101 Uses for a John Howard

It’s a bugger, the economy. The couches of Australia are pointing emptily at brand spanking new 50″ plasma TVs, cushions bulging with spare change while everyone’s at work desperately trying to keep up with the repayments. We’ve never had it so good, it’s eco-bloody-nomic Nirvana, whack another shrimp on the barbie and crack open that bottle of Grange.

But economists are miserable bastards. They spend their whole day locked up in tiny cells wearing tight underpants slaving over hot calculators and whenever anyone looks like they might be having a better time than they are, they think up some devious way of spoiling the party. In this case it’s inflation.

The cause of inflation is this: high growth, blah blah, low unemployment, blahblah blah blaaah, tax cuts blah blah blardey blah etc etc Jupiter rising in Taurus and phwooosh! Up goes inflation and then those chardonnay-sipping bastards at the Reserve bank go and make things worse by raising interest rates, despite your superb management of the economy.

However, as all economic geniuses know, when the economy hands you inflation, you make balloon animals, and hopefully nobody will notice their house being repossessed. Sure, eventually the balloons will burst in people’s faces, leaving them with just a few brightly coloured scraps of rubber to remind them of better days, but that’s economics for you.