The UnOz’s Person of the Year award is one of the most anticipated events of the year, with defamation lawyers everywhere especially keen to see the list. 2023 was a year like no other. For Australia it felt like a... Read More ›
reserve bank
The Reserve Bank of Australia has taken a break from kicking mortgage holders in the groin to call on the Nation’s defamation lawyers to reign in their spending as inflation is on the rise. ”These millionaire defamation lawyers need to... Read More ›
Opposition leader (for now) Peter Dutton has called upon the Albanese Government to appoint former Minister for everything, everywhere, all at once, Scott Morrison, as Governor of the Reserve Bank. ”I don’t want to see some qualified public servant or... Read More ›
The Opposition’s shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor (yep, him) has called on the Government to explain why the country relies on a Reserve bank instead of an actual playing bank. ”It’s high time Treasurer Jim Chalmers explained to the Australian people... Read More ›
At the risk of being political – and politics is important, it will determine how we are governed for the next three years – economic conditions could scarcely be better for a government seeking re-election.
The economic things that matter most to most people are, in my view:
jobs – if employment is climbing rather than falling, most people are not at much risk of losing their job
economic growth and wages growth – if things are getting better rather than worse, even in small ways, people feel better about the future
the ability to buy a home – if it is getting hard, even for other people or for their children, they are concerned about what the future will become
mortgage rates – as long as rates stay low they know their own personal budget won’t go out of whack
Despite appearances – especially in the United States – the era of high inflation isn’t set for a comeback in the view of Australia’s leading economists, and most see no need for the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates next year.
In the US, figures released last week showed the consumer price index surged 6.2% in the year to October, the most since 1990. So-called “core” inflation (which excludes volatile prices) climbed 4.6%, also the most for 30 years.
US underlying inflation
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.
At the beginning of last year, The Conversation asked 21 of Australia’s leading economists what would happen in 2021 and 2022. At the time, the published unemployment rate was 6.6%.
None of them thought it would slip below 5% in 2021 or 2022.
Asked when the unemployment rate might eventually even touch 5%, none nominated 2021. Only two nominated 2022. The rest picked dates years into the future. Three picked “not for the foreseeable future”.