Four is a good number for stability. Good tables have four legs. Solid chairs have four legs. And four is the number of pillars that the governor presented in the midterm budget policy statement, channelling the same sense of security that old furniture provides. With a promising but still shaky government of national unity, sturdy is the message the minister would want to deliver for the GNU's first fiscal plan. To achieve this, each leg in the plan must be clear and firm.
The first pillar speaks to macroeconomic stability. The minister was thin on details over what “assessing the suitability of monetary policy targets” and “improve the levers of macroeconomic policy co-ordination” would mean. This is particularly interesting at a time when there is much chatter around reducing the inflation target band from 3-6% to a number close to 2%. For now, the stability comes from monetary policy defaulting to what we already know, a possible sigh of relief with the latest inflation...
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