bank Tag

The current interest rate cutting cycle, which began in November, is not aimed at boosting house prices or “re-igniting a boom in borrowing,” says RBA governor Glenn Stevens. Delivering a speech in Adelaide today called “The Glass Half Full”, Stevens said one thing Australia should not do is “try to engineer a return to the boom”. Stevens said he agreed that there was a need for more confidence in the economy among households and businesses, but said it had to be “the right sort of confidence”. “The kind of confidence based on nothing more than expectations of ever-increasing housing prices, with the associated willingness to continue increasing leverage, on the assumption that this is a sure way to wealth, would not be the right kind. “Unfortunately, we have been rather too prone to that misplaced optimism on occasion. “You don’t have to be a believer...