If the Reserve Bank's official cash rate is 1.5 per cent and home loans are 4.4 per cent, why are credit card rates as high as 20 per cent?
It was the question that had the new Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe stumped.
On Thursday he confessed before the Parliament's economics committee: "I wish I knew the answer to that".
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has blamed the media for the failure of its census hotline and blamed an overseas denial-of-service attack for the failure of its census website.
In a strongly worded submission to a Senate inquiry, the Bureau also attempts to deflect blame for the overwhelming of its website on to its contractor, IBM.
Incoming Reserve Bank chief Philip Lowe has appealed to the Turnbull government to help him out with economic management by borrowing big for infrastructure, saying there's only so much that further cuts in interest rates can do.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that money matters to everyone except those who don't have it.
Last week, after months of anguish, the government gave ground on its plan to to wind back the super tax concessions directed to the wealthiest 4 per cent of the population. It didn't want them to suffer too much.
The Turnbull government is considering a radical shake-up of Australia's superannuation system that would pit banks and industry funds against each other for the right to manage the deposits of every new entrant for at least two years.
On Friday nights in the late 1980s around 11 a long-haired Treasury official used to slip into the chair at what was possibly the grottiest collection of radio studios ever attached to a university campus.
On Friday nights in the late 1980s around 11 a long-haired Treasury official used to slip into the chair at what was possibly the grottiest collection of radio studios ever attached to a university campus.
Limiting the amount anyone could contribute out of their own money into tax-advantaged super on top of employer contributions was never retrospective, but those who thought it was can relax.
The government is imposing a limit by another means.
What if our government really wanted to save money?
As well as going after $6.7 billion in its omnibus savings bill, it could go after the billions more it costs to run our immigration detention centres: $9.2 billion in the past three years, $3.9 billion to $5.5 billion in the next four, according to the most complete accounting yet of the costs normally hidden in inaccessible parts of the the budget.
Unveiling his surprise strike against Tony Abbott a year ago, Malcolm Turnbull identified just one reason for rolling a sitting prime minister: "economic leadership".
"It is not the fault of individual ministers," he told a packed press conference in a Parliament House courtyard. "Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs.