Tag: debt expansion

The Reserve Bank of Australia must be viewing the end of the mining boom with some trepidation. Cutting interest rates to stimulate new home construction may cushion the impact, but comes at a price. Consumers may benefit from lower interest rates but that is merely a side-effect: the real objective of monetary policy is debt expansion. And Australia is already in a precarious position.

Further increases in the ratio of household debt to disposable income would expand the housing bubble — with inevitable long-term consequences.

While debt expansion is not in the country’s interests, neither is debt contraction (with growth below zero), which would risk a deflationary spiral. The RBA needs to maintain debt growth below the nominal growth rate in GDP — forecast at 4.0% for 2012-13 and 5.5% for 2013-2014 according to MYEFO — to gradually restore household debt/income ratios to respectable levels.

If the RBA’s hands are tied, similar restraint has to be applied to fiscal policy. First home buyer incentives would also re-ignite debt growth. The focus may have to shift to state and local government  in order to accelerate land release and reduce other impediments — both financial and regulatory — to new home development. Lowering residential property development costs while increasing competition would encourage developers to cut prices to attract more buyers into the market. While this would still increase demand for new home finance, lower prices would cool speculative demand fueled by low interest rates.