Alan Kohler

We won't find that out until well into the second half of the year.

But look, I think that the odds of having a recession are quite high now.

Well, because it wants, because it doesn't want there to be a recession, but it thinks that, and I think that a few economists think, that in order to get rid of inflation, there has to be a recession.

I mean, I think that we're just about...

perhaps not quite in that situation, but we're getting there.

I mean, and the problem is that the increase in fuel costs themselves slow the economy.

But because the inflation goes up, you said 4.6%, that includes the rise in diesel and petrol.

People start to put that into their wage claims.

And because the labour market is quite tight, those wage claims tend to be paid

because companies have to, because they haven't got any choice.

And so what the Reserve Bank faced with is the prospect of having to cause unemployment to rise in order to stop those wage claims actually flowing through.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

What a disaster.

We certainly don't.

I mean, as we speak, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

Obviously, they're not fighting at the moment, as they were to begin with, but the Strait of Hormuz is closed because both of the US and Iran are blockading it.

trying to squeeze the other out.

That's right.

The US stock market is at a record high and has been kind of shooting the lights out.