Essay by Eric Worrall

Australia’s federal treasurer has criticised the Reserve Bank for raising interest rates, instead of taking responsibility for the green inflation he and his fellow incompetents unleashed.

Jim Chalmers blames interest rate rises for ‘smashing’ the economy, expects weak economic growth

By political reporter Jake Evans

In short:

The treasurer has pointed the finger at successive interest rate rises for a stagnating national economy.

The federal government is anticipating further weak economic growth when figures are released this week.

What’s next?

Economic growth figures for the July quarter will be released on Wednesday.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has blamed successive interest rate rises for “smashing the economy”, as the government braces for more weak economic figures due this week.

Ahead of the release of the latest economic growth figures on Wednesday, Mr Chalmers said the government was focused on walking the tightrope of bringing down inflation without further pressuring people “already being hammered by higher interest rates”.

“With all this global uncertainty on top of the impact of rate rises which are smashing the economy it would be no surprise at all if the national accounts on Wednesday show growth is soft and subdued,” Mr Chalmers said.

…

Mr Chalmers later clarified at a press conference that “of course” his comments should not be interpreted as an attack on the RBA, but didn’t repeat the claim.

…

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 fellow incompetents to address grid instability, plummeting dispatchable capacity, and unpredictable price spikes is particularly reprehensible, given that all they need to do to fix this problem is ditch all their green energy mandates, and encourage the construction of enough new coal plants to stabilise the grid.

In my opinion Australia is now all but un-investable. With an uncertain electricity grid, spiralling prices, crumbling wage restraint, rampant inflation and soaring interest rates, and an incompetent government which is more focussed on shooting the messenger than addressing the underlying economic problems, who in their right mind would risk investing in Australia?

At least the USA can hope for a Trump / Vance victory. In Australia our choice is between the current incompetents or the slightly less green mainstream opposition. Let’s just say neither of them is getting my vote in the next election – none of the mainstream parties is focussed on what I believe are the most important issues facing the Australian economy, energy affordability and reliability.