Last week (November 15, 2023), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the September-quarter 2023, which shows that the aggregate wage index rose by 1.3 per cent over the quarter (up 0.5 points) and 4 per cent over the 12 months (up 0.3 points). The ABS noted…
Central banking
The resurgence of economic orthodoxy is a great example of how declining schools of thought can maintain dominance in the narrative for extended periods of time if the vested interests are powerful enough. In the case of the economics profession, mainstream New Keynesian theory persists because it serves the interests of capital. Recently, the IMF…
Given yesterday’s detailed monetary policy analysis, I am using today to present an array of news items and some brief analytical thoughts on central bank monetary policy. The latter is based on a very interesting speech that the governor of the Bank of Japan gave in Nagoya earlier this week. The juxtaposition with the way…
Yesterday (November 7, 2023), the Reserve Bank of Australia raised its policy rate target for the 12th time since May 2022 by 0.25 points to 4.35 per cent. It was an unnecessary increase, just like the eleven increases that preceded it. And, from my perspective it represents a broken policy model. The RBA policies are…
It’s Wednesday and I use this space to write about any number of issues or items that have attracted my interest and which I consider do not require a detailed analysis. The issues discussed may be totally unrelated. Today, I provide my response to yesterday’s decision by the Bank of Japan to vary its Yield…
The IMF regularly conduct ‘missions’ to member countries, where a group of highly paid economists trot out to a capital city somewhere, hole up in some luxury hotel, and have a few meetings with Treasury officials and the like and then shoot through after the short visit back to whence they came and produce their…
Today (October 25, 2023), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Consumer Price Index, Australia – for the September-quarter 2023. The data showed a slight uptick in the quarterly rate of inflation with the CPI rising by 1.2 per cent (up 0.4 points), largely due to petrol price rises and rental increases. The…
It’s Wednesday and I spent some time this morning reading the latest IMF – Global Financial Stability Report – in which the IMF pretends to know what is going on in the world economy based on a set of erroneous assumptions about how that economy functions. But the data it provides is interesting in itself.…
It’s Wednesday and I have a few observations on a few things today. I have written before about how the rising interest rates in many nations, far from being deflationary, have demonstrably increased inflationary pressures. The two pathways that this impact occurs are: one, the boost to wealth among creditors coupled with significant proportions of…
Yesterday (August 29, 2023), the incoming Reserve Bank of Australia governor was confronted with ‘activists’ as she prepared to present to an audience at the Australian National University in Canberra. They presented her with an application for unemployment benefits and had done her the favour of already filling it in with her name. It was…