panic

Folks, these are scary times. So I give you the following seven reasons why you do not need to add to your list of worries the fact that Australia has just clocked up its sharpest decline in economic output on record. 1. It’s old news. The national accounts figures released on Wednesday refer to the value of goods and services produced in the months of April, May and June this year, when severe coronavirus restrictions were in place across the nation. It is entirely predictable those restrictions would mean that Australians were able to produce and sell a lot fewer goods and services during that period. 2. The figures are much better than originally feared. Until quite recently, both Treasury and the Reserve Bank had been anticipating a fall in gross domestic product (GDP) in the June quarter of about 10 per cent. It didn’t happen. It was only 7 per cent. That’s good news. 3. We have done much better than other countries. Britain [...]