Political eyes on 'centre', irrelevancy is the result |
The market and financial traders are fairly confident the RBA will raise interest rates again at its meeting on Tuesday, meaning workers are about to be hit with higher mortgage payments on top of the rising cost of living.
Raising housing costs for working Australians will do absolutely nothing to lower fuel costs. But the Reserve Bank has one tool, so it deploys it at everything, even when the inflation is caused by supply issues, not demand.
It is also a board that seems particularly captured by what the market thinks. And if the market thinks there should be more interest rate hikes – and the corresponding increases in unemployment that follow – then that’s what the market will get.
This follows what monthly inflation figures revealed last week was a 30 per cent increase in fuel costs, and all the increases that come with that.
Inflation prices are already baked in to most everyday goods – there is no return to pre-inflation prices – so people’s dollars are worth even less.
On top of that, we have a government cutting services – like the NDIS (which is being rewarded as “economic bravery”) – while increasing spending in defence, while ruling out an export tax on existing........