Will 2022 be the year where the world economy recovers from the pandemic? That’s the big question on everyone’s lips as the holiday season ends and the new year really begins. One complicating factor is that most of the latest major forecasts were published in the weeks before the omicron variant swept the world. At… Read more »
Comedian Robin Williams once called cocaine “God’s way of telling you you are making too much money”. This role may now have been overtaken by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the blockchain-based means to claim unique ownership of easily copied digital assets, writes University of Canberra’s John Hawkins. The latest NFT mania involves fantastic amounts of money… Read more »
GDP is like a heart rate monitor: it tells us about life, but not our lives. How much cash would you need to be paid to agree to live without a smartphone for a year? If you are like the typical American, the answer is US$10,000 – which is far, far more than what we are… Read more »
As it hits new highs, there is no shortage of bold predictions about Bitcoin reaching US$100,000 or more. Often these are based on not much more than extrapolations by people with vested interests: the price has gone up a lot so it will keep going up. If it gets above its previous high, it must… Read more »
The share of total income collected by the top 1 per cent of Australia’s income earners has been trending upwards since the 1980s. It is now about 9 per cent of total income. How concerned should we be about this? To some extent it depends on fluidity of membership of the top 1 per cent… Read more »
Reserve Bank of Australia had a Cup Day surprise in store for the country, announcing it was abandoning its policy of “yield curve control”, meaning it was no longer going to defend any particular interest rate for borrowing over any particular duration. Until then it had a formal target for the three-year bond yield of… Read more »
What are ETFs, and why does this matter to the value of cryptocurrency? The Bitcoin bulls are racing again. A year ago the cryptocurrency was valued at less than US$12,000. Now it has passed the symbolic milestone of US$60,000, nudging the US$63,255 record it reached in mid-April, before its price fell to as low as… Read more »
If you live together and you split, your ex could file a legal claim for up to half your superannuation. Even if you’re not married. Moving in together is an exciting time for people in relationships. Likely the last thing on your mind is what might happen in the event of a breakup. But it’s… Read more »
Evidence suggests that our energy bills are significantly higher than they should be. And that’s because the Australian Energy Regulator is sleeping on the job. If you’re like most Australians, the single biggest chunk of your energy bill — about 40% — goes to a network services company, which owns and operates the transmission lines… Read more »
The Australian economy is doing well despite Delta, but 3 major economic challenges loom: housing affordability, the tax mix, and decarbonisation. This week the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published its first Economic Survey of Australia since 2018. It gives Australia good marks for a remarkably good economic response to the COVID pandemic, but… Read more »
