ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The new Reserve Bank boss Michele Bullock has signalled the central bank’s intent to push interest rates higher to the point where people under 35 essentially exist to service their mortgage – or someone else’s mortgage – and that’s it.
Discretionary spending is still rife in the economy and that is one of the key drivers of inflation, according to the RBA. The others being out of their reach; drivers such corporate price gouging, cartel behaviour and profiteering. The latter three are, by the government’s standards, just part-and-parcel of doing business on this floating quarry in this day and age.
Figures released earlier this week by the Commonwealth Bank outline spending is down across the board and spending on luxuries such as density and internet have all but stopped for all age cohorts bar one. Over 55s.
This is by design, according the RBA Governor, who told The Advocate that this is part of the plan.
“We need young Australians to earn money and give that money to their bank or credit union in exchange for their shelter,” she said.
“Anything outside that scope is unadvisable. People over 55 are more likely to be without a mortgage and therefore, out of our reach. Short of rounding them up and cattle gunning the lot of them, other sections of the economy need to reign in the spending to counteract it. It would be a great help if the government put forward some meaningful tax return but they’re being softcocks. Abolishing the Stage 3 tax cuts would be a good start,”
“It would honestly make my job a lot easier but these problems have been brewing in the economy for over a decade. Easier to say now but if Scotty and Joshy didn’t print as much money, let more old, sick and disabled people die in their homes and didn’t deport half a million workers then the economy would be in much better shape now. Nonetheless, we only have one tool that’s politically acceptable right now and it’s one that unfairly targets young people. That’s just the way it is. I suppose the Boomers had Vietnam and the Russians to worry about.”
More to come.
