The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

SMH's Jessy Irvine bursts bubblephobia--and I'm an "enthusiastic blogger"!

An "enthusiastic blogger"! Not so sure about that, Jessy. You could've come up with something more flattering--whiz; adonis; mercurial maven? In any event, the SMH's Jessica (Jessy) Irvine has a very good article on bursting house price bubbles in the SMH today. Jessy surely has a bright future. She is almost certainly the long-term heir to Ross Gittins' formidable Fairfax throne. Regular readers will know I was once rather critical of her work on housing, which led to a temporary cooling in relations. Think Sinology under George Bush Jr. Having said that, it did not prevent me from naming my forthcoming son Jesse Joye (ETA: two weeks). Jessy (the journo) does the hard analytical yards most of the time, and writes pretty well. She is top of the pops, alongside Peter Martin, Alan Mitchell, Stutchbury and Uren. And she is getting better with age. While most of the content in today's article has been published here before (eg, Bloxham's piece, the RBA quotes, and the arguments on my indefatigable adversary, Stevie Keen), it is definitely one of the better media attempts at understanding our notoriously complex housing market. In fact, she really pins down Stevie's problem: he can never define or articulate the transmission mechanism that is going to trigger the cataclysmic collapse that he has unsuccessfully projected since 2008. How do you get to a default rate 10x higher than today, Stevie, when the RBA can slash mortgage rates from their currently above-average 7.8% level? Anyways, have a quick squiz here.