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Picture this. It’s 2020, the pandemic has arrived with a bang and Big Tech companies’ share prices are soaring while the opposite is true for newspapers and TV. Australia’s then-Treasurer Josh Frydenberg settles in for his regular tennis and beer session with good mate Ryan Stokes – Josh was best man at his wedding – when he is told how big foreign social media companies were crowding out local companies such as his billionaire dad Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media.

Who has fared the worst from the recent bout of inflation and ongoing cost of living crisis? It’s not who you might think from reading headline after headline about Australia’s rental crisis:

Australia’s rate of inflation – as measured by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI – “ rose 1.2 per cent in the September 2023 quarter and 5.4 per cent annually, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)”:

The merchants of fear were out to get their clicks again on the weekend, jumping on the inevitable post-pandemic surge in migration to crack a headline:

Australia has a housing problem: we simply haven’t built enough of them to accommodate our growing population, which the government estimates will continue to increase from around 26.5 million to 40.5 million by 2050. All else equal, that means we need about 50% more housing than we have today, and the old strategy of simply building out forever just won’t cut it. Believe it or not, some cities are actually getting less dense:

It’s no surprise that people clamour hand over fist to win preselection for one of the two major Australian political parties when the rewards are far greater than those individuals might expect to receive in the private sector. Not just the power and status, but the financial windfalls awaiting them upon retirement:

According to this tweet (usual caveats apply), a new Deutsche Bank report implied that Australia’s housing crisis is about to get much, much worse:

I’m a bit late to the party but for those still not aware, Harvard’s Claudia Goldin won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on women’s labour market outcomes. The Nobel Committee provided a very good press release; a 7-page ‘ popular economics’ brief; as well as a much longer advanced report that delves into her scientific contributions more deeply. Do check them out.

The Treasury’s latest Intergenerational Report has made headlines for the following claim:

National Cabinet – where Australia’s States and federal government get together to try to agree on national policy – reached an agreement this week to: