Thank goodness the Reserve Bank has finally lifted interest rates. The way it was going on about emergencies it was beginning to look like the boy who cried wolf.

But where exactly is the wolf? That's the funny thing – its statement last week was almost dove-ish.

Inflation was barely mentioned and since things hadn't become nearly as bad as it had feared, it simply decided it could loosen up. Or I should say tighten up.

That's another thing. Maybe I better stop reading Dan Brown novels but there's a code concealed somewhere in these words of "gradually lessening the stimulus".

Did you spot it? Well this would put its intended destination somewhere this side of neutral, which is considered to be about 5 per cent. Or, in other words, a mortgage rate of about 8 per cent.

Still missed it? Try this. Normally it would have stuck with its conventional wording of "gradually tightening", except this would have taken it past neutral into top gear.

Then we'd be talking double-digit mortgage rates. But it's not.

Which brings me back to why it chose now to lift rates. Remember interest-rate rises are just like cockroaches – there's never just one of them.

Why indeed. The best Wayne Swan could suggest was that "50-year lows can't last forever". But they could last another month or two, surely.

To use a Swanism, we're not out of the woods yet. The September quarter GDP will be at best flat and probably shrank slightly.

Although China is no doubt booming – when Beijing tells its banks to lend they don't even have to ask how much – the US, Britain and Japan are looking little better than they did three months ago and that wasn't crash hot.

But back to the cockroach count. While rates on mortgages will go on rising, unfortunately the same can't be said for savings.

Since the banks won't dare go beyond the Reserve Bank's moves – they owe the Government big time, after all – and their funding costs have gone up, somebody has to be squeezed. They've already gone down the so-called staff rationalisation route, kicked up small business lending rates and reached saturation point on fees.

So you guessed it. That just leaves savers who need a global financial crisis bubbling along for a lot longer than the Reserve predicts.

Only if the banks are elbowed out of borrowing offshore again will they have to pay more for deposits.

But the opposite seems to be happening.

Only a month ago Rabobank was offering 7 per cent for five years. No more – it's been sliced by 0.5 per cent. Nor have increases made by the other banks broken new ground.

This raises something of a quandary. Normally you don't go long while rates are rising. It's better to wait for more later as well as avoid a potential capital loss on a fixed-interest security.

But if you can grab a decent blackboard special, it could be better to settle for a term rate and get that for longer.

At least cash management rates should rise, since they're indirectly tied to the official rate.

But check what you're getting – you might be shocked to learn it's less than 2 per cent. You'll get twice that from an online banking account.