Tax

Another set of charts from the Q3-2012 National Accounts:

Savings fall-off

Just wondering about the fall-off in national savings ...

Nominal net savings as a per cent of nominal GDP is in decline ...

This effect may be masked in the standard statistic from the national accounts ...

Because national disposable income is flat-lining ...

But more likely, it is the product of dis-savings in the non-Household sectors (ie. the NFP, business and government sectors).

Mark the Ballot

For those following my statistical exploration of opinion polls and related things psephological, they can be found on my new blog: Mark the Ballot.

GDP Q3 2012 - saving less - ToT shock

The headlines:

Some states in pain this quarter

The GDI v GDP disconnect (see ToT shock below)

ToT shock

Nominal GDP Growth ... still slowing

Are households feeling poorer?

Savings rate slowing ... consistent with households feeling poorer

R cheat sheets: S3 and R5

I have added a couple of cheat sheets. Both are on object oriented programming under R: one on S3 and the other on R5. (I will probably get another lecture for calling reference classes R5, but who cares).

As always, if there are any errors, please let me know. I am constantly updating these cheat sheets as my understanding expands in respect of R's deeper mysteries.

Soft jobs data

The ABS released the October monthly labour force survey results. The unemployment rate was essentially steady at 5.4 per cent. Given yesterday's presidential election, I thought I would bring an electoral hue to today's charts.

The month-on-month change figures are pretty much steady as she goes. But the through the year statistics show a significant jump in unemployed persons.

This is becoming a longish period without healthy growth in the number of employed persons (certainly longer than the GFC).

The monthly hours worked continue to flat line/decline slightly. Over the last 12 months, the number of people in a job has risen slightly and the total number of hours worked has fallen slightly. All-in-all, these statistics suggest a soft labour market.

By gender: it is worth noting that the trend male rate is over the female rate. Arguably, since the 1990s, the male rate is higher than the female rate when the labour market is soft and lower when economic times are good.

By State - with clear unemployment rate trend increases in the low rate states in the last chart below.

House price index

Today the ABS released the latest House Price Index (HPI) data (for the September Quarter). Let's start with the national growth charts for established and project homes.

And on to the capital cities.

If we consider established house prices in the next chart: Although the slump minima in growth in 2011-12 was similar to that for the 2008-09 global financial crisis (GFC); the slope of the current exit trajectory is much shallower than the exit from the GFC.

And the actual indices.

Today's release also included capital city price and volume data to March 2012.