Latest News & Commentary
Wayne Swan on the Privilege of the 0.01%
Treasurer Wayne Swan has posed a challenging question to Australian society with his piece in The Monthly, asking 'are we willing to allow the elite to control our economic policy, democratic processes and now our freedom of the press?' A battle is underway to avert...
Office Manager – Job Opportunity
After over a decade of tireless work, our office manager, Anne Schmid is retiring. We have advertised the job as follows: Office Manager Employer: Prosper Australia Work Type/s: Part Time Location: Melbourne Prosper Australia is a lobby group with a long history in...
Prosper sees property price falling 15%, perhaps 20% in 2012
23 February 2012 • Potential First Home Buyers wary of commitment • Volume of stock for sale a swollen flood • Consumers dis-leverage Australia-wide • Banks unwilling to finance credit creation Prosper Australia predicts substantial house price falls this calendar...
Empty homes, empty claims
27/01/2012 Letter to the editor The Age How are the real estate spruikers going to explain away Melbourne’s reported rental vacancy rate of 4.4% (“Melbourne Full of Empty Homes" Age 26/1/12)? Developer lobbyists were crying for new land releases when vacancy rates...
Taxi! Tax Me!
Citizens retreat confused when talk turns to Economic Rents. The taxi industry is an excellent example of how assets granted by government create economic rents – at the expense of the wider community. There are 5181 taxi licences in Victoria, of which the Department...
Economics Demystified Seminar
photo credit: Ferdinand Reus Saturday 11th February 10.15 for a 10.30 start. Conclude by 4pm Prosper Rooms, Lvl 1/ 27 Hardware Lane, Melb Facilitator: Raymond Makewell A Georgist seminar on the principles of economics as if society mattered. How is wealth produced? Is...
Housing bubble trouble: separating facts from fiction
Reprinted from academic e-zine The Conversation In a previous article, I analysed four of the common arguments used by those who deny there is a bubble in Australia’s residential property market. The bubble deniers have employed other explanations for the largest...
Not So Fast!
ABS Inflation data out today shows a big fat zero: we have nil inflation, at least for this quarter. The consequences for interest rates are profound. Mortgage rates may seem reasonable at 6 to 7 per cent. In practice they are agony. A real interest rate of 6 per...
Australia deserves better property sales data
12 January 2012 Prosper calls for timely, rigorous and transparent statistics on property sales to be collected by the ABS. “Property is the single largest asset market in Australia – worth around $5 Trillion,” Prosper Australia Campaign Manager David Collyer said...
A New Year’s Resolution – Don’t Buy Now!
The Australian property market ended 2011 on the ground in a foetal position after a serious assault by Harsh Reality. Symptoms include: • A year’s supply of unsold houses on the market • Low and falling building applications • Low and falling finance approvals •...
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