The Governor of the RBA’s speech to the Prime Minister’s Economic Forum in Brisbane yesterday are available on the Reserve Bank website, and are well worth a look. Glenn Stevens’ presentation includes a number of fascinating slides, including:

• A comparison of Australia’s real GDP growth with a host of other countries (US, UK, NZ, Japan, Euro, Canada), both GDP and GDP per capita since March 2005. (Guess what, Australia has performed the best.)
• Australia’s Household Savings Ratio since 1962. Shows that the rate hovered around 15% of disposable income through the sixties and seventies, before dropping to zero around 2002 to 2004. Now back to around 10% post GFC.
• A terrific 142-year period chart of Australia’s Terms of Trade. Shows the moderately downward trend from 1900 to 2000, and thereafter the commencement of the commodities boom, peaking around 6 months ago.
• Australia’s unemployment rate over the last 100 years, from 1912 to 2012. Shows that however depressed some people are about our current economic woes, compared to the Great Depression, we are living in a champagne age. The unemployment rate in 1932 was 20% compared with 5.1% today!

http://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2012/index.html