Larry Williams Drive

I didn't want to talk about inflation today but it's unavoidable as it rose to its highest level in 30 years. The annual inflation rate is now 6.9 percent after the consumer price index rose 1.8 percent in the three months ending in March. The problem for the government's narrative that it's caused by global factors is that inflation has been driven by fuel, food, and housing costs. With the exception of fuel, this is what's known as non-tradable inflation. The rising price of goods and services we produce and consume domestically. In fact, housing was the largest contributor to annual inflation figures. Inflation from homeownership is up 18 percent for the year, and 3.5 percent for the quarter. While the total increase from housing and household utilities was 8.6 percent for the year. So, we can sheet this home to our incoherent housing policy over the past 30 years. As we stumbled into the pandemic, we were given wage subsidies by the Government and interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank. But as Paul Bloxha