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Early every month Australians with big mortgages anxiously wait to find out if the Reserve Bank will raise interest rates and put more pressure on their domestic budgets. It is a bit like waiting for pronouncements from the modern day equivalent of the Delphic oracle.
The aggregate picture of the economy may seem healthy enough after two years of heavy immigration, over 800,000, and the return of students and tourists. But the elephant in the room remains. Australia is a two-tiered society sharply divided between people who own homes and people who do not. The generational divide is worsening.
But although the Coalition will never admit it, it looks suspiciously like there has been some bipartisan institutional learning about how to manage financial crises. If you want to stimulate an economy in times of crisis put the money directly into the economy, either into people’s pockets or to businesses who then pass it on to workers.
Despite the heavy focus on 'hard-hat' professions in our political discourse, Australia’s economy is dominated by its service sectors. If this is Australia’s first service sector recession, why is this not reflected in the focus of our recovery and job creation programs?
It turns out that the COVID-19 economic crisis is disproportionately affecting women — so much so that some have dubbed it a ‘pink-collar recession’. Unemployment figures show that since February, 457,517 women have lost their jobs compared to 380,737 men.
It is not difficult to imagine a scenario where the game of musical chairs in Australia will come to a shuddering end, imperilling the banks and dragging the economy into a deep recession. As we saw in the GFC in America and Europe, government money will be thrown at the banks to rescue them at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Low interest rates tend to change the understanding of risk; having high debt seems to be less of a problem because the cost of servicing it is lower. This cavalier attitude has been especially evident in Australian households, which have racked up more debt relative to the size of the economy than any other country in the world. The massive appetite for debt has been replicated across the globe. The world may have survived the era of casino money - just - but it is now facing another crisis.
My recession digs deep. In many ways I cannot take a leap as I would if I had heaps of money. How I would love to buy all sorts of goodies and never deny myself anything! How I wish I could be given a handout and make easy money, and throw money around everywhere I go! I feel myself learning the value of money the more I yearn for the dollar. In many ways it makes me feel stronger to make my money last longer, rather than constantly being lured by the dollar, and being easy fodder.
While we have have East Timorese students coming here to learn about how to look after their oil sector, Australia should be sending people to East Timor to look at their outstanding example of how to safely and wisely preserve oil revenue for future generations.
Significant portions of the Australian population have been living in a permanent recession, cut off from opportunity and prosperity. We should offer better pay to those who have stood with them.
In his forthcoming response to the global financial crisis, Pope Benedict does not have to reinvent the wheel. Catholic social writings have long insisted that economics must be directed to serve the good of everyone, not just the rich.
Cardinal George Pell told the Australian Workers' Union National Conference last week why quick action to avoid mass unemployment in the looming recession is crucial to protect the wellbeing of many Australians.
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