In what way is current account as a percentage of gdp meaningful?
Australia could be minus because of the importation of capital equipment that may generate billions in revenues and tax intake in future years.
Without knowing what's driving the deficit, no useful conclusion can be drawn.
Here's an example at the perspnal level.
Joe spend 50k$ in a year on a specialised education course.
In that year his earnings are minimal because he is studying. Thus, his "current account" would ne negative for that year.
But , because of his specialised knowledge, in subsequent years he earns big money.
So how was having a negative current account position in that first year a bad thing?
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

*Thus, his "current account" would ne negative for that year*

Exactly. So follow Joe's current account over 30 years and if he
is still borrowing more then he earns, he might have a problem.

Despite record commodity prices, Australia still borrows more then
it earns, to pay for our cushy lifestyle and overblown Govts.

You sound a bit like the Greeks. In the future we will make all
this money, but for now we'll just borrow even more to fix the
problem and kick the can down the road for another year. Spain
did the same. Note those countries doing well, they do well for
a reason, oil or no oil.

Yabby,
Slow down, take a deep breath and read my example fully.
I repeat, unless you know what drove the negative current account result, the measure has no meaning.
Economics 101.
Anthony
http://www.observatiopoint.com.au

Yabby & Anthony, isn't the high cost of energy imports which adds to
the current account unbalance to the negative paid for out of the
positive side of the GDP ?

Martin Ferguson recently referred to the import costs of oil rising to
unsustainable levels. The current reduction in price to $102 a barrel
will help but I suspect it won't last long.

This the problem that is plaguing most governments in Europe even
though they have reduced their consumption by about 5%.
This problem of energy raises its head as its cost gets to about 3% of GDP.

Yabby & Anthony, isn't the high cost of energy imports which adds to
the current account unbalance to the negative paid for out of the
positive side of the GDP ?

Martin Ferguson recently referred to the import costs of oil rising to
unsustainable levels. The current reduction in price to $102 a barrel
will help but I suspect it won't last long.

This the problem that is plaguing most governments in Europe even
though they have reduced their consumption by about 5%.
This problem of energy raises its head as its cost gets to about 3% of GDP.

Here is our problem.
We use almost 1,000,000 barrels a day.
We import around 50% of what we use.
So for 365 days @ $100 it comes to $18,250,000,000 a year.
So what percentage of our GDP is that ?
I don't know I have not been able to find a figure except a percentage
change on what it was last year.

Bazz, last time I checked, we had something like a 1.3 trillion$
economy, so the 18 billion for fuel would be far less then what
we spend as interest on our trillion $ borrowings, as we have been
running current account deficits for yonks.

Fact is that even with record commodity prices, Australia is still
spending more than it earns.

What the Economist figures show is that plenty of countries are
still doing well, despite high energy prices. But they are the smart
countries, we remain amongst the dumb countries.