Australia’s drop in real wages is a disaster. But the profits of major corporations are doing just fine | Greg Jericho

Comments

• bignose@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s easy (and intentional) that blame is diverted from the guilty parties, to the Reserve Bank for these mistakes.

  The RBA have exactly one tool, one dial they can twiddle: raise or lower interest rates for so-called “cash loans” from the Reserve Bank. That’s it, that’s all they have. If a problem can’t be properly addressed by doing that, there’s nothing helpful the Reserve Bank can do.

  So, it’s not their responsibility to get us out of this mess. But it is the responsibility of our Federal government, who can act but pretend they have no power, and leave the RBA to take the heat.

  The problem (as correctly identified by the article) is not workers’ wages rising; wages are falling way behind inflation. The problem is caused by unreasonable expectation of profits by corporations and their shareholders, in a time when everyone else is financially suffering. They raise prices with no justification and with full impunity, everyone else suffers and they extract more wealth from the rest of us.

  Tax those excess profits robustly, quickly, and inescapably; and watch our current inflation fall, as they stop price gouging, stop laying off workers, try to find a way to keep going with normal profits instead.

  The federal government can do it with the stroke of a pen. Make them do it.

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