Test

The labour market contraction that I have been signalling for the last two months continued in August. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest labour force data today (September 24, 2026) – Labour Force, Australia – for August 2026 – which showed that the labour market deteriorated further in August, in that full-time…

A Daffy plan to plug a critical hole?

On Sunday (September 20, 2026), the two state elections in Germany confirmed a trend that has been unfolding for some years in fact – the polarisation of politics in nations, and, in particular the legitimisation of far Right politicians espousing views that are not inconsistent with the views of the National Socialists in Germany in…

As at September 9, 2026, the Bank of England held £489,026 million in British government gilts (bonds). Since the beginning of February 2022, the Bank has been steadily selling of the stock of gilts it purchased as part of its Asset Purchase Facility (APF) over the period March 11, 2009 to December 15, 2021. These…

There are so many dimensions of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) conversation that interest me.

In the early C19th, skilled English textile workers fearing for their future wage earning capacity launched a campaign against the automated machinery that was fast being introduced into the factory system. The initial protests in Nottingham in 1811 spread quickly to Yorkshire and Lancashire. They became known as the – Luddites – a self-appointed title…

On September 28, 1976, then British PM gave an historic speech at the Annual Labour Party Conference held in Blackpool. The speech was written by his son-in-law, one Peter Jay, who himself was mired in scandals throughout his career. For example, the nepotism allegations after he was appointed British Ambassador to the US, his wife’s…

In recent months, the mainstream media commentators have been issuing increasing lurid predictions of how the ‘out of control’ fiscal situation in Japan is killing the yen and a full-scale currency crisis was imminent, after the yen moved across the ‘fabled’ 160 mark against the US dollar. What is ‘fabled’ about that threshold is anyone’s…

I am travelling a lot today and so this is just a brief reflection on the response in the media to yesterday’s National Account release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The reaction from the mainstream media has been rather incredulous with most commentators claiming in the most lurid terms that the figures mean that…

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest – Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, June 2026 – today (September 2, 2026). This data is now starting to reflect the full impacts of the Middle East disruptions and the interest rate impacts arising from the recent hikes in rates from the RBA.…