Australia’s two largest property markets, Sydney and Melbourne have recorded the largest falls in property prices since the financial crisis.

Sceptics of a large fall in Australian housing prices have long decreed that “Australia is different”, that our nation through some combination of culture, lending standards and other factors, is somehow immune to the large housing price falls endured by other nations throughout the world.

For that reason, perhaps now is the time to examine a few ways that Australia is different to these nations that suffered housing crashes during the financial crisis.

Australia’s level of household debt to GDP is one the highest in the world, with the current level being more than 58% larger than that of the United States at that nation’s absolute peak.

Generally banks throughout the world prefer diversified loan portfolio’s spread across a number of different loan classes. However, in Australia our banks have concentrated heavily on residential property, with our banks holding more than doublethe proportion of residential mortgage loans as banks in the United States.

Australia has some of the most expensive property in the world in terms of price to income ratio’s, with both Sydney and Melbourne ranking in the top 10 most expensive housing markets in the world going by the price to income metric.

As you can determine from the graphs above, the sceptics are a hundred per cent correct that “Australia is different” although not for the reasons they espouse.

With the combination of one of the highest levels of household debt in the world, a banking system built on a previously unheard proportion of mortgage lending and some of the highest property prices on the planet Australia could scarcely be more different to other comparison nations.

One way or another, the Australian property market is going to become a pertinent lesson for policy makers and economists of the future. Either it will be recorded as the largest property bubble to ever safely deflate or it will become a reminder that asset price bubbles always find a way to eventually burst.

As the United States ramps up its rhetoric on trade toward China and continues sanctions on Russia, the two former cold warriors are coming together for the largest Russian military exercise since 1981, Vostok- 2018. The exercise is set to include over 300,000 Russian troops, 36,000 vehicles and over 1,000 aircraft.

This cooperation is just the latest sign that the two former adversaries are willing to bury the hatchet in the face of the threats to both of the nation’s strategic interests. In recent years Moscow once again began selling its latest and greatest military equipment to China after over a decade of pause caused by issues around intellectual property.

These sales have drastically improved the capabilities of the Chinese armed forces in many key areas where they were previously lagging behind the West. The Russian S-400 Triumph air defence system for example, gives the Chinese the ability to effectively deny enemy aircraft access to airspace within a 400km radius.

If Russian claims about its effectiveness prove to be accurate, it also has the ability to “see through” the stealth abilities of U.S aircraft like the B-2 Spirit bomber, F-22 Raptor and the F-35 strike fighter.

This is a potentially nightmare scenario for Pentagon defence planners, a prospective fight with the Chinese armed forces over the South China Sea for example just became that much harder.

The delivery of these, potentially game changing weapons are just one part of the warming relationship between Beijing and Moscow. The Chinese participation in the Vostok-2018 exercises is a huge change compared when they were last held in 2010. Back in 2010 the exercise was conducted with China being considered the potential foe according to geopolitics analysts.

At Vostok-2018 things could scarcely be more different, the Chinese armed forces will now line up side by side with the Russians, a profound change in the relationship between Beijing and Moscow in a relatively short period of time.

What has happened to bring about this change?

Both Russia and China are facing American led attempts to curtail their potential or existing spheres of influence.

For the Russians it was the coup against the Russian friendly government in Kiev of Viktor Yanukovych, which was backed partially by the United States. For decades the United States had been breaking a promise made in 1990 for NATO not to expand into Eastern Europe.

With the removal of the effective buffer state between the bulk of NATO forces and Russia’s borders the Kremlin burst into action. The Russians quickly seized the Crimean peninsula and quickly began arming separatists in the Eastern part of Ukraine.

For China it’s the expansion of their sphere of influence that is causing the problems. China believes it owns almost the entirety of the South China Sea with its “9-dash line” claim.

This has unsurprisingly raised serious flags with not only the countries who believe their territory is being encroached on, but also those who rely on the South China Sea for martime trade.

As China continues its meteoric rise there is a strong belief among certain officials in Beijing that war with the United States is “inevitable”. This belief coupled with the United States “Pivot to Asia” has only further inflamed tensions between Washington and Beijing.

So where are relations heading between Moscow and Beijing now?

