The Australian economy is in a strange and paradoxical place. For a country accustomed to the thrills and spills of booms and busts — of rollicking mining and property booms followed by recessions we have to have — to be muddling along with neither boom nor bust feels weird, and more than a bit depressing. In many ways, it is a classic example of a lazy Western country going nowhere: weak economic growth, low productivity, an impotent central bank flogging the dead horse of monetary policy and a government out of reform ideas. We have about the highest household debt in the world, and the economic growth that exists ... (full story)