Australia & NZ Archives - Page 25 of 96

April 11, 2017

Consider Republicans’ tax plan | Ross Garnaut

From Patrick Hatch:

“Our existing tax base for the corporate income tax is in deep trouble,” Professor Garnaut told the Melbourne Economic Forum on Tuesday. “It’s subject to egregious avoidance or evasions, with two of the main instruments of avoidance being arbitrary use of interest on debt to reduce taxable income and, more importantly, arbitrary use of payment for import of services as deductions.

“You have a lot of what must be fundamentally some of the most profitable enterprises in Australia paying no corporate income tax.

“Google and Microsoft and Uber, they manage to generate very large sales in Australia … but somehow make no profit from it because of payment for intellectual property, payments for services.”

Cutting rates while broadening the base is a step in the right direction. But the broader base has to offset the rate cut, so that tax revenues are not depleted.

One of the oldest tricks in the tax avoidance industry is to set up a structure where A receives a deduction for an expense while the receiving party (B) is either tax exempt or is resident in a tax haven, and does not pay tax on the income. The effect is to substantially reduce tax payable by A.

Disallowing all deductions would unfairly penalize legitimate transactions. A simpler method would be to require A to collect a withholding tax on the payment to B (or B provides a tax file number showing that the income will be taxed in Australia) else the deduction by A will be disallowed.

Source: Consider Republicans’ tax plan, says economist Ross Garnaut

April 9, 2017

Australia: Warning signs of a contraction

Australia faces shrinking inflationary pressures.

Inflation

Wage growth is falling.

Wage Price Index

Credit growth is shrinking.

Inflation

Growth of currency in circulation is also slowing. The fall below 5% warns of a contraction.

Currency in Circulation: Growth

One piece of good news is that Chinese monetary policy seems to be easing. After a sharp contraction of M1 money stock growth in January, February shows a partial recovery. Collapse of the Chinese property bubble may be deferred a while longer.

China M1 Money Stock

Which is good news for iron ore exporters. At least in the short-term.

April 9, 2017

Why we need to worry about the level of Australian household debt

From Elizabeth Knight:

The balance sheets of Australian households with a mortgage are dangerously exposed to any fall in house prices.

It isn’t just that household debt relative to disposable incomes has reached a record high of 189 per cent, it’s that households’ ability to service that debt is potentially a ticking time bomb…..

A recent Digital Finance Analytics survey found that of the 3.1 million mortgaged households, an estimated 669,000 are now experiencing mortgage stress.

“This is a 1.5 per cent rise from the previous month and maintains the trends we have observed in the past 12 months,” it found. “The rise can be traced to continued static incomes, rising costs of living, and more underemployment; whilst mortgage interest rates have risen thanks to out-of-cycle adjustments by the banks and bigger mortgages thanks to rising home prices.”

Source: Why we need to worry about the level of Australian household debt

April 7, 2017

ASX 200 faces bank headwinds

The ASX 300 Banks Index continues to test support at 9000. Declining Twiggs Money Flow warns of selling pressure and reversal below 8900 would warn of a correction.

ASX 300 Banks

The ASX 200 continues its advance towards 6000, with rising Twiggs Money Flow signaling buying pressure. But it is vulnerable to a correction in the Banks Index, the largest sector in the broad index.

ASX 200

* Target medium-term: 5800 + ( 5800 – 5600 ) = 6000

The economy is still exposed to a property bubble and APRA is likely to keep the pressure on banks to increase their capital reserves, which would lower their return on equity.

April 6, 2017

The inconvenient truth behind the rise in energy prices

From Brian Robins:

“The inconvenient truth is that the increasingly high prices for increasingly unreliable electricity are a direct consequence of the increasingly high utilisation of renewable energy required by government regulation,” Gary Banks, a former head of the Productivity Commission, said in a speech to Infrastructure Partnership Australia on Thursday night.

…”Energy markets are admittedly complicated things. However the logic is unassailable that if a cheap and reliable product is penalised, while expensive and less reliable substitutes are subsidised, the latter will inevitably displace the former. No amount of sophistry, wishful thinking or political denial can change that basic economic reality.”

“Changing the mix of energy use away from low-cost but emissions-heavy fossil fuels has of course been the whole point,” he said. “The resulting costs and difficulties have been greatly compounded, however, by governments choosing a policy path that is essentially anti-market, one violating basic principles of demand and supply.”

Source: The inconvenient truth behind the rise in energy prices

April 4, 2017

APRA: Wayne Byres warns banks need more capital

From APRA chairman Wayne Byres’ keynote address to the AFR Banking & Wealth Summit 2017, Sydney:

Haven’t we done enough already?

The third question is: haven’t we done enough already?

