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, November 16, 2011

RBA's Phil Lowe: "interest rates now are broadly neutral"

Kinda pours cold water over claims that the RBA wants to cut rates further to get them to "neutral". Here is what Phil Lowe said:

"It isn't the result of interest rates, and interest rates now are broadly neutral. They're neither expansionary for the economy nor contractionary for the 15 economy...

What we can do is to make sure that when you guys out there are making your decisions, you can be confident that inflation will average between 2 and 3 per cent over time. That's what we've done. That's what we'll continue to do. But we're just setting kind of the background environment in which these big structural forces are playing out."
at 9:39 AM