The Doomsayer's View of the World

I suspect there was a wealth effect and consumption would have been even lower, had it not been for the housing boom. And I think we probably will experience potentially some lower activity levels. The problem is we didn't observe the counterfactual. So unless you can construct a compelling case for a recession in Australia, I don't see the housing downturn becoming disorderly. My orderly benign unwinding of the great Aussie housing and balances case has been proven right over the last two years. But I'm happy to change my view if there's conflicting data that comes to pass.