Hey Wildcat!, slip in a few paragraphs mate - it makes the text easier to read for us with failing eyesight:

I think Henry's criticism of the reserve bank is fair enough but the policy environment established by the last two regimes has seen the development of an exposed and brittle economy - but to listen to ourleaders you would think we are rock solid - Inflation is in check, unemployment is low (ish) interest rates are on hold and company profits are up and commodity prices are booming. We are also ranked in the top ten most competetive nations economically in the world. However - give us another drought and a down turn in mineral prices and we are dead in the water -

Underlying the veneer of prosperity are some other key indicators that should give rise to concern - we have a cohort of young people leaving the education system with the burden of a debt for example

That same group as are the rest of us are moving into the most expensive housing market, relative to income, in the world; the average house now costs 7.5-8 times the annual average wage - 20 years ago it was about half that.

We also have a negative national household savings record - so an interest rise or two will again blow countless people out of the water and probably whip squillions of the assets most of us carry as a form of indirect savings

Our reliance on over seas produced Info Tech stuff - a key element of trade, manufacturing capacity and efficiency has contibuted 19bill to our trade deficit and we have an appallingly low, in OECD terms, record in R&D - we are not even thinking about a means to insure ourselves against a change in conditions - let alone save for a rainy day.

keeping with water based metaphors we are sitting ducks economically.

While the reservce bank is the instrument controlling some of these developments it aint all their fault.

Sneeky,
You are obviously much better with the descriptions than I. The economy to me is a fairly easy topic, although my education is poor, it really doesn't doesn't require a rocket scientist to work things out, merely an interest. The most important economy is our own personal economy, the one we survive, or are lucky enough to actually LIVE with.

Those of us trying to live with disabilities on a pension, raise children and survive are living in poverty, don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the pension, and all of the opportunities Australia provides, as I have helped provide them for others from my tax for 40 years. My disability has been thrust upon me, rather than being born with it, so at least I have my own home and am debt free, I feel for those who are not in the same position.....