What can you do if Australia has the most incompetent central bank in the world? That they have raised interest rates in the midst of an election is the second time it has thrown in its lot with Labor, as it did in 2007.
Of course, the problem really is that it has waited this long to do what has been an essential for quite some time. Let me remind you of this which is in no sense at all unrelated to rising rates of interest: Victorian state budget: Daniel Andrews government spending splurge as debt heads to $167.5bn. Labor steals from every constituency it gets to govern. The article is mostly about how Labor blames the Federal Coalition government, but I blame it on the phenomenal level of economic ignorance, which begins with the economics profession and continues from there across the entire community who are so grateful to see the level of demand being maintained. The level of supply, not so much, but who really cares anyway?
Keynesian stupidity is now so embedded that it would be very rare economist in May who has any sense of the devastation of governments indulging in one unproductive and loss-making project after another.
There was a time when a community would understand that with a more or less fixed resource base, the more the government spends the less available for the rest of us. They would also have understood, perhaps only dimly, that governments cannot manage productive forms of enterprise. This at the very end of the article really sums up what is going on:
Mr Pallas attributed most of this sum to the West Gate Tunnel project, which the government recently revealed would cost an extra $4.1bn and open three years late, in 2025.
Among the responsibilities of the 500 new cops will be helping to raise millions more in speed camera and on-the-spot fine revenue, which is expected to jump 16.4 per cent next financial year alone, from $615m in 2021-22 to $716m in 2022-23, and $829m over the forward estimates.
The government is desperate for money to cover the massive debts it has wracked up. Until they are permitted to sell the State to the Chinese via China’s Road and Belt “initiative” they are going to have to cover their debt from the only source available, from the people who live within the State. However, once we have a Labor government federally, the competition for your money will intensify exponentially. And this, I remind you, is the pre-election budget. Just wait till you see the one next year when they have four years till the next election.
As for the increase in rates of interest, a mere pin prick in the midst of all the rest but it will be the only issue that anyone will pay attention to.