The economy is never as good as it looks and never as bad as it seems
An aphorism sometimes used by professionals in the financial markets is that ‘things are never as good as they look and never as bad as they seem.’ That is perhaps worth remembering when the Federal Budget is delivered on 11 May. The expected economic devastation from the COVID-19 lockdowns — which caused deep harm to many sectors, especially tertiary education, travel and tourism — has not, at least in aggregate, led to the economy falling off a cliff. Things have not turned out to be as bad as they had seemed a year ago.