After 13 interest rate hikes that sent home loan repayments soaring, we still have an inflation problem. Actually, make that 17. The Reserve Bank may have lifted rates on 13 separate occasions but a few of those were double-whammy hikes at twice the normal 0.25 percentage point increases. In any other universe, that should have sent the economy into a tailspin, put vast numbers of workers on the dole, crashed the property market and batted price rises back into zombie territory. True, the economy is only barely managing to stay afloat with just 0.1 per cent growth in the most recent quarter. But the jobs market, ... (full story)