An alliance between Beijing and Moscow may still be a long while off, but the recent rounds of cooperation between the two former adversaries on everything from military exercises to trade agreements leads credence to its potential.

Different geopolitical analysts paint either Moscow or Beijing as the reticent partner in any potential alliance. Russia is allegedly seen by the Chinese a potential liability given its involvement in existing conflicts in Ukraine and its position as the far inferior economic party in any alliance.

China is apparently viewed by Russian military officials as a potential unreliable partner. China’s military may be extremely powerful on paper but it is a nation that has not been tested in a real war in decades.

The once unthinkable alliance between Beijing and Moscow may not end up happening, but the very possiblity is none the less the stuff of nightmares for Western military planners.

At first glance Obama and Trump don’t appear to have anything in common other than they both made it to the highest office in the land. But when one looks closer at their individual political circumstances in their respective first terms and the electoral landscape after their first election victories, striking similarities begin to emerge.

Obama was elected in a landslide victory, which also handed the Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the Senate.

Trump was elected in a narrower victory than Obama in terms of the Electoral College, but he was nonetheless was elected with a large majority in Congress and a sufficiently large majority in the Senate.

Both Presidents effectively had the ability to pass whatever legislation that they could get their Congressional and Senate Colleagues to agree with. These large majorities in both halls of Capitol Hill coupled with a President of the same party are relatively rare. They are great opportunities to pass bills that are kryptonite to the party on the other side of the aisle, that would never pass under normal circumstances.

The Obama administration largely failed to capitalize on the large Democrat majorities in both the House and the Senate while they had the opportunity.

If the Obama administration had of made “Obama care”, a single payer universal health care system for example, their priority in the first two years they could have gotten a system much closer to the one they wanted. Instead Democrat concessions made necessary by a much less friendly Capitol Hill later in Obama’s presidency, led to Obamacare being “ineffective” and “compromised” according to some policy analysts.

Trump on the other hand has in relative terms run riot with his policy agenda despite having a smaller majority than Obama did during his first two years.

The Trump administration has passed large tax cuts, for both personal income tax and corporate taxes with relative ease given the policy deadlock that usually defines Capitol Hill.

In addition to that Trump has cut 16 regulations for every new one fulfilling the ideals of Libertarian Republicans the country over.

Both Trump and Obama started out in very similar positions, but one administration has been willing to severely rock the boat in order to pass the bill’s they wanted. The other was trying to mend fences and build bridges the other side was never interested in, in the first place.

In essence Trump is the Anti-Obama, a bull in a China shop figure who doesn’t use a scalpel when a hammer will do. But his hammer job on U.S politics has given the Republican Party and Trump supporters things that have been on their wish list for decades.

Obama on the other hand delivered many Democrats disappointment that he didn’t do more when he had the chance, leaving many die hard Democrats hopeful that next time will be different.

As the formal Brexit date of the 29^th March 2019 grows ever closer, speculation over what arrangements and trade deals can be worked out before then has reached fever pitch.

The markets and the participants of the talks all “remain confident” a deal can be reached. Even when the possibility of talks failing to achieve a trade deal is brought up, it is often dismissed as unlikely.

The British government and the European Union may indeed negotiate a continuation of current trade deals, of which Britain could potentially remain a part, for a time at least.

A whole new trade deal is another matter entirely.

Trade deals are notoriously difficult to negotiate even when only attempting to look after the competing interests of two nations.

Putting together a framework where both sides sufficiently benefit is a gruelling process. In the case of the EU, it’s not just two sides that need to walk away satisfied, it’s the nation making the deal and the EU’s 28 member nations.

According to the European Court of Justice (Europe’s highest court), EU trade agreements that deal with regulatory or investment issues must be ratified at multiple levels. In these types of instances, for example the Canada – EU free trade agreement. The approval of the EU council, EU Parliament, the national assemblies of all 28 member nations and certain sub-national bodies is required before the deal can be fully enacted.

The Canada – EU trade agreement took 7 years to negotiate and was 22 years in the making. It has been nearly two years since the deal was signed, but it has only been ratified by 9 of the required 28 EU member nations. So the full agreement is not yet entirely enforceable and parts of it are only provisionally applied.

Despite over two decades in the making, the Italian Parliament is currently attempting to block its ratification, a move that could potentially sink the entire deal.

