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We’re going up in the financial world, but no one’s noticed
Ross Gittins Economics Editor September 15, 2025 — 12.15am Advertisement
Economists like us to think they’re cooly rational in all things. Nah. They’re just as susceptible to fads and fashions as the rest of us. In my working life they’ve gone from being obsessively worried about Australia’s financial dealings with the rest of the world to neither knowing nor caring.
When the “balance of payments” figures – which summarise all our financial dealings with other countries – are published each quarter, they go almost totally unreported and unremarked, meaning most economists have no idea of how our position in the financial world has changed, or why.
But two honourable