It appears there are a bit of credit difficulties down under.
Cash-strapped Australian personal insolvencies, bankruptcies, and debt agreements experience their sharpest rise in seven years.
Please consider Struggling Aussies Rack Up Debt.
Alarming new figures released yesterday by the Australian Financial Security Authority found personal insolvencies in the June quarter climbed by nearly 14 per cent compared to the June 2015.
Debt agreements — an agreement between a debtor and a creditor where creditors agree to accept a sum of money from the debtor — rose by nearly a massive 25 per cent.
Bankruptcies increased by seven per cent.
Veda’s general manager of consumer risk Angus Luffman said multiple factors were to be blamed for a stalling of consumer credit.
“The continuing slowdown in residential property markets, coupled with weak wages growth and subdued retail sales growth had all contributed to the continued slowdown seen in the June credit demand index — which measures demands for discretionary consumer credit,’’ he said.
“Turnover for household goods which is often big-ticket items like whitegoods and couches which are financed by credit has slowed significantly in recent months.”
Australian Bureau of Statistics lending data released yesterday found total new lending commitments including housing, personal, commercial and lease finance dropped by 3.2 per cent in May, the second consecutive fall.
Lending totalled $67.5 billion in May which was down seven per over the year and sat at a 17-month low.
HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham blamed the cooling of the housing market for the softening of the willingness to borrow.
One Person to Blame
While others point the finger every which way, we all know at heart there is precisely one person to blame: Australian economist Steve Keen, now exiled in God-forsaken London.
Were it not for Keen’s incessant fearmomgering about the Australian housing bubble, property values in Sydney alone would now be worth more than the sum total of property values in the US, China, UK, Mars, and Uranus combined.
Were it not for Keen, every property owner down under could retire now and live off the perpetual appreciation of their property wealth.
For those who did not catch the sarcasm, Steve Keen is a good friend who I expect will appreciate this joke.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I hate when you’re so right Mish. What a world.
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Everything is upside down in Austrailia anyway.
Is Australia a member of the EU?
Cooked jobs numbers that came out last night and past 2 months Mish? up 100 pct
It’s like watching movies, all of which seem to be “based” upon a “true” story. We have been fed government and bank generated statistics “based” upon some truth, but adapted to add drama for effect. Now we even get our history from TV and movies that have been embellished to fit a narrative or agenda and no one seems to question the actual facts suggested within.
This is a Punch and Judy show to stimulate emotions and ultimately actions.
I had the honour of assisting Steve in the early stages of his trek up Mt. Kosciosco after losing a bet with a banker that Aussie property would fall by 40% by 2013. Instead it doubled.
Our media, bankers and Real Estate celebrity spruikers have hung so much shit on Steve ever since but he just laughs it off.
It’s a shame they forced him overseas by putting pressure on the University where he worked to shut down his Economics Department.
Most will misconstrue your reference to SK. The joke will go over their head as most do not know his positions
Australia is a commodity based economy with much trade with China ….hmm, wonder how China is (REALLY) doing …
Debt jubilee, universal dividend and deflationary retail discount. The policies of sanity, integrative Wisdom and the natural philosophical concept of Grace as in Gifting. That is Wisdomics/Gracenomics and the integration of the theories of Keen (Post Keynesianism) and Shedlock (Austrianism/Libertarianism). No more ideology, only Wisdom. No more intellectually fragmented and mistaken academic conservatism that only serves to palliate economic theory’s hypnotism and domination by debt and places only a foot inside the new integrative paradigm of Grace as in Gifting, only Wisdom. Only Wisdom….the perfect integration of truths, workabilities and applicabilities.
wisdomicsblog.com
I’m wise enough to know when someone is trying deny reality.
After thousands of years of human history and fundamental economics, why is it that we are still trying to invent something new, claim it as the ultimate in sustainability, when the definition of sustainability is governmental force? Why can’t we acknowledge that economics is a natural process that only really runs amok when government tries to improve and make it more efficient and fair?
Leave us to our own free actions and their consequences and STOP trying to FIX us.
That is a typical libertarian general equilibrium theory response. The only problem with it is the economy does not inherently tend toward equilibrium, but is inherently in a state of disequilibrium of total individual incomes in ratio to total costs. It also perfectly expresses the libertarian’s favorite “hobby horse”, crank and irrationally general computation that utterly conflates government and tyranny. If a government’s policies actually solve the actual and deepest problem of the economy and are simultaneously the definition of individual economic freedom and systemic free flowingness…..then they will effect freedom. A = A. Check your premises.
You would have to admit that is it extremely difficult to find ANY large, centrally controlled system that actually works and is not rife with corruption and “unintended consequences”. Especially when we are talking about the vast wealth of which you seem to think they can control. We look at our world economy now and it is broken due to constant government intervention and belief that THEY can control and fix things. And governments employ thousands of Harvard educated types to delve into these waters and each has their ultimate theoretical solution….yet virtually NONE of these intelligentsia will suffer the consequences of those theories. They set safe and secured in their tenured professorships and government positions. It is the rest of us who will be forced to take it, take it on faith.
I can appreciate that you have studied this issue and resolved your grand solution, but speaking for myself, I would rather take my chances with a free economy.
Of course I see that. I’m no fan of intrusive government. I’m for graciously freeing government. But both pundits and politicians have to cognite sooner or later on the aspects of the philosophical concept of Grace….which perfectly reflected in policy are the integrative answer. Steve Keen is probably the best economist on the planet, but he’s still got half his mind in the old paradigm of Debt and Power. We need a movement for the integration of direct free monetary Gifting into the paradigm of Debt Only. We need a movement for the integration of Grace which is the intention to take power…..in order to give it back to the individual….into the dominant paradigm of Power Only. That movement is my Project Wisdom and Grace which shows the individual and the small to medium business community that they share a mutual interest in the policies of “a modern debt jubilee”, a universal dividend and a deflationary retail discount to prices which is then in turn rebated back to retail merchants so that they can be whole on their margins of profit and overhead payments.
wisdomicsblog.com
At best this is the start of a upward trend. Hardly headline worthy, though.
https://www.afsa.gov.au/resources/statistics/provisional-bankruptcy-and-personal-insolvency-statistics/june-quarter-files/quarterly-personal-insolvency-activity-in-australia
https://www.afsa.gov.au/resources/statistics/provisional-bankruptcy-and-personal-insolvency-statistics/2015-16-images-and-files/annual-personal-insolvency-activity-in-australia
maybe oz needs some migrants to buy all those houses…. edges slowly off stage…
Latest tweet from Steve Keen.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/clarkeanddawe/?pfm=ms