Economic catastrophe is common enough, even in the go-go years - typically governments think they can 'check its occurrence' and eventually find out that the forces of nature remain stronger than any politician. Of course, all the interventions and can-kicking tried along the way serve only to make the eventual crisis longer and more severe. It's of course possible that the Eurozone countries choose to hang together rather than hang separately, i.e. remain in the currency and print until they've made Mugabe blush. I think it's rather unlikely not because they ('they' the elite bureaucratic class) don't want to do it, but because the centrifugal forces will prove too politically difficult to withstand in nominally democratic states. All it takes is one radical party getting in a government somewhere to scupper the whole thing, and the Eurocrats are doing their very best to ensure this happens. Tightening monetary policy? The chances of that appear extremely remote, so much that it's hardly worth considering until some evidence arrives that it's actually likely - not because Bernanke has promised low rates to 2014 (in the breach such promises are worthless) but because he's constitutionally hyper-dovish, and there will always be some reason to maintain extremely loose policy into the foreseeable future.
Nobody mentioning the big rate cut in Oz. The economy is getting ugly down under and banks can't pass on rate cuts because their funding costs are rising. More RBA cuts are coming.
I am not sure what there is to mention. As to the banks not passing on the rate cuts, I am not entirely sure that's the case. Right after the RBA, Bank of Queensland announced that they're cutting the variable home loan rate by 35bps. Whether this is enough of a passthrough to satisfy the RBA is another question.
Bigger than expected 25 bps. RBA sees trouble. I should have said not passing through on a relative basis. Loan rates are falling less than RBA rate cuts. The aussie dove 100 pips on the news, now coming back as risk markets are green. Just saw this piece from my boys the Bond Vigilantes. http://www.bondvigilantes.com/2012/...st-rates-the-lucky-country-is-getting-nailed/
Yeah, sure... I certainly can't rule out more cuts. Westpac economist (who got today wrong, incidentally) is now expecting the RBA to cut down to the low of 3.25 this year (previous forecast was 3.75). Personally, I don't have any skin in the AUD game, so just observing.
More so a de facto incremental tightening via absence of intervention -- gradual withdrawal of QE expectations, programs allowed to lapse, USD allowed to strengthen / long bonds to gradually decline sending rates upticking higher etc. p.s. What if Romney wins?
Conceptually we want to be short Aussie, but the reaction seems meh so far. Today's decline barely negates the preceding mini-rally.
House prices fell for a 5th straight quarter. It's starting to look like more than just a blip. Possible 2007 tipping point for Australia?
Any moves of this sort would likely cause the economic indices the Fed follows to rapidly stall out - not to mention a bear market in stocks. Paul Krugman suffers a breakdown and can only mutter "1937.... 1937...." Policy would be immediately hard-reversed as the indulgent parent desperately tries to apologize for using such harsh punishment on the poor markets. Presumably the volatility would create some trading opportunities, though. What if he does? Romney's economic team consists basically of the corrupt academics profiled in Inside Job, and the man himself is a regular Jon Corzine - he sits right at the nexus of the state-capitalistic syndicate of big finance and big government. There's almost no chance of any significant policy digression, regardless of what he says during the campaign. The most I can imagine is declining to re-nominate Bernanke - but The Beard's successor is just as likely to be even more dovish as more hawkish, and that would in any case be several years away.