The Reserve Bank of Australia lifted its cash rate to 7.0%, on the back of higher than expected inflation outcomes. In the statement, Governor Stevens stuck firmly to the uncertainty line while admitting that even this lift in rates may not be sufficient to tame inflation. Continued strength in domestic demand is likely to push […]
A rising outflow of New Zealander’s to Australia is causing concern amongst a bunch of people. People move away for a number of reasons, as the Department of Labour nicely points out. However, as economists we like to think at the margin. We are not interested in the general reasons that people are leaving New […]
Recently the two main political parties in New Zealand have announced schemes that aim to, in some ways, help up-skill 16 and 17 years olds. At the same time, National has come out stating that it will leave student loans interest free, but provide a reward for repayments (leading to much debate). Although these may […]
This article came out at 9.30am stating that the New Zealand dollar was going to test $US0.80 again. Even with an positive surprise in the merchandise trade figures, this is what happened: Macro-man notices a similar trend with Economist magazine covers. Update: If anyone wonders why the dollar is falling, it is because of concerns […]
As the market expected the Fed cut its Federal Funds rate to 3.0% (down 50 basis points), a full 125 basis points lower than it was at the last meeting. In the accompanying statement they touched on all the issues that they have previously complained about: Weak housing market, softening labour market, and the erratic […]
I was just looking at the economics chat meter at 26 econ and noticed this interesting graph: The graph shows the frequency of use of the word ‘recession’ in blog posts since the 2nd of August – a few days after the subprime mortgage market woes began to drag on market confidence. January has been […]