The Aussie economy is quietly falling apart | Macrobusiness

You’d have to be as blind as the RBA to miss the signals. GDP is made up of six components and they are not going well on balance:

  • government consumption is strong and likely to stay that way;
  • government investment is peaking as the NBN rolls off and infrastructure starts fade;
  • household consumption is weakening with car sales and international travel down sharply plus retail looking highly questionable;
  • business investment has been good and the outlook for six months is solid but it will track broader demand and housing investment is about to tumble;
  • inventories will ebb and flow;
  • net exports (volumes) are weak owing to China’s thermal coal blockade and the drought despite the LNG ramp up.

In short, the Australian economy is quietly falling apart and if it does not receive any new juice soon it is going to crater as we enter the Hayne Royal Commission recommendations, the federal election stall and Labor’s reform agenda. I have now downgraded my outlook for domestic demand from what was already bearish:

This is an environment in which unemployment will rise at a decent clip threatening much worse outcomes as that feeds back into asset prices.

That markets and economists are still forecasting rate hikes is ridiculous. That cuts remain off the radar of nearly all is bizarre.

By Houses & Holes (David Llewellyn-Smith). Reproduced with kind permission from Macrobusiness.

Comment: Time for the government to go big on infrastructure spending. Not school halls or pink batts insulation but real infrastructure like transport and communications investments (5G for example) that will boost long-term GDP growth.

US: Robust underlying GDP growth trend

From Elliot Clarke at Westpac:

In assessing the strength and persistence of US growth, it is important to recognise the impact that inventories and net exports continue to have on headline results. Inventories added significantly to growth through the first half of 2015 on rapid inventory accrual; but a more modest pace of stocking in Q3 resulted in a 1.4ppt subtraction from quarterly GDP growth. Similarly, while net exports reduced the annualised Q1 headline outcome by 1.9ppts, it subsequently added modestly to growth in Q2, circa 0.2ppts. If we omit both factors from our assessment (and thereby focus on domestic final demand, DFD), we see a robust, enduring underlying growth trend. Annualised DFD growth in 2015 averages out at 2.7% – or 3.3% if we focus solely on the past six months, when the weather was more favourable.

On the whole, stripping away the impact of inventories and net exports, the past two years have seen a material improvement in the growth trend. This acceleration has primarily been the result of stronger consumption growth, particularly within the services sub-sector and in housing construction. Given the ongoing improvement in the labour market and credit availability as well as robust consumer confidence, this trend should endure into 2016.

Construction spending is the key.

Construction Spending

China’s manufacturing sector under contractionary pressure – Westpac: Phat Dragon

Well, the official November manufacturing PMI, a more reliable survey than the private sector alternative [once seasonally adjusted], saw finished goods inventories rise to their highest reading ever in November. Along with across the board weakness in order books….. and a deceleration in output, import weakness, a steep decline in the new orders-to-inventories ratio and a depleting work backlog, the manufacturing sector looks to be under contractionary pressure. The moment of discontinuity has not yet arrived, but the odds of such an unwelcome appearance manifesting in the near term from this enfeebled jumping off point have certainly shortened.