Australia slipping into recession

Unsurprising:

Official figures show the Australian economy has gone backwards for the first time since December 2000, putting it on the brink of a technical recession.

National accounts figures out today show the economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in the December quarter. That puts GDP growth for the year to December 2008 at 0.3 per cent. The September quarter's growth figures have not been revised.

I'm pretty certain Q1 2009 will be positive, but I doubt that this will be sustained throughout the year. Fortunately none of our banks are disintegrating.

And -0.5% is actually quite good compared to most nations at the moment.