The banking system certainly has higher capital adequacy ratios than it used to. But overall leverage has not materially declined. The proportion of equity that is funding banking system assets has improved only modestly, from a touch under 6 per cent a decade ago to just on 6½ per cent at the end of 2016.

The difference between improved risk-based measures of capital adequacy, and the more limited improvement in non-risk based measures of leverage (Chart 6), is driven to a significant degree by changes in asset composition. In particular, it reflects the increasing concentration of the banking system in mortgage lending (which benefits from lower risk weights – Chart 7).

It implies the system has de-risked more than deleveraged. But that assessment is itself premised on a critical assumption: that a high and increasing concentration in mortgages is generating a lower risk banking system. In the current environment, it is certainly an assumption that deserves a bit more scrutiny. While it might be a reasonable proposition most of the time, we need to be wary of the fallacy of composition when concentrations grow.

….The case for the Australian banking system to be seen as unquestionably strong remains as valid today as it did when the FSI recommended it in 2014. And, as much as we would like international policy deliberations to be complete, we do not think it right to defer a decision on this issue any longer…..

Bank leverage has barely improved despite substantial increases in capital ratios as banks have increasingly concentrated their exposure in residential mortgages which have lower risk-weighting. Chart 7 above shows how the average risk-weighting of bank assets has declined over the last decade.

Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed, believes that banks need to hold far higher capital in order to avoid future bailouts. His proposal:

….force banks to finance themselves with capital totaling 23.5% of their risk-weighted assets, or 15% of their balance-sheets without adjusting for risk (the “leverage ratio”). This, says Mr Kashkari, would be enough to guard the financial system against a shock striking many reasonably-sized banks at once. Any bank deemed too big to fail would need a still bigger buffer, eventually reaching an eye-watering 38% of risk-weighted assets….

It’s widely accepted that Australia’s big four banks are too-big-to-fail. If that is the case, applying Kashkari’s measure would require them to increase bank capital by 200%.

Even without the too-big-to fail buffer, the major banks would require a 100% increase in bank capital to meet the 23.5% capital requirement for risk-weighted assets. And a 150% increase to match the 15% minimum without risk weighting.

The question needs to be asked: is APRA doing enough to protect Australians from a financial crisis? To me the answer is a clear NO.

Source: Pages – Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat: Fortune Favours The Strong

Hat tip to Macrobusiness.

April 4, 2017

Sorry folks, this ain’t no property bubble

I have been predicting the collapse of the Australian property bubble, so feel obliged to also present the opposite view. Nothing like confirmation bias to screw up a good investment strategy.

Here Jessica Irvine argues that the property bubble will not burst:

Believe me, no one is keener than me to see a property bubble burst.

But sadly – for would-be buyers, at least – I just don’t see it happening.

Sure, there are risks.

If it turns out that banks have been lending to people who really can’t afford it, then we have a problem when interest rates start to rise.

Experts have been calling the end of the property market for years. But banks insist they stress test customers for a 2-percentage-point rise in interest rates and require “interest-only” borrowers to prove they could afford to repay principal too, if required.

More worrying is the mortgage broking channel, where a recent ASIC investigation found most of the high loan-to-value loans are written. If there is a weakness in the housing market, it’ll be in this area of lending standards and so called “macroprudential” policies when interest rates start to rise. The recent clamping down on investor loans is welcome.

But ultimately, the defining thing about bubbles is that they inevitably must pop.

But where is the trigger for a widespread home price collapse?

In a world of low inflation and growth, the Reserve Bank is likely to raise interest rates very gently, cushioning households.

Widespread job losses would be a trigger, but there is no talk of that. With record low wages growth, labour is hardly expensive at the moment.

Bubble proponents point to very high household debt levels relative to incomes. But the structural lowering of interest rates in the late 1990s and again after the global financial crisis has increased the amount of debt households can afford to service from a given income.

Lower rates have also helped many households build significant “buffers” against future rate increases, in offset accounts and other forms of saving.

Bubbles form when asset prices disconnect completely with market fundamentals.

But there are very good reasons to expect housing to be so expensive.

Forget the Cayman Islands, housing – owner occupied and investment housing – offers the best tax shelter around, from negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount on investment housing to the complete exemption of the family home from capital gains tax AND from the pension asset test.

Meanwhile, rapid population growth has been met by sluggish increases in housing supply. Incompetent state governments have created a premium for inner-city housing, where buyers can avoid paying the indirect costs of long commutes.

In the aftermath of World War II, home ownership rates skyrocketed as governments focused on supply.

But since then, governments have instead implemented policies that boost only the demand side of the equation, with tax concessions and cash bonuses for buyers that only increase prices.

