Thanks for your perspectives. I have been reading your views for sometime and just signed up as a $240 member. I am a 58 year old novice with no formal education in economics and finances, which I think is how the government wants it. But I am an avid learner and spend time diving into the key measures to better understand what politicians tell us vs the actual context. I posted the other day on my FB page and a Labor troll took aim at me. So I dug a little deeper into him. On the Labor socials, they are spruiking 4% unemployment, 2.4% inflation, and 3.5% real wage growth. I questioned their real wage growth number as my (rudimentary) understanding of real wage growth is nominal wage growth (3.2%) less inflation (2.4%) = real wage growth (i.e. 0.8%). But even that is not close to the 'pub test.' The average Aussie is feeling inflation of somewhere between 12-25% in my opinion. Energy prices, fuel went up by 60-100% and never returned, education is up 12%, rates have skyrocketted, food prices are off the scale, building supplies, and general cost of living is not 2.4%. So when you factor in, say, 15%, then the effect is more like -11.8% real wage growth. Perhaps I am missing something, but as someone that has tracked every cent I have spent since 2009, my own household costs have increased 14% year on year. My salary certainly has not gone up by 14%, and I dare say most are in this boat. Also, and I think this is a big issue, which your article calls out, job growth is from the public sector. 1 in 5 Australians are employed in some way by the government. In a working population of 17-ish million, that's extraordinary. Of course NDIS is funding most of it and now costs ~$40 billion a year, exceeding Medicare. Where does this all go? I'm not sure, but as someone with close to 40,000 on my social page, I can safely say a lot of Australians are deeply concerned with where our country is going.
Thanks for your perspectives. I have been reading your views for sometime and just signed up as a $240 member. I am a 58 year old novice with no formal education in economics and finances, which I think is how the government wants it. But I am an avid learner and spend time diving into the key measures to better understand what politicians tell us vs the actual context. I posted the other day on my FB page and a Labor troll took aim at me. So I dug a little deeper into him. On the Labor socials, they are spruiking 4% unemployment, 2.4% inflation, and 3.5% real wage growth. I questioned their real wage growth number as my (rudimentary) understanding of real wage growth is nominal wage growth (3.2%) less inflation (2.4%) = real wage growth (i.e. 0.8%). But even that is not close to the 'pub test.' The average Aussie is feeling inflation of somewhere between 12-25% in my opinion. Energy prices, fuel went up by 60-100% and never returned, education is up 12%, rates have skyrocketted, food prices are off the scale, building supplies, and general cost of living is not 2.4%. So when you factor in, say, 15%, then the effect is more like -11.8% real wage growth. Perhaps I am missing something, but as someone that has tracked every cent I have spent since 2009, my own household costs have increased 14% year on year. My salary certainly has not gone up by 14%, and I dare say most are in this boat. Also, and I think this is a big issue, which your article calls out, job growth is from the public sector. 1 in 5 Australians are employed in some way by the government. In a working population of 17-ish million, that's extraordinary. Of course NDIS is funding most of it and now costs ~$40 billion a year, exceeding Medicare. Where does this all go? I'm not sure, but as someone with close to 40,000 on my social page, I can safely say a lot of Australians are deeply concerned with where our country is going.