7 - On target

The Dismal Science

This week Stephen and Ivan take credit for the Treasurer getting religion on debt and discuss inflation coming back within the Reserve Bank’s target range. Discussed in this episode:

[0:42] Treasurer’s good/bad debt speech

[1:00] Stephen on infrastructure debt

[2:16] Morrison’s 2016 position

[3:43] Net operating vs net cash balance

[3:55] Jim Chalmers' Better Budgeting

[5:23] Operational vs capital budgets

[6:13] Stephen on 1Q17 CPI data

[6:24] RBA’s inflation target

[9:12] RBA early adopter of inflation targeting

[9:20] NZ pioneers inflation targeting

[9:37] Gold standard

[9:39] Monetary policy regimes

[9:44] Milton Friedman’s k-percent rule

[10:58] Nod to the monetarists

[15:40] Expansions don’t die of old age

[15:55] Wage-price spiral

[16:20] Japanese deflation

[16:47] Deflation and the Depression

[17:13] Disinflation

[17:34] Quantitative easing

[17:55] Calculating CPI

[18:42] Include housing in CPI?

[21:29] Unexpected brief 2016 deflation

[21:35] RBA cut following deflation

[22:28] Underlying inflation still subdued

[23:15] Inflation target review

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