Did anyone see the headline this week regarding Producers Prices?

The Australian Financial Review reported it this way:

Benign Producers Price Index data drove positive sentiment in the US equity markets. Meanwhile in Australia, Producers Prices continue to rise, although at a consistent rather than accelerating rate.

More positively, the growth in the money supply is in a slowly reducing trend. The Reserve Bank new Governor appears to have started her term quite well. She certainly smacked down our Treasurer Jim Chalmers, rightly so:

Overseas readers will be shocked to learn that the Australian Treasurer publicly stated that he thought Government subsidies, cheques in the mail, would reduce inflation and allow the RBA to cut interest rates. The cheques are a political idea to take pressure off household budgets from higher electricity costs. I don’t know if Chalmers actually believes what he said, or whether he was trying to exert political pressure. But, taken with his other statements and views over the last few years, I think there is a high chance that he is genuinely stupid. It’s a dismal prospect.