Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard delivered an important (and excellent) speech yesterday on the economy in which he compared himself to a truck driver taking his foot off the accelerator as he increased the Official Cash Rate back to a neutral rate.
Here's our report on the speech with my view and a video.
“Using a truck driver analogy, our foot is strongly on the accelerator. Over coming months we expect to reduce the pressure on this pedal, but in effect to keep some throttle going. Truck drivers know they must reduce acceleration long before the corner. We are not talking about tightening policy yet. We do not expect to have to touch the brake pedal for the some time."
Economists viewed the speech and strong jobs figures released yesterday morning as confirming a June 10 start to interest rate hikes was now almost certain.
We read the speech and thought it would be a great idea to commission a cartoon from Chris Slane, who also does cartoons for the Listener.
This is a first, we think, for a news website in New Zealand. It is only being published online.
We have sneakily included some interest.co.nz branding in the cartoon and we'd love it to be published and reprinted far and wide (for free).
Readers and other publishers are very welcome to embed the cartoon on their sites or publish it with attribution to interest.co.nz and Chris Slane. For free. (That word again)
We'll see how it goes and may do it again.
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