As long as interest rates are going up, and I think even the highest guess-timate is 4 per cent lower than what reality will turn out to be, nothing will change. Both my wife and I are self-employed. Our income hasn't gone up a cent, and indeed, since much of mine relies on international tourism, mine is probably still 65 per cent down, in fact.
- Marcus A
Election 2023 is a long way off, including getting through another winter. The burning question is, how are we even going to get there without this Government incurring more damage (direct and collateral) on its citizens?
- Clare F
Economically speaking, we don't live in the past. We live in the day and in the expectation of what is to come. Economic statistics can only ever tell us about the past, what has already been. If things were good three months ago, that doesn't tell us anything about what things will be like in three months, or in six months, or in 12 months' time.
But we will live in that future and what economic statistics are telling us today is that we have high inflation, rising costs for consumers and business, rising interest rates, quantitative tightening, falling asset prices, e.g., real estate and sharemarkets, high energy costs, a war in Europe, a pandemic that is not over yet, and huge Government and private sector levels of debt.
To think that those factors will not be affecting us in six or 12 months' time, that it's businesses as usual, is naive. We are not talking ourselves into a recession here. Winter, to borrow a phrase, is coming. So hope for the best, but plan for tough times.
- David B
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