Absent any trigger for widespread forced property sales, home owners will always respond to sluggish market conditions by sitting on their properties for longer. Lower volumes provide a cushion against falling prices.

In such a market, the best a first-time buyer can hope for is that future price gains might come back into line with income growth.

Indeed, that’s exactly what happened after the early 2000s property boom when Sydney prices stagnated for almost a decade.

It’s less exciting, but more likely.

Jessica makes a good point about offset accounts which may cause real household debt to be overstated. This warrants further investigation.

But she seems too complacent about market fundamentals:

an oversupply of apartments;
negative gearing and capital gains tax advantages that could be removed by the stroke of a pen (or a tick on a ballot paper); and
prospective sharp cuts to immigration (again dictated by the ballot box)

Interest rate rises seem unlikely in the near future as inflationary pressures are fading. But I doubt that new homebuyers could afford a 2 percent rise in interest rates, that would amount to an almost 40% increase in monthly repayments for some. Even if they survive, repayments will take a big bite taken out of other household consumption and hurt the entire economy.

Also, the RBA may plan to increase rates gradually, to cushion the effect on homeowners, but Mr Market could have other ideas. And if you think central banks act autonomously from markets, think again.

Source: Sorry folks, this ain’t no property bubble

April 1, 2017

3 Headwinds facing the ASX 200

The ASX 200 broke through stubborn resistance at 5800 but is struggling to reach 6000.

ASX 200

There are three headwinds that make me believe that the index will struggle to break 6000:

Shuttering of the motor industry

The last vehicles will roll off production lines in October this year. A 2016 study by Valadkhani & Smyth estimates the number of direct and indirect job losses at more than 20,000.

Full time job losses from collapse of motor vehicle industry in Australia

But this does not take into account the vacuum left by the loss of scientific, technology and engineering skills and the impact this will have on other industries.

…R&D-intensive manufacturing industries, such as the motor vehicle industry, play an important role in the process of technology diffusion. These findings are consistent with the argument in the Bracks report that R&D is a linchpin of the Australian automotive sector and that there are important knowledge spillovers to other industries.

Collapse of the housing bubble

An oversupply of apartments will lead to falling prices, with heavy discounting already evident in Melbourne as developers attempt to clear units. Bank lending will slow as prices fall and spillover into the broader housing market seems inevitable. Especially when:

Current prices are supported by strong immigration flows which are bound to lead to a political backlash if not curtailed;
The RBA is low on ammunition; and
Australian households are leveraged to the eyeballs — the highest level of Debt to Disposable Income of any OECD nation.

Debt to Disposable Income

Falling demand for iron ore & coal

China is headed for a contraction, with a sharp down-turn in growth of M1 money supply warning of tighter liquidity. Falling housing prices and record iron ore inventory levels are both likely to drive iron ore and coal prices lower.

China M1 Money Supply Growth

Australia has survived the last decade on Mr Micawber style economic management, with something always turning up at just the right moment — like the massive 2009-2010 stimulus on the chart above — to rescue the economy from disaster. But sooner or later our luck will run out. As any trader will tell you: Hope isn’t a strategy.

“I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be more beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if — if, in short, anything turns up.”

~ Wilkins Micawber from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

March 30, 2017

APRA fiddles while housing risks grow

From Westpac today (emphasis added):

….With the Reserve Bank sharing our caution around 2018, along with ample capacity in the labour market (unemployment rate is 5.9% compared to full employment rate of 5.0%) and stubbornly low wages growth, there is only scope to cut rates. But as we have argued consistently, a resurgent housing market disallows such a policy option. Indeed, the minutes refer to “a build- up of risks associated with the housing market”. A tighter macro prudential stance seems appropriate.

Indeed, as we go to press, APRA has announced new controls, restricting the “flow of new interest-only lending to 30 per cent of total new residential mortgage lending” with a particular focus on limiting interest only loans with a loan-to-value ratio [LVR] above 80%. Currently, “interest-only terms represent nearly 40 per cent of the stock of residential mortgage lending by ADIs”, so this policy will restrict the terms at which a marginal borrower can access credit (investors and owner-occupiers). APRA also noted that they want banks to manage growth in investor credit to “comfortably remain below the previously advised benchmark of 10 per cent growth”. This is not a hard change to the target as had been mooted recently in the press (some suggesting the 10% limit could be as much as halved), but it does suggest lending to investors will continue to grow at a pace meaningfully below 10%. Looking ahead, the next RBA Stability Review (April 13) may provide more clarity on the macro prudential policy outlook and potential triggers for further action. For the time being though, the 2015 experience offers an understanding of the potential impact of this further tightening.

