Some encouragement for Wayne.







The economic pundits (yes – the very same ones who wrongly kept maintaining that Chinese growth would insulate Australia from any world recession) have all turned very sceptical about Treasurer Wayne Swan continuing to maintain that economic growth will continue at a level that should preserve at least a small budget surplus.
Well, maybe the gloom and doom brigade will be in error again for the construction figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning show the benefit of the lags which occur between major projects started when companies are optimistic about the future and the onset of pessimism.
The statistician's trend estimate for total construction work done rose 2.4% in the September quarter 2008 with the seasonally adjusted estimate for total construction work done losing 4.4%, to $34,241.6m, in the September quarter, following a revised fall of 0.4% in the June quarter. While house building is clearly in decline, other building work is still chugging ahead.
And things are not expected to exactly grind to a halt in China either. While the days of 10% plus growth might be gone, this major Australian market is expected to do better than the rest of the world. The China Daily this morning gave a series of predictions for the year or two ahead.

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