Australian business and consumer sentiment remains stunted

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Wednesday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>And today we lead with news Australian business and consumer sentiment remains stunted.</p><p>But first, American retail sales last week as <a href="https://www.redbookresearch.com/4436.html" target="_blank"><strong>monitored</strong></a> for bricks & mortar stores on a same store basis, rose +4.6% from the same week a year ago, the best gain of the year and indicating demand is back and gains are now more than can be accounted for by inflation.</p><p>Following hot and dry weather in August, and in its first report since field sampling, the <a href="https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/wasde0923.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>USDA</strong></a> lowered its estimates for corn and soybean yields. The outlook for wheat is unchanged and its <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/wheat" target="_blank"><strong>price is falling</strong></a> on good harvests worldwide. American beef production levels are slipping and imports from Australia and New Zealand are rising, they say. They also lowered milk production forecasts for the US as cow numbers retreat. But they don't see imports rising either.</p><p>With the ending of pandemic support in the US, their <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-280.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>poverty levels</strong></a> are rising back to previous levels. Their measures of what constitutes poverty is specific to the US and covers many factors on a variety of perspectives. But for a four person household with two children, it is an <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html" target="_blank"><strong>annual income threshold</strong></a> of US$29,700 or NZ$50,300 or NZ$24.15/hr.</p><p>In India, consumer price inflation <a href="https://www.mospi.gov