Australia leads global economy into the tar pits

Thursday 9 April 2026

It’s no surprise that Australia is most exposed in the OECD thanks to Albo’s toxic combination of high household debt, fuel import dependence and low fuel inventories.

Now, this suicidally vulnerable policy setup is playing out in real-time.

The global PMI for March is out and, as one would expect, consumers are leading the way lower.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.