Don’t mention the unemployed

Don’t mention the unemployed. I am bemused why it is that economists, especially those from the Reserve Bank, never mention those without a job when they start pontificating about increasing interest rates. They seem to have forgotten that the legislation governing the Bank ranks encouraging employment as being just as important as controlling inflation.

Yet the 5.5% of Australians who are unemployed look like  being forgotten again when official interest rates are next considered. The pundits and the market are all pointing towards another 0.25% increase which will further delay the day when all those without a job and who want one will be able to get one.

The Crikey Interest Rate Indicator suggests there is a 75% chance of a quarter of a percent rise.

As I read in the Paul Krugman blog this morning, respectable central bankers are worried about nonexistent inflation rather than actually existing unemployment.

An inherent selfishness. Anyone who thinks Australia can not sustain a considerably greater population cannot have travelled much or, in the case of Dick Smith, being flying at such an altitude that he failed to notice the circumstances under which much of the people of the world live. Yet we continue to get calls to put an end to immigration and lower the Australian birthrate. It reeks of the worst kind of national selfishness to me.

Here come the Oscars. It is my favourite election of the year. I just love all the hype and the PR spinning of those Oscars. The official list of entrants is not yet out but our Crikey Oscars Election Indicator is off and running.

Avatar is the clear cut early favourite

Quote of the day: Republicans believe that Obama’s problem is that he’s pushing so much government intervention in the economy. That’s undoubtedly part of the story. But Obama’s larger difficulty is that he’s pushing so much change at a time when filibuster threats are so common that it requires 60 Senate votes to pass almost everything — and the minority party won’t provide the president votes on almost anything. We are operating in what amounts to a parliamentary system without majority rule, a formula for futility. – Ronald Brownstein in the National Journal