Economics Roundtable

This week’s Business Spectator column.  If you would like to receive an unedited version by email on Fridays, let me know and I will put you on the distribution list.  Email info at institutional-economics dot com.

Terry McCrann poses some questions to Chris ‘Rainy Day’ Richardson:

What would have been - dangerously - fiscally irresponsible is to have not had the cuts each year. If Costello had listened to the twitterings of Access Economics, which opposed every single one of the ...

The RBA’s quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy contained an inflation forecast consistent with the 2-3% medium-term target range, assuming you don’t mind waiting until Christmas 2010 to get it.  This was achieved largely by way of a dramatically lower economic growth forecast.  Non-farm GDP is ...

Gerard Baker on the Great Depression that wasn’t:

I don’t know about you but I feel a bit cheated. There we all were, led to believe by so many commentators that the sub-prime crisis was going to force the United States into a new era of dust bowls ...

Traxis Partners MD Cyril Moulle-Berteaux argues the US housing downturn is all but over:

In the past five major housing market corrections (and there were some big ones, such as in the early 1980s when home sales also fell by 50%-60% and prices fell 12%-15% in real terms), ...

Once-were-inflation-warrior turned inflation capitulationist ‘Henry Thornton’ concedes:

if wages begin to surge, all bets will be off and the bank will need to hit the economy with additional rate rises until people demanding wage increases get the message.

If you like record-breaking growth rates in the labour price index, ...

Regular readers will not be surprised to learn I’m in furious agreement with Don Harding:

The most egregious error occurs when people argue that the Reserve Bank has aggressively tightened monetary policy. It has done nothing of the sort. The relevant measure for assessing whether the RBA ...

Alan Wood on the Gans-Joye proposal to harness government guarantees to under-write mortgage lending:

The creation of a government - that is, taxpayer - subsidised institution, largely for the benefit of non-bank mortgage lenders, would need to be justified either by the existence of a long-term structural ...

This week’s Business Spectator column.  If you would like to receive an unedited version by email on Fridays, let me know and I will put you on the distribution list.  Email info at institutional-economics dot com.

James Hamilton updates his recession indicator index following the advance Q1 GDP release:

Recent sluggish growth rates bring our recession indicator index for the fourth quarter of 2007 up to 26.9%. That’s its highest value since the 2001 recession, but still well short of the 65% reading ...