It’s a case of supersize me, and it’s not about food.

New research shows that Australia has overtaken the United States to have the largest homes in the world.

While average US home sizes have shrunk for the first time in a decade due to global recession, the average floor space of new Australian homes hit a record high of 214.6 square metres in 2008/09 financial year, according to official data.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data commissioned by CommSec also showed the average floor area of new free-standing houses was also at a record high - 245.3sqm.

By constrast, the average size of new homes started in the US in the September quarter stood at 201.5 sqm.

CommSec chief economist Craig James said the latest figures helped to explain how Australians were dealing with the shortage of housing - by making greater use of bigger homes.
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Only the Chinese are more satisfied with their government’s response to the global recession than Australians are with the way Labor has handled the crisis.

Nearly 70 per cent of Australian respondents to a poll, conducted for the BBC World Service, were satisfied with the Rudd government response.

That was the second-highest rating amongst 20 nations, but well behind the 88 per cent backing Chinese respondents gave their government.

The average satisfaction rating among the 22,000 respondents worldwide was 44 per cent, the Program of International Policy Attitudes and GlobeScan poll found.

“It is clear that citizens are still not seeing the kind of economic leadership they think is needed from their national government,” GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller said in releasing the report.
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A new raft of upbeat economic numbers out of China suggests Australia’s recovery story would be a totally different tale without the needs of the Asian giant.

The latest round of figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released on Friday shows industrial production is growing at its fastest pace in a year, retail sales growth accelerating to the best levels in 2009 and investment at its highest level in nearly five years.

“Australian resource producers have every reason to celebrate the strength of the Chinese economic recovery,” Commonwealth Securities economist Savanth Sebastian said.

“Without China it would be a very different world - not just for Australian miners but for our economy as a whole.”
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The first anniversary of the onslaught of the global financial and economic crisis has been marked by a run of positive economic leads suggesting Australia will be the first developed country to emerge from the downturn.

Private sector surveys for August are pointing to an economy that will soon be “firing on all cylinders”, increasing the likelihood of an interest rate rise in the near term, economists say.

“The risks are looking much more likely that an rate hike is on the horizon in the near term,” said CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian.

“If you look at the data flow, it’s not consistent with where rates are at the moment.”

The debt futures market is now indicating there is a 100 per cent chance of a rise in the three per cent cash interest rate by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in November.
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The argument that Australia is managing a soft economic landing grew a little more convincing with the release of business investment data on Thursday.

Next week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will release the national accounts for the June quarter.

That set of data will include the Bureau’s estimate of gross domestic product (GDP), the most comprehensive measure of economic activity.

In the March quarter GDP managed to dispel the gloom with a modest increase of 0.4 per cent in real, seasonally adjusted terms.

Those figures marked a sea-change in consumer and business sentiment.
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In just over a week we will have an official update on Australia’s battle to avoid being branded with the R word.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will issue the national accounts for the June quarter on Wednesday, September 2.

The accounts will include the bureau’s estimate of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the quarter.

That single figure will inevitably be used to judge Australia’s performance against the standard, albeit arbitrary, yardstick by which recessions are commonly gauged - two consecutive quarters of declining GDP.

That stigma has been avoided so far.
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photo credit: kyle simourdThe world economy will remain in recession until the end of 2009 even though the worst of the global financial crisis has passed, the celebrated US academic known as “Dr Doom” says.

“Certainly, we’re closer to the bottom than six months ago,” Professor Nouriel Roubini told the Diggers and Dealers mining conference in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, on Monday.

Prof Roubini is New York University Stern School of Business professor of economics and international business and earned this nickname, Dr Doom, for his dire economic forecasts.

“The worst of the global financial crisis is behind us but I don’t believe the recession is yet over at the global level, ” Prof Roubini said at the conference.
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photo credit: Tony the MisfitTreasurer Wayne Swan has echoed the comments of US President Barack Obama, saying the tough times caused by the global economic downturn are not over.

Speaking ahead of the release of the latest US economic growth figures, Mr Obama said that the “huge volatility or panic” in the banking system and financial markets had “generally settled down”.

However, the US president said the gross domestic product figures were still expected to show the nation’s economy contracted and that job losses remained a huge problem.

Mr Swan said it was clear the “tough times aren’t yet over”.
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The worst of the global financial crisis is probably over but the economic pick-up will be slow, economists at one of Japan’s biggest financial services firms say.

“We’ve just been going through the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the greatest recession, probably, since then as well,” Paul Sheard, global chief economist at Nomura Securities International told a roundtable briefing in Sydney on Tuesday.

Dr Sheard said the global economy was still in recession but that the recession was “tapering off”, with growth expected to resume in the second half of 2009.

“The bottom really is we think the worst is over, both in terms of the economic downturn and the financial system near-collapse.”
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It’s party time, apparently.

Looking at this week’s extraordinary rise in consumer confidence would make you think we didn’t have a care in the world, and all this recession nonsense is somewhere over there.

Definitely not our problem.

Even if the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey was taken this coming weekend, rather than the one just gone, there is little to suggest the upbeat mood would be any different, given the run of data.

Unless of course you are on the minimum wage, in the wake of the Australian Fair Pay Commission’s decision to award a big fat zero in the latest pay round.

The jobless rate did rise to a six-year high of 5.8 per cent.
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If history is any guide, Australia’s recovery from recession will be characterised by the same contradictory signals that accompanied the downturn.

There will be sectors and regions heading in different directions.

As housing recovers in response to pent-up demand and improving financial conditions, engineering construction will flag under the weight of the deflated minerals boom.

As the mining boom states of the north and west wilt, the south-east of the country will be aided by federal infrastructure spending.
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Latest forecasts from the World Bank point to a tough year for the global economy, but Australia is proving resilient, Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

The World bank expects global gross domestic product (GDP) to be 2.9 per cent, a significant revision from a previous estimate of 1.7 per cent.

“Despite the worst global recession in 75 years, Australia is weathering the storm better than virtually every other advanced economy,” Mr Swan told parliament.

National accounts data earlier this month showed the Australian economy had avoided a technical recession, growing 0.4 per cent in the March quarter.
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Australia may yet suffer a recession, but it is unlikely to be a deep or prolonged affair.

New data released on Wednesday suggested the economy may record two consecutive quarters of negative growth - the definition of a technical recession - in the June and September quarters, before shifting into recovery next year.

The annualised growth rate of the Westpac-Melbourne Institute leading index released on Wednesday showed a negative 3.5 per cent reading in April, well below its long-term positive trend of 2.8 per cent.

However, the index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity three to nine months into the future, is showing a significant improvement from the contractions of 5.1 per cent in March and the 6.1 per cent in February, being the lowest since 1982.
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The only way to secure Australia’s long-term economic growth is through productivity investment, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says.

Mr Tanner said national accounts figures released on Wednesday revealing gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 0.4 per cent in the first three months of the year were welcome news.

But he did not want to overstate the country’s avoidance of a recession.

A so-called technical recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
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Economic doomsayers take note: if you think we’ve got problems, save some pity for those who really deserved it - Australians of the 1890s and 1930s.

Australia’s economy might be toughing it out despite the effects of the worst global downturn in almost 80 years.

But it’s nothing compared with the two Great Depressions that really merited the term “great”.

They were 20 times worse, according to the measure of all the goods and services we produce, the gross domestic product (GDP).
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