The Wakelin Blog

The Federal Treasurer has shown little vision, with few if any initiatives in the Budget that will stimulate economic growth. The best that can be said is he has provided assistance to very low income householders and that by finally returning the Budget to a very modest surplus next year, the Government is creating room for the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates further. However, lower rates are a sign of economic weakness, so this is a mixed blessing...

The inner suburban investment property market is in recovery mode . You won’t see it in the statistics published in our metropolitan daily newspapers because they concern themselves with city-wide data which, as the table shows, only indicate a flat market...

The Federal Government’s proposed change to concessional taxing of superannuation contributions by high income earners flies in the face of the long-standing message out of Canberra to all workers that they must self-fund their own retirement. This is a responsibility that most people take very seriously...

  Viewable here .     Image: Smarnad

In light of the very low inflationary outlook, weak GDP numbers and softening employment outcomes, the case for today’s cut was overwhelming. It will provide a welcome stimulus across the Australian economy. Given the level of borrowings and interest rate sensitivity in the property sector, interest rate cuts tend to have a disproportionate benefit for investors and homebuyers...