You want evidence that we are being driven into a lower standard of living? Try this:

Mr Stevens, who has consistently maintained the currency is materially overvalued, said a number in the vicinity of US75c seemed an appropriate valuation, which means the currency would need to fall a further 9 per cent from current level.

“I think it’s quite likely that it will, a year from now, be lower than it is today,” Mr Stevens told The Australian Financial Review.

“A year ago I said probably 85 US cents was better than 95. And if I had to pick a figure now, I would say probably 75 is better than 85.”

The Treasurer’s parliamentary secretary, Steven Ciobo, said the Australian dollar was “still at historically high levels”.

“Over the longer term we do need the Australian dollar to come down further,” he told ABC Radio.

“By doing that, it will help the Australian economy to transition from being focused too heavily on mining, to being refocused again more broadly on the services side of the economy, which of course accounts for the vast bulk of the Australian economy.”

We are looking at a major drop in living standards that no one is doing a thing to resist. Fire sale prices on what we sell with major increases in the prices of what we buy. This is all round bad advice, but if the RBA intends to engineer us into this loss of wealth and income, at least the government could do something about its own level of spending, our bizarre industrial relations straight jacket and the regulations that are preventing expansion by those firms still willing to give it a go.

Meanwhile, how will anyone thinking about what to do react to hearing that the dollar might be falling another ten or so percent. The instability of such kind of talk will freeze this economy up so that no one will do a thing until the air has finally cleared.