The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

More wrinkles wrapping around October...

One curiosity about the October meeting was the absence of three key external directors: Roger Corbett AO, Graham Kraehe AO and Warwick McKibbin, at least one of whom, McKibbin, is a noted hawk. Anyone who has serious experience with professional boards would appreciate that this may have weighed on the Bank's reluctance to undertake a pre-emptive hike in October: ie, better to wait until the full Board is present with the CPI data in hand to make a final resolution on what would be the commencement of a semi-controversial tightening campaign, and the first of its kind amongst the advanced economies.

Postscript: I just noticed that David Uren at The Australian had noticed the same thing, suggesting that the RBA executive was rolled by the Board.