Why the RBA could cut through 1 per cent
In the AFR I ask: is there a 1 per cent "lower-bound" on the Reserve Bank of Australia's cash rate that means we may have only two cuts to go before it resorts to "quantitative easing"; were those greedy banks justified in retaining half the RBA's latest easing on the basis of profitability concerns; and what does one make of an adviser's recent claim that "bonds are for growth and equities are for income"---is unsecured sovereign debt the 2016 vintage of "tulipomania"?: "Of course the big banks have been belted for refusing to pass on fully Tuesday's cut. While this attracted scathing criticism from all political parties – and was strategically questionable in light of Labor's calls for a Royal Commission into the bankers' avarice – it was a rational decision for any self-respecting oligopolist. As this column forecast years ago, the banks' returns on equity have been hammered by a combination of sharp balance-sheet deleveraging, normalising bad debts and regulatory reforms that require them to elongate funding. Free (VIEW LINK)
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