A credit squeeze following the royal commission and wage stagnation are two big risks to the economy. Both ultimately derive from the same source.
The Reserve Bank has flagged it is already thinking about cutting, rather than raising, interest rates — a key observation in the wake of a significant reappraisal of our current economic performance.
Once again, a tiny pack of interest-rate hawks at the Australian Financial Review are demanding the economy be crunched in the name of neoliberal orthodoxy.
Wage stagnation for Australian workers continued in the June quarter, with private sector employees falling behind inflation. It's become a hallmark of this Coalition government.
The Reserve Bank has warned inflation is set to weaken in coming quarters, setting the scene for more years of no interest rate rises.
A key constraint on further interest rate cuts has vanished as property prices soften in Sydney and Melbourne.
Australia's economy is splitting between a market-controlled sector of low inflation and low wages growth, and a government-controlled sector where things are more like they used to be.
Despite all the bluster of those demanding an interest rate rise, inflation remains flat and interest rates aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
If the June quarter Consumer Price Index data indicates the slightest shift in inflation, monetary policy obsessives will be raging about the need for a rate rise.
The Reserve Bank has made clear what it thinks of the campaign from neoliberals to push interest rates up out of a fetish for tighter monetary policy.