ABC News leads the media shonks in fomenting fear of recession

As Alan Austin reports, the national broadcaster is failing the country badly by misreporting the Australian economy.

Thank God we can close it ABC News and go to the football field coverage. Numerous recent publications confirm that ABC’s newsroom is now a more devastating source of misinformation and misery than ever before. Rupert Murdoch‘s treacherous network.

It fuels fear and hatred

ABC News last week provided an interview with National Australia Bank’s chief economist (NAB), Sally Auldone of the country’s most insightful economists.

sectiontitled ‘Business confidence has fallen to levels not seen since the start of COVID’benefited from NAB’s monthly works questionnaire For March. Predictably, business confidence has fallen since US President Donald Trump’s madness sparked global turmoil.

The presenter said:

“This is a shocking report. It bears all the signs of an economic crisis. Where do we see this reflected in the economy?”

The answer, of course, is that there is no crisis in the Australian economy. But we did not hear Dr Auld say this. He went so far as to mention the recent slight interest rate increases and “Everything that’s happened in the Middle East in the last four to five weeks.”.

Sharp editing prevented us from hearing what he had to say next.

The presenter then argued:

“Sally Auld, this is an ominous sign for consumers who are already worried about price increases.”

Complete nonsense. There is inflation stayed Less than 4% in the last 26 months. February inflation was lower than January.

Of course, much of the world will have to pay more for oil when supply is disrupted, but that shouldn’t cause debilitating anxiety.

It would be interesting to hear what Dr Auld told ABC News.

Auld has been pretty optimistic all year, including at the beginning of this month. to secure Rural Press Club of NSW:

“The positive side of all this is that the starting point for confronting the conflict in Iran is low unemployment, essentially full employment and GDP growth that’s actually pretty solid.”

Trust trick of commercial trust

The ABC’s main failure here was to imply that the business confidence index measured anything concrete. Not.

Australian entrepreneurs enjoy an economy with the best combination ever reported of full employment, low inflation, optimal interest rates and stable GDP growth.

So what is the correct answer to a pollster asking this question: “Aside from normal seasonal variations, how do you expect business conditions to change in the future?”

Naturally, for all of Trump’s malevolent follies, an intelligent responder would predict that the situation would worsen. However, this does not indicate that anything material has changed or will inevitably change.

The interview ended with an extremely stupid question: “Are we heading for a recession?”

A recession is usually defined by two-quarters of negative GDP growth. Therefore, the time to speculate on this issue is well after the first negative quarter. This is nowhere in sight.

Dr Auld replied firmly: “NO.”

So what did ABC News do then? Throughout that day, and every day since, they stoked anxiety with threats of serious economic recession.

a friend report The same bulletin had the following headline: ‘As the Middle East war continues, the risk of recession increases’.

The presenter argued:

“…The economic shock from the war in the Middle East continues to bite. The pump is short, prices are soaring and fears are growing that Australia could face a recession.”

This is speculative fear mongering with no basis.

Lots of blatant lies

A. section Title published last Wednesday IMF: ‘If the shock in oil prices continues, the world is on the brink of global recession’.

Server started:

“The International Monetary Fund sounded the alarm, warning that a protracted war in the Middle East could push the global economy to the brink of recession.”

This is clearly wrong. IMF He does not foresee a global recession. In fact, the basic chart in this section is the IMF’s ‘Serious scenario’ It was presented at the recent Spring Meetings in Washington. This clearly shows that growth forecasts are 2% this year and 2.2% next year. These are not recessions. See the screenshot below.

Screenshot from ABC News showing IMF’s ‘severe scenario’ still has positive global economic growth (Image provided)

Other negative ABC News “stories” that are extremely irresponsible include:

‘Westpac CEO warns ‘there is a possibility of recession as interest rates rise’.’ [3 April];
‘Nightlife News – Ceasefires and recessions.’ [9 April];
‘IMF warned about increase in inflation.’ [15 April];
‘Consumers are cutting back on spending due to the high risk of global recession.’ [17 April]; And
‘The ‘complacent’ market declines as the economic outlook worsens.’ [17 April].

These confirm that those who prepare these reports do not understand what a recession is. ABC anyone?

Classic historical mistakes

Some readers will remember a similar alarm situation 17 years ago. Global Financial Crisis shook much of the developed world.

ABC’s AM schedule in February 2009 featured Chris Richardson from Access Economy declare:

“What’s going on internationally is absolutely evil… Nothing Australia can do will stop the recession here because there’s recession everywhere.”

Fortunately, this was quite wrong. Australian economy grew up Annual GDP growth, which was 1.01% in the first quarter of 2009, became 1.63%. highest from the 36th OECD countries.

In 2009, the then Minister of Treasury was among the personnel said to have the best decision-making mechanism in the world. Ken HenryPrime minister Kevin RuddAccountant Wayne Swanand a promising lad appointed as Swan’s deputy chief of staff and chief advisor.

Today, a news outlet aiming to reassure its audience that Australia’s economy is in safe hands might point out that all those wise advisors are still on hand when another crisis looms. The then young consultant is now the Financial Affairs Manager – Jim Chalmers.

In fact, he could reduce the debt by turning over ABC News to Rupert Murdoch, who already appears to control it.

Keep the football department, though. They’re doing a great job.