Thanks Yabby for the info. Is that 1.2 trillion our GDP ?
To the $18 billion you have to add another roughly $18 billion for the
locally produced oil then the cost of coal and finally the cost of
natural gas. I don't think the renewables are significant enough to be a factor.

Hmm if that $1.2T is our GDP then we are in real trouble as 2x18 = 36.
Plus say $14 billion for all the rest = $50 billion and that is 4.1% !
That is definitely economic crash territory.
The US crashed in 2008 at 4% and it could explain our suddenly rising
non mining unemployment.

So it gets down to this, exactly what is our GDP dollar value ?

This thread was started because the Labor tragics think that the Australian economy doing better than the rest of the world is vindication of Labot policies. When pressed to point out which of their policies have contributed to the mining boom that is propping up the economy, they all remain silent.

Mark Latham summed it up well on Friday when the only positive thing he could say of Labor is that they haven't stuffed it up. Australia is doing well in spite of Labor not because of it.

Bazz, be careful that you don't try to force the figures to fit
into your pet theory, rather than looking at the big holistic
picture and learning from that.

Energy prices are a factor, but only one of them. In much of the
world, if you go back some years, its been more about various
unsustainable bubbles developing and eventually they pop, with
long term ramifications.

In places like the USA, Spain etc, people built ever more houses,
claiming that house prices could only ever go up. The building
industry employs alot of people. When the wheels fell off that
cart, what you had was a collapse of the building industry, a
collapse in house prices, a rise in unemployment. Neither country
has recovered from that.

In Australia, in the last decade, people borrowed money and bid up
real estate, shares and all the rest, as they were all gonna be
rich. People maxed out their credit cards etc. That bubble burst
too. Luckily for us, due to high immigration we have a housing
shortage, so house prices have not collapsed completely.

But people have learned from the GFC. They are saving more, borrowing
less, speculating less, which no doubt affects how many are employed.

Then we have more businesses going broke (the internet effect etc),
poor Govt policies, (Fair Work Act) so less business start ups.

Net result of all this is roughly what you see now.Trying to ignore
all these factors and blaming it all on energy costs, is flawed IMHO.

Yabby, yes the housing boom bust came on gradually during 2007 and
got progressively worse during 2008.
This same rise was mirrored by the price of oil.
As soon as the oil price peaked at $147 a barrel in July 2008 the
economy fell over about one month later.

In the US almost everyone drives to work.
At over $4 a gallon they had the option of paying for food, or petrol
or the mortgage. The mortgage missed out and the real estate housing
collapsed as millions stopped paying their mortgages.
This was the 4% of GDP point and there have been a number of economics
papers that supported that scenario.

Likewise it happened again when WTI oil reached $110.
Our TAPIS was $134 at the same time and we started to hear about the
various plant reductions and closures.

If you get the opportunity read Richard Heinberg's "End of Growth" and
the economist Jeff Rubin's "Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller".

They may be available on Kindle.

*At over $4 a gallon they had the option of paying for food, or petrol
or the mortgage.*

But Bazz, people have lots of options. Like buy a smaller, more
fuel efficient car for instance. When the oil price dropped back
to 30$, it did not create a booming economy, so I think you are
skewing the data to suit your pet theory, rather then examine all
the factors.

One of the factors in America which is the problem, is in fact
Govt regulation. So people are not liable for their housing loans,
beyond the value of the house, unlike Australia, where you will
be declared bankrupt. So for many who overpaid for houses, it
was a question of jingle mail, send back the keys, to get rid of
the pesky mortgage. Nothing to do with fuel prices.

Right now, alot of global uncertainty is the problem. Alot of
business people are sitting on their hands, unwilling to risk more
capital in ventures. That means less jobs. The oil price has
nothing to do with it.

Yabby said;
When the oil price dropped back
to 30$, it did not create a booming economy,

Well that is the point, the lower price caused a pickup and then they
all started to talk of recovery and the price started back up.
It finally reached the $90 to $100 range and it all stopped again.

This is the time of the infamous "Double Dip" that they all worried about.
This cycling was predicted quite some years ago. Like all oscillations
something will dampen it after a few cycles and it will stabilise at
a lower level.

There is a graph that shows that every recession, except two, have
been preceded by a peak in oil prices.
It is not related to the peak oil cycling, because it was before peak.
It does illustrate the effect of oil price on the economy.
I have a copy here but we cannot put it on here. One exception was
the dot.com boom recession.

I still have not been able to find the dollar value of our GDP.
All the Stats Dept talks about are relative percentage.