muddle through.

“In the 1970s … we became a third world economy selling raw materials and food and we let the sophisticated industrial side fall apart … If in the final analysis Australia is so undisciplined, so disinterested in its salvation and its economic well being, that it doesn’t deal with these fundamental problems … Then you are gone. You are a banana republic.”

Looks like Paul Keating was right.

The national conversation needs to change, now.
 
And Keating's recent call to action is a worthwhile update:

(The whole speech is worth reading.)

http://www.keating.org.au/shop/item...lopment-annual-dinner-sydney-14-november-2017

Yet you hear, these days, reform expressed by organisations like the Business Council as simply being about a reduction in the corporate tax rate or hopping into low paid workers by knocking off their penalty rates.



The limitedness of it is remarkable – the laziness and backwardness of it, profound.



If you had any foresight or understanding of the forces now available to promote the kinds of changes we employed in the opening of the economy thirty odd years ago – they are staring you in the face – globalisation and galloping international digitisation.



These dual forces are all about competition: competition and complementarity in the provision of goods and services through globalisation – and with digitisation, competition in all fields of products and services with the accelerating ubiquity of the global digital economy, with telecommunications and the smart phone facilitating much of it.



Digitally enabled business models are reshaping entire industries which the technology facilitates to scale faster and at lower prices.



And in reshaping those industries, bringing down monopolies, smashing market barriers, while lifting the utilisation of otherwise static and underperforming assets.



You can see examples of this with Uber and Airbnb alone.
Click to expand...
 
Hmmm... just saw this yesterday. I figured there would be a LOT more discussion on this forum about the article, frankly.

The article paints a very sobering and bleak picture – but stops at suggesting a course of action – either for the nation as a whole, or for individuals.

Would any of the forum members be willing to offer their take on this – beyond the predictable mantra of 'keep stacking', of course :P
 
Citizen said:
Would any of the forum members be willing to offer their take on this – beyond the predictable mantra of 'keep stacking', of course :p
Click to expand...

You can't go wrong with the old "reduce your debt" and "diversify your income streams" solution.
Those with debt and precarious income streams will be the ones in trouble when SHTF.
 
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At the risk of sounding traitorous I am investigating the possibility of dual citizenship. After the recent High Court rulings maybe I'm a chance!

Always good to have bug out options.

Stacking is a sane choice. If our mining industry does get screwed then the gold stocks are likely to be a bright spot (pun intended). I also like to have crypto as a diversification outside the system. Physical PMs, Gold stocks and Cryptos is pretty much my mantra right now.

If my wife has anything to do with it we'll be the ones trying to put a floor in the real estate market when it does collapse :)
 
No doubt. But if we get a big crash and the Labor/Greens turn us into a socialist basket case (ala Venezuela) then you might not feel that way.
 
My motto is
If you don't have to spend it,you don't have to earn it.
Live frugally.
E.g.
1995 ef Falcon dedicated lpg
Vanity is expensive.
 
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