As with economic growth and wages, the RBA’s response seems to involve crossing as many fingers and toes as possible and publicly proclaiming that things are looking good.
Despite a huge increase in employment, the unemployment rate is unchanged.
AAP
At least for the next few months, what happens overseas will be more important for the Australian economy than domestic factors
Protestors call for an investigation into bank regulator APRA outside the Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne, location of the banking royal commission.
Luis Ascui/AAP
All eyes will be on how ASIC and APRA respond to the findings of the banking royal commission. Will they be defensive about past mistakes, or move forward with tighter regulations?
There were interesting developments in the tit-for-tat tariff announcements between the US and China this week.
Roman Pilipey/EPA/AAP
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke of plans to further open up the Chinese economy this week - and the world economy should hope US president Trump feels vindicated by this.
Unfortunately for the RBA, the health of the economy is not measured on the Geologic Time Scale.
Alfonso Silóniz/Flickr
The construction sector works on a bit of a time lag. So there are a bunch of projects underway that were premised on the loose credit of recent years.
Construction of apartments will be a key thing to watch in 2018.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
The odds are that we get through 2018 without war, mass capital flight, or a housing crash. But all the risks are medium probability, and the consequences could be dire.
It’s hard to get a fix on where Australia’s economy is headed.
Garry Knight/Flickr
Why is it that the US – which suffered a major downturn – seems to have a stronger economy than Australia , which did not even go into recession in 2008-09?