Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
The budget speech tomorrow night will see fiscal policy and monetary policy come into conflict. The Treasurer wants inflation below three percent by the end of the year and no more interest rate hikes. But the RBA is thinking that inflation will not come down that fast WITHOUT another interest rate rise. This conflict between the fiscal stance of a budget and the monetary stance of a RBA decision is not that uncommon. Fiscal policy concentrates on the short run to medium term whereas monetary policy concentrates on the long term.Also fiscal policy has sharp instruments like tax rates and welfare mandates, but monetary policy only has the blunt instrument of interest rate manipulation.
With so much uncertainty about inflation this year. both fiscal policy and monetary policy faces the possibility of not meeting predictions and goals. This may cause further pain for household before Christmas.
Andrei Belouzov
Putin has just demoted Shoigu as Russian defence minister and replaced him with Andrei Belouzov.
Belouzov’s background is in economics – he holds a PhD, switching from robotics as a postgraduate, and has held a variety of senior economic policy posts. Unlike the Russian Army, the Russian economy has been holding up surprisingly well. Belousov is a capable technocrat. He comes across as more intelligent than the hapless Shoigu, whose usefulness to Putin as a scapegoat for military failure has apparently run out.
We can infer Belousov’s moral character from the man he works for. Promoting someone intelligent as well as unscrupulous to control of an army of half a million carries real risks to Putin. Belousov’s complete lack of military experience, like Shoigu’s, is an insurance policy against a putsch, but men like him are quick learners.
An interesting side-issue is that Belousov is one of the very few defence policymakers anywhere technically equipped to understand the drone revolution in warfare.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/who-is-andrei-belousov-putins-choice-defence-minister-2024-05-12/
Modern car manufacturers (Big Car?) act to sabotage the transition to EVs.
Except for Tesla, Mercedes and BMW.
https://thedriven.io/2024/05/14/nearly-all-major-car-companies-are-sabotaging-ev-transition-and-japan-is-worst-study-finds/