Everyone, it seems, has a welter of advice for economic policymakers, including humble financial market scribblers.

Both the RBA and the federal government deserve commendation for the way in which they have managed the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite criticism from former Prime Minister Keating for “indolence”, I think the RBA has, by and large, acted with an appropriate balance of alacrity and caution. In so doing, it has avoided lurching into “doing something for the sake of doing something” and potentially exacerbating current problems with an over-reliance on monetary policy at a time when its efficacy is surely under question.

It has always been a source of some wonderment to me that for much of this century it has been an excess of private leverage that has been the clearest area of financial imbalance, yet the policy response has always been to encourage more private leverage. Yes, that has acted as a palliative to financial markets, but it has had an arguably limited impact on the real economy.

In this context, there are obvious limitations to what monetary policy can achieve and the gentle nudging from the RBA for a greater emphasis on fiscal measures makes considerable sense.

Read Stephen Miller's full analysis here.