The Dismal Science

The boom in jobs continues in Australia and consumer confidence is bouncing back, but does this mean another rate rise is on the horizon? Plus, US inflation, Sydney NIMBYs and the IMF's gloomy forecasts for the global economy.

A rapid fire episode as Mark and Ivan both battle colds.

The RBA pauses and house prices are on the march again. Will it be enough and where will it end?

The markets are expecting the RBA to pause the rate hikes next week with the global financial turmoil and inflation seemingly having peaked. Is Philip Lowe finally going to ease up on the beleaguered Australian mortgage holder? Plus, Deutsche Bank credit default swap shenanigans and we ask if the AI productivity revolution is already here.

In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and yet their second largest bank has still collapsed. What went wrong? It's a story of fraud, spying, kickbacks, Bulgarian drug-dealers and all-round Suisse poor risk management. Plus, the Fed keeps hiking through the turmoil, do bailouts sow the seeds of the next crisis, and JPMorgan is left holding a bag of rocks.

Apologies for Ivan's terrible audio in this episode. He was reporting from deep under the water where you can find Credit Suisse's AT-1 bonds.

We answer five big questions in the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse:

• What happened at Silicon Valley Bank?
• Did the authorities get the response right?
• What even is a bank for?
• Is the Fed to blame?
• Could this happen in Australia?

We talk to directors about their outlook for the economy and the challenges they're facing, we catch up on this week's RBA and Fed news, and we ask if Australia is investing enough in AI.

Once again, we're live from the Australian Governance Summit. We talk RBA, of course, whether the world is stabilising again after years of crisis and the risks of artifical general intelligence.

As criticism of the RBA governor Philip Lowe mounts, we ask how high will interest rates go, what could he have done differently and is the Reserve Bank's independence in jeopardy?

For our first episode of the year, we look ahead at the five big questions for 2023:

1. Will the RBA keep hiking rates?
2. Will there be a recession in the US?
3. Will the Chinese economy recover now that the zero covid policy has been abandoned?
4. Will the war in Ukraine continue to disrupt the global economy?
5. Is crypto done?

It's another bumper quizmas episode. We score Mark on last year's quiz and look ahead to 2023. Plus, are gas price caps a good idea? Has inflation in the US peaked? And another great jobs report in Australia.

Thank you to all of our listeners. Have a great break! We'll be back in January with more episodes.