Well at the end of the week and with a one per cent interest rate cut behind us, very significant questions have to be raised about the Reserve Bank and the Governor, Glenn Stevens.
One of the first things Mr Rudd did as Prime Minister was to make a great song and dance about the new independence of the Governor and he had a job for life. You might remember the sickening rigmarole that went on with that.
Yet it's now clear that there was a meeting between the Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Prime Minister last Friday night in Sydney.
Glenn Milne wrote earlier this week that it was understood that the Governor of the Reserve Bank backed the public positions of Mr Rudd and the Treasurer, that because of the higher cost of funds due to the global financial meltdown, banks would be justified in passing on only part of the 1 per cent.
So much, therefore, for the independence of Mr Stevens.
And we've got a Prime Minister and a Treasurer doing a deal with the Governor of the Reserve Bank at the expense of small businesses and battlers in Struggle Street.
So it's clear the commercial banks and the Reserve Bank have been working behind the scenes to soften up the Government and its advisers.
Well let's at the end of the week have a look at this Mr Stevens.
His function at the Reserve Bank is, amongst other things, to contribute to the stability of the currency.
Well, he got it wrong earlier this year when he said we had to attack inflation and that, we were told, was based on runaway demand.
Inflation and rising prices, witness groceries, supermarkets, oil, are a result of a lack of competition, not runaway demand.
The Trade Practices Act could change that.
Indeed, highly paid advisers to the Government were telling us a couple of months ago our dollar would gain parity with the United States.
Suddenly, like a drunk driving out of control who over-corrects to compensate a previous mistake, this week Mr Stevens lowers interest rates by 1 per cent.
So the dollar last week was 81 US cents, then 71 US cents, then 65 US cents.
Today 70.35 US cents. In July it was US 98 cents.
What does this mean?
Well it means the very thing that Stevens was supposed to be addressing, high inflation.
The cost of imports will go up, including petrol.
In fact in less than three months, because of the currency, imports have increased by 50 per cent as our dollar has sunk.
Firms relying on imported goods can't handle these circumstances.
Instability in the currency created by our Reserve Bank will kill off businesses.
Businesses that have Christmas stock ready to arrive from overseas will find their costs up by 50 per cent.
How do they pass them on?
This might be all right for people who gamble on currency movements, who make a big buck from the instability of the currency, but small business would be reeling, and this is because of the erratic and ill-considered policy of the Reserve Bank.
Far from Stevens and his mob being a solution to our economic problems, they're actually putting the economy at risk.
With the plunge in the dollar the price of imported goods will surge, and that means high inflation.
Because of the incompetence of Government that won't change the Trade Practices Act, yet big business will pass every cent of these costs onto you, the consumer.
So now will the RBA increase rates in a futile attempt to control the inflation that they have created.
You've got to ask yourself whether this fellow Stevens has any clues at all.
And in this climate, we now hear that the Reserve Bank, the big four banks and the Government have come to an arrangement over interest rates.
There should be a stewards' inquiry to find out who was selling the dollar over the weekend.
To whom was the 1 per cent information disclosed? Who was given a pre-warning?
Were people selling Aussie dollars at 81 cents and buying them back at 65.
What arrangements were made between our Government and the Reserve Bank?
Surely to God someone's got some explaining to do.
And what does our low dollar mean for the inflation that Mr Rudd and the Reserve Bank Governor were allegedly addressing?
It's pretty grubby stuff.
