Australian property bubble on a scale like no other

What is less well understood is how such a large and sustained bubble has distorted the Australian political economy.  The bubble has been running for twenty years (which some argue proves it is no such thing) and every time it has been threatened it was saved by luck or a bailout which sold off a little more of Australia’s liberal democracy. 

In 2003, the bubble first threatened to burst as the Reserve Bank raised interest rates. But the bubble was rescued by the combined forces of demand side fiscal stimulus for first home buyers in the form of large cash grants, and the arrival the Chinese commodity boom that flooded the economy with people and income. The government of the day learned its lesson and economic reform has been dead ever since! 

In 2008, the bubble was jeopardized again when the pipeline of offshore debt froze solid and major Australian banks were rendered insolvent given they could not roll over their enormous foreign debts. The government of the day rode to their rescue with guarantees to all offshore funding, directly bought mortgage backed securities (which it still holds), unleashed the largest proportional fiscal stimulus in the world, doubled the first home buyer grants, opened the spigots on foreign investor buying, and other measures. Almost all of it violated existing financial sector architecture and governance and virtually none of it has been wound back. No housing market in the world enjoyed such wholesale and limitless support. 

In 2011, the bubble again faltered when the China commodity boom returned and raised interest rates. But, when threatened, the bubble was bailed out, this time by a central bank that desperately cut interest rates to all-time lows because it had over-estimated the durability of the commodities boom, and an influx of Chinese capital that was allowed to price-out local buyers with barely a word of protest from regulatory authorities.

Before the year 2000, the Australian economy was a vibrant mix of world-leading productivity growth, liberalised tradable sectors balanced between commodities, services and manufacturing, solid household wealth, a reasonable external position, a clean public balance sheet and reliable institutions. 

Today, it is a wildly imbalanced propertocracy with enormous offshore debts, a polity soaked by a Goebbels-like property propaganda machine, and a government run by realty carpet-baggers willing to sell their children to Chinese communists so long long as they pick up a three bedroom apartment along with little Johnny. 

In a world replete with bubbles, rarely has one been quite so complete!

DYI