12 May ECONOMISTS AT TWENTY PACES; MULTITASKING – NOT ALWAYS GOOD
ECONOMISTS AT TWENTY PACES …
Will it fuel inflation – or not?
This week’s Federal Budget included a surplus (surprise!), no new taxes (except for smokers), and some $14 billion worth of goodies aimed primarily at low-income earners – or as the spin doctors in Canberra dubbed it, the “cost of living package”.
The big question dividing economists is whether the extra spending will fuel inflation and result in further interest rate hikes.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is adamant the new measures are not inflationary, working off the back of advice from Treasury. He has also quoted economists from three of the four “big banks” – the highly regarded Westpac economist Bill Evans, along with NAB’s Alan Oster and CBA’s Stephen Halmarick.
Others beg to differ, with the very media savvy economist Chris Richardson, Goldman Sachs’s Andrew Boak, BetaShares’s David Bassanese and UBS’s George Tharenou arguing the opposite.
As they say in the classics, only time will tell.
MULTITASKING – NOT ALWAYS GOOD
Do you eat lunch while working? Reply to emails during a Teams meeting? Read this newsletter while you’re sweating it out at the gym?
If so, perhaps it’s time to stop as all that multitasking may be decreasing the quality of your work, making you less creative and more prone to errors.
Neuroscience professor at MIT University Earl K Miller says our brains are wired to do just one cognitively demanding thing at a time and what we think is multitasking is just task-switching – quickly moving from one activity to the next.
INFLUENCERS FAIL TO DISCLOSE
The consumer watchdog is cracking down on Australian influencers.
A report by the ACCC found that 81 per cent of posts observed were “concerning” because of a failure to disclose brand endorsements or because they contained misleading testimonials. These posts could prevent consumers from making informed choices when purchasing products online.
The worst sectors for non-disclosure were home and parenting, travel, and the fashion industry, where 96 per cent of posts were potentially misleading.
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