Blogotariat

There are four economic wildcards between now and the election, and we know exactly when each will be played.

Yes hello long time blogger, first time in almost two years post. In late 2020 my life (and writing) became consumed by completing a doctorate, which was eventually conferred in September 2021. I even popped on a floppy hat in December last year.

Offered a menu of issues to choose from as the most important in the May 21 election, Australia’s top economists have overwhelmingly zeroed in on one.

Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

So good, and so unexpected, has been Australia’s economic improvement over the past three months, it has wiped one-third of the projected 2022-23 budget deficit.
Or it would have, had the government not decided to give away almost half (45%) the windfall.

The biggest question relating to the management of the economy right now has nothing to do with next week’s budget. It has everything to do with the Reserve Bank and the board meetings that will follow it.

The question facing the board – the biggest there is when it comes to how the next few years are going to play out – is whether to hike interest rates just because prices are climbing.

The West is arraying financial weapons never deployed before against a country of Russia’s size, forsaking some of the principles that have defined it.

Part of what has defined the West – and most of what has been the world’s engine of prosperity for the past century and a half – has been the free flow of goods across borders, a working banking system, and property rights.

Rainy Sydney in 2011, much the same now

In Sydney right now anyway. How about where you are, everybody?

I hope all hoydens and hoyden-adjacent folks are safe and sound during the latest manifestations of the climate emergency.

If you told someone a year ago unemployment was about to dive below 5%, to just above 4%, they wouldn’t have believed you.

If that person was an expert, and you said it would happen despite a Delta outbreak and lockdowns in our two biggest states, they might have said you had little idea of how the economy worked.