So what does that mean for Britain?

The cost of bowing out of the EU without a trade deal is currently estimated at £27bn a year to UK companies and an additional £31bn to their EU counterparts.

The British ambassador to the EU privately told the government that a trade agreement with the EU may take 10 years to negotiate and then still potentially fail to be ratified.

The complexities of EU internal politics and the plethora of political speed bumps will likely ensure any potential Britain-EU trade deal will take a considerable amount of time.

That doesn’t even begin to take into account the likely issues Theresa May’s embattled government may face in negotiating any trade deal.

Given the current governments extremely slim majority, having the political mandate to push through a deal that may prove unpopular with elements of British indistry, could potentially be a terminal battle for the Prime Minster’s leadership.

There may indeed be some EU member states that are extremely keen on a good, quick deal for Britain, for example Germany. However considering the extremely complicated process EU trade deals can potentially entail, a quick sweetheart deal for Britain seems very unlikely.

If for any reason your interested in the ins and outs of the 30 step EU trade agreement process, there is a guide to the process here.

With the midterms fast approaching there is a question on every political analysts and pundits mind, will the polls be accurate this time? In electioneering, polls are still the only real way to measure voter intentions going into any democratic contest, yet in the recent past beginning with the Brexit referendum they have failed to accurately predict elections and referendums on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the 2016 election the vast majority of polls suggested Hilary Clinton would be the next President of the United States by a handy margin, yet not only did that not come to pass, Trump won the election by 77 Electoral College votes.

For example, Michigan was considered practically in the bag for Hilary Clinton during the 2016 election cycle. Polling numbers less than a month out from Election Day had Donald Trump’s campaign lagging up to a huge 11.4 points behind in the race. On Election Day however Trump emerged victorious by 10,704 votes.

Michigan Democrats were absolutely shocked that the Clinton campaign and the DNC listened to the polls predicting an easy victory, over their own on the ground experiences which painted a very different picture. These battle-hardened political operatives very much knew that Michigan was a live race in the battle for the Presidency, yet the Clinton campaign chose to stand behind their “model” based around pre-selected data.

In 2016 the Democrats put their faith in the polling, in the data and left themselves putting all their eggs in one basket. On November 8th 2016 the bottom fell out of that basket and left them not only with egg on their faces, but picking up the pieces in a world in which Donald Trump would now be President and the Republicans would control both the house and the Senate.

Fast forward to today, some of the same polls that predicted the Clinton campaign handily winning the Presidency are now projecting a strong possibility that the Democrats will retake control of the house. The Real Clear Politics Generic Congressional Vote polling currently gives the Democrats a mammoth 5.7 point lead over the Republicans. Democrats are rejoicing at the possibility of Congress going blue and finally having a means to check Donald Trump’s agenda politically.

Yet in this renewed faith in polling there is danger that the mistakes of the recent past may once again be repeated, with potentially dire consequences for the Democratic Party all over again.

Since the 2016 Presidential election, political discourse has become even more polarized, seemingly by the day. As the two sides drift further and further apart, regular every day voters feel less and less comfortable sharing their political opinions with those that don’t share their particular values.

People are increasingly keeping their own counsel when it comes to political matters, with some even going as far to outright lie or deceive others about their voting intentions in order to maintain their relationships and communities.

Trump supporters and Republicans are often vilified by prominent individuals or media commentators and this has led to them increasingly dropping out of political discourse but increasingly motivated to get out and vote come November.

The rapper Eminem for example said in an interview when asked about Trump “He’s got people brainwashed”.

In all these pieces of commentary there is often the common thread that you are not a good person, or a good American if you want to vote Republican. With all this negativity surrounding anyone voting for the GOP of course some people are going to be reluctant to share their opinion if they want their state to go or remain red.

As some Republicans and Trump supporters increasingly go underground, this potentially makes the pollsters job that much harder. If people that are interviewed can’t or won’t be truthful about their genuine political allegiance then the polls will become increasingly skewed towards pointing to victories for the Democratic Party.

If Democrats hope to win back the House and make a dent in the Republican majority in the Senate they must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the recent past and this time listen to those with genuine sources on the ground, rather than relying solely on big data to give a complete picture.