After 13 interest rate hikes that sent home loan repayments soaring, we still have an inflation problem.
Actually, make that 17. The Reserve Bank may have lifted rates on 13 separate occasions but a few of those were double-whammy hikes at twice the normal 0.25 percentage point increases.
In any other universe, that should have sent the economy into a tailspin, put vast numbers of workers on the dole, crashed the property market and batted price rises back into zombie territory.
True, the economy is only barely managing to stay afloat with just 0.1 per cent growth in the most recent quarter.
But the jobs market, while slackening, remains incredibly strong, real estate markets are booming and inflation is still travelling at a dangerously uncomfortable speed.
Late last year, the speed at which prices were rising began to slow quite dramatically.
But since then, it has refused to budge with the latest numbers indicating prices are still rising at about 3.6 per cent a year.
That’s a long way north of the 2 to 3 per cent band for which the RBA is aiming.
The solution, according to a range of armchair critics, is that Michele Bullock and her team need to whack the economy again with a couple more rate increases, just for good measure.
