Yahoo Finance Get ready for a cash rate cut in APRIL
The data is in and it is compelling.
The Australian economy is faltering and the risk is that it will weaken further if nothing is done to address this decline.
Not only has there been recent confirmation of a per capita GDP recession – that is, on a per person basis the economy has been shrinking for two straight quarters – but inflation is embedded below 2 per cent, wages growth is floundering just above 2 per cent, house prices are dropping at 1 per cent per month and dwelling construction is in free fall.
Add to this cocktail of economic woe an unambiguous slide in global economic conditions, general pessimism for both consumers and business alike and a worrying slide in the number of job advertisements all of which spells economic trouble.
Blind Freddie can see that there is an urgent need for some policy action.
And the sooner the better.
For the Reserve Bank of Australia, there is no need to wait for yet more information on the economy.
It has been hopelessly wrong in its judgment about the economy over the past year, always expecting a growth pick up “soon”.
Instead, GDP has all but stalled meaning that inflation, which is already well below the RBA’s target, is likely to fall further.
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Will a cash rate cut pump air into our deflating house prices?
In short, no.
It is not like a 25 basis point interest rate cut on 2 April and another 25 in, say, May or June will reignite inflation and pump air into a house price bubble.
Such a claim would be laughable if there are any commentators left suggesting this.
On the contrary, inflation is so low that at best, it might touch 2 or 2.25 per cent in a year or so and the decline in house prices might slow to 0.5 per cent per month even if official interest rates were slashed to 0.5 per cent, some 100 basis points below where they are today.
What would a cash rate cut do?
Any interest rate cuts would almost inevitably see the Aussie dollar fall, helping the export sector to grow. Free money, in other words, to our export sector from easier monetary policy.
It would also free up cash flow for the business sector, which has a little under $1 trillion of debt meaning it would be easier to service its collective debt with lower interest rates.
And then there is the ever fragile consumer.
With around $1.3 trillion of debt, a 0.5 per cent reduction in interest costs would save around $6.5 billion a year, money that could be used to reduce debt (which is good) or be spend in the economy (also good).
The impact is more than the rumoured size of the income tax cuts that Treasurer Josh Frybenberg will announce in the budget, coincidently on the same day the RBA Board next meets.
Unlike the income tax cuts, which either add to the budget deficit or reduce the budget surplus, interest rate cuts are free!
The stroke of a pen and the press of a few keys on a key board is all it takes to get this stimulus into the economy.
This would see firms making more money, consumers having more cash in their pockets and incentive to hire more workers and pay them more raised. Interest rates cut would actually improve the budget bottom line because of the stimulus they give to spending, inflation and tax revenue.
It is the proverbial no-brainer.
So for the RBA Board, there is not that much to think about.
Cut interest rates on 2 April and again quickly thereafter and sit back and watch the positive effects of those moves flow through the economy.
Things will not improve overnight.
But like the first antibiotic in a 5 day course of medicine, it will start to heal the otherwise sick economy.
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