Essay by Eric Worrall
Australia's Treasurer has criticised the Reserve Bank for raising interest rates rather than taking responsibility for the “green inflation” he and his incompetent colleagues have unleashed.
Jim Chalmers blames interest rate hikes for “destroying” the economy and expects weak economic growth
By political reporter Jake Evans
In summary:
The finance minister blamed the gradual increase in interest rates for a stagnating economy.
When the federal government published its figures this week, it expected economic growth to remain weak.
What happens next?
Economic growth figures for the third quarter will be released on Wednesday.
Finance Minister Jim Chalmers has blamed successive interest rate hikes for “destroying the economy” as the government braces for more weak economic figures to be released this week.
Speaking ahead of the release of the latest economic growth figures on Wednesday, Chalmers said the government was focused on reducing inflation without putting further pressure on people who are “already suffering from higher interest rates”.
“Given this global uncertainty and the impact of interest rate hikes shaking the economy, it would not be a great surprise if national accounts showed weak and subdued growth on Wednesday,” Chalmers said.
…
Mr Chalmers later clarified at a press conference that his comments were “of course” not intended as an attack on the RBA, but did not repeat that claim.
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Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-02/jim-chalmers-blames-interest-rate-rises-smashing-economy/104298162
The failure of Chalmers and his incompetent colleagues to tackle grid instability, declining demand-side capacity and unpredictable price spikes is particularly reprehensible when one considers that all they would have to do to solve this problem is to abandon all green energy mandates and encourage the construction of enough new coal-fired power stations to stabilise the grid.
In my opinion, Australia is now virtually uninvestable. With an unsafe power grid, skyrocketing prices, crumbling wage moderation, rampant inflation and rising interest rates, and an incompetent government more concerned with killing the bearer of bad news than addressing underlying economic problems, who in their right mind would risk investing in Australia?
At least the US can hope for a Trump/Vance victory. In Australia we have a choice between the current inepts or the slightly less green mainstream opposition. Let's just say neither will get my vote in the next election – neither mainstream party is focused on what I believe to be the most important issues facing the Australian economy, namely energy affordability and reliability.
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