Australia's two fuel crises
How Canberra's response to the first is making the second worse.
14 April 2026
Welcome to Detrended
This is the personal blog of Dr Justin Pyvis. I'm an economist living in Western Australia. I'm currently working on [project tk], [description tk].
Before that, I was the Principal Policy Analyst for the Economic Modelling and Policy team at the Western Australian Treasury, where I worked for half a dozen years. I've also worked for the infrastructure consultancy AECOM in Perth, and provided investment analysis for Aletheia Capital in Hong Kong.
If you'd like to get in touch, please send me an email or a DM on Twitter X.
The housing wealth illusion
Australia's $12.3 trillion housing stock isn't a pool of misallocated capital, but a mark-to-market valuation of a policy-induced supply constraint.
12 April 2026
The economists who cried wolf
Argentina under Milei is a case study in how easily economists' politics can override the lessons of their own discipline.
9 April 2026
Just another TACO Tuesday
Trump chickened out, markets rallied, and global consumers are left footing the bill for a new toll in the Strait of Hormuz.
8 April 2026
Free public transport and a puppy
If you wanted to ease pressure on fuel prices, free public transport would be near the bottom of the list.
7 April 2026
Albanese's convenient crisis
Albanese is framing a foundational principle of prosperity as a policy failure because it makes a convenient origin story for the intervention he already wanted.
2 April 2026
The GST windfall that isn't
State Premiers are performing generosity with a GST windfall that doesn't exist, adding to debt and stoking inflation at the worst possible time.
31 March 2026
How much fuel does Australia really have?
Australia's fuel reserves are thin, but they aren't the reason you're paying more at the pump.
30 March 2026
There's no shortage of bad ideas in Australia
Almost every proposed response to Australia's fuel crisis would make it worse.
26 March 2026
The RBA is losing the war on credibility
The RBA spent 2025 fuelling a fire it now lacks the credibility to extinguish.
25 March 2026