The Australian Bureau of Statistics has joined Australia’s War of Stupid. Recall:
For the last few years, that outlook has been a War of Stupid between overly tight monetary policy versus overly tight fiscal policy. The RBA refused to ease for years, demanding instead that Josh Depressionberg spend more on productivity-enhancing investment. Depressionberg pointedly did the precise opposite, in the hope of forcing the RBA into further rate cuts that would trigger another round of house price inflation and consumption.
Australians have been pressed gammon as the economy did nether. House prices managed a bounce out of the 2018 credit crunch but consumption and private investment ignored it, even with the aid of large tax cuts which were saved. Meanwhile, Depressionberg ran public investment into the ground, exacerbated by the end of the NBN build, so that the economy was effectively at stall speed and the private sector in recession as we entered the COVID-19 shock.