To head off a potential bubble burst, the RBA and APRA need to drastically slow house price growth. I am sure the big four banks are urging caution but they would be the worst hit by a meltdown. What APRA is doing is fiddling around the margins. To make housing investors think twice about further borrowing, APRA needs to cut the maximum LVR to 70%. And half that for foreign borrowers.

March 27, 2017

Is the Coalition prepared to die defending the housing bubble?

I don’t always agree with David Llewellyn-Smith but love his pithy style. Here he takes the Turnbull government to task over their housing and immigration policies.

Cross-posted with kind permission from Macrobusiness:

….Because that’s what it looks like.

We all know that the Coalition hearts the housing bubble. Everything it does spells undying infatuation:

protecting property tax rorts;

focusing only on supply-side reform and even then doing pretty much nothing;

shelving any and all policy reform that might disrupt its smooth and burgeoning progeny, plus

running a staggeringly huge immigration program despite widespread economic damage.

It’s the last point that I want to focus on today because that’s the one where Coalition bubble-love rubber hits the road for its electoral prospects.

Since the WA election, Coalition polling has been devastated. A little bounce in Newspoll has been wiped out by landslides against the government in Ipsos and Essential polls. Moreover, the carnage has been just as apparent in the Coalition’s primary vote which has hemorrhaged voters to One Nation. The latter has been unaffected by the WA election despite doing less well than expected.

The major change in politics since the state result has been a commitment by One Nation to never ally with the Coalition again. The fringe party has realised that such pragmatism is lethal to its prospects.

This simple truth seems yet to have filtered through to the federal Coalition. As One Nation takes a material portion of its vote, and that vote refuses point blank to ally with it, there is ZERO chance of the Coalition winning a federal election ever again, and probably not at the state level either. While One Nation exists in this form, the Coalition has effectively ceased to exist as a political force.

One might have thought that the prospect of NEVER WINNING ANOTHER ELECTION might be enough to trigger some soul-searching in the party. And it has done a little. Do-nothing Malcolm has switched from toying with random ideas to deploying random ideas but it’s still all at the margins and is meaningless:

18c reform won’t move the needle;

contradictory coal and hydro investment won’t move the needle;

a retrograde company tax cut won’t move the needle;

a supply-side housing affordability Budget won’t move the needle.

All together they might nudge it a little but it won’t be enough. Nothing like it.

Indeed, I’ll go so far as to say that the Coalition could do the following immensely popular policies and it would still get clubbed from office:

abolish negative gearing;

install gas reservation;

offer tax cuts.

The problem is that these are all cyclical fixes for what is a structural shift to One Nation driven by one very simple truth: Australians are done with high immigration.

That’s Pauline Hanson’s primary appeal. She makes little sense on other issues and is bat shit crazy on many. But her one great power, the one that vibrates deep in the bowels of every Australian that is marginalised by house prices, falling wages, can’t get a job, is fearful of Islam or just a bigot, or is just plain pissed off at the direction of the country, is the deep and legitimate truth that running a mass immigration program during a period of high unemployment is treasonous economics.

Thus there is only one policy shift that can change the Coalition’s fate and it is as plain as the nose on Pauline Hanson’s face: cut immigration and cut it hard.

Cutting immigration back to 70k per year or less would completely shift every electoral parameter as the Coalition:

finally had a housing affordability policy to put up against Labor’s negative gearing reforms;

finally had an environmental policy to put up against the immigration-hypocritical Greens;

could gut One Nation overnight and go to work on wiping it out by exposing the loons as weakening polls divide them.

This one policy shift would put the Coalition instantly in the running for the next election even if it were Do-nothing Malcolm that did it.

So, why does the Coalition suffer from such suicidal bubble-love that it can’t or won’t grab this lifeline?

many Coalition MPs are personally leveraged to the bubble so they’ve their own financial interests in mind;

as yesterday’s revelations about the MPs that prevented negative gearing reform showed, they are political hacks with terrible policy judgement;

they are bereft of the intellectual depth and corporate memory to contemplate alternative economic models. Cutting immigration to 70k would take pressure off eastern capital house prices enabling further rate cuts and a lower currency;

the Howard and Costello myths make this even worse,

and, the Coalition is closely wedded to the business interests in banking, retail and construction that benefit from high immigration even as the net result is negative for the wider economy.

I’ll add one more factor which appears increasingly important. Career politicians don’t care for their own political party or its nominal values as they used to. The dominant ideology of unglued self-interest comes with the wonderful fringe benefit of not having to take responsibility for anything. Contemporary Coalition MPs see party membership as a gravy train to private sector riches in board positions, lobbying roles and other forms of ‘control fraud’ in the very sectors that thrive on the bubble. So, for them, arbitraging the fate of the party for personal gain is all just a part of being a good liberal.

Backing self-interest used to work in political forecasting but does this rabble even have that in them?