From CNBC
A closely-watched measure of Australian consumer confidence rebounded strongly in September as lessening fears of a hike in interest rates and better news on the economy helped offset turmoil on global markets.
The survey of 1,200 people by Westpac Bankand the Melbourne Institute released on Wednesday showed its index of consumer sentiment jumped 8.1 percent in September to 96.9. That followed hefty drops in August and July and still left the index down 14.4 percent on September last year.
"This is a surprisingly strong result," said Westpac chief economist Bill Evans.
He thought it likely that diminished fears of a rise in rates from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) may have helped sentiment. The central bank made it clear last week that it was best for policy to stay on hold while markets were so volatile.
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Thursday ~ September 15th, 2011 at 12:22 am
beowulf
A minimum wage of US$15.84 (A$15.51) an hour doesn’t hurt. Just imagine, with their unemployment rate at 5.3%, how much better off they’d be with our minimum wage of US$7.25 an hour. They might even be able to get their unemployment under 9%— oh wait, that’s us.
Seriously though, one benefit of Australia’s high min. wage they don’t have the same wage-productivity gap issues we do. Like Ravi Batra says,
Productivity is the main source of supply, whereas wages are the main source of demand. If this wage-productivity gap keeps rising over time, supply will rise faster than demand and then we face the problem of overproduction.
http://archive.truthout.org/031609A
Sunday ~ September 18th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Lorenzo from Oz
Bizarre reasoning. Australia has spent most of the period since the mid 1970s with significantly higher unemployment rates than the US. The most important difference between the US and Australia is that the Reserve Bank has managed monetary policy much better than the Fed has.
Monday ~ September 19th, 2011 at 3:19 am
Lorenzo from Oz
It is 12 years old, so does not cover what happened under the Howard-Costello Government, but this paper (pdf) provides data and analysis on Australian public policy and what was, until the 2000s, its dismal post-1973 unemployment performance.