Although the Reserve Bank is "playing ball" with the government, in both defending the government's slogans that "our economy is strong", and that "the fundamentals are good", and by lowering the official cash rate to historic lows, I seriously doubt that they are happy with where they have ended up.
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The RBA recognises that these small further cuts in interest rates, especially from such a low level, and even if fully passed on by the banks (which they are not), will do little to stimulate consumer spending and overall economic growth, or cost and wage inflation, but more likely just further stimulate asset prices, especially house prices, and risk compounding the household debt problems.
While the desire to stimulate our economy, that is basically teetering on the brink of a recession, is undoubtedly behind the government's desire to see lower, even negative interest rates, the RBA seems to have shifted its focus from inflation to wanting to avoid too much weakening in our exchange rate, as others such as the US and Europe lower their interest rates again.
It is most unusual for the RBA to now be targeting the exchange rate, especially when this was never a significant motivation in the past. Recall their response to the GFC when, out of fear for the inflationary consequences, they deliberately didn't seek to lower interest rates as far or as fast as others - indeed, at the faintest sign of a potential pick up in inflation, they quickly raised them again, only ultimately having to recognise that there was no inflation, and then having to lower them again.
It is most unusual for the RBA to now be targeting the exchange rate, especially when this was never a significant motivation in the past.
However, up until these three recent interest rate cuts, the RBA still sought to maintain an interest rate differential in our favour. Our dollar went as high as 1.10 to the US dollar, but more recently has dropped towards the middle 60s as the US dollar in particular has strengthened. They now want our dollar to fall even more to sustain export-led growth.
It is particularly difficult to predict how things will unfold from here. Trump will clearly continue to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower US rates, and the European Central Bank and the Bank of England have also indicated an intention to lower rates further, in some cases to be even more negative.
The big surprise over the last decade or so since the GFC, for both governments and policy authorities, has been that despite having flooded the world with liquidity, and pushed interest rates to near zero or less, how little sustained growth, and especially business investment, resulted.
Overall, the effect has been "bubbles" in overheated stock and property markets, with serious distortions in bond and currency markets, increased debt, and inequality.
Growth in Europe has been particularly sluggish, with heightened concern mounting recently of a recession, especially as Germany and the UK saw negative growth in the last recorded quarter, and manufacturing seems to already be in recession.
While Trump gave the US economy a "sugar hit" with his corporate tax cuts, and some infrastructure and defence spending, this was not funded, and so just blew out the government deficit, and didn't stimulate business investment as hoped, rather just producing record payouts to investors by way of record share buybacks and dividends.
The balance sheets of the G7 central banks are now more than three times their pre-GFC size, and some 25 per cent of sovereign bonds globally are now issued at negative interest rates, and key bond markets, especially the US, have "inverted", with short rates rising above long rates, historically a reliable predictor of a coming recession.
All this has been compounded by the almost daily volatility of the now incessant Trump tweets - 46 on one day last weekend - his China trade war, and significant and unpredictable geo-political tensions especially in the Middle East and North Korea.
The bottom line for our economy, as a trading nation, is that we are particularly exposed to these significant global risks, when our economy is particularly weak, wages are flat, household debts are at record levels, job insecurity is mounting, and business and consumer confidence are waning, with a Reserve Bank that seems to be losing its way, and a government hell bent on delivering a string of budget surpluses.
John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.