My thoughts as posted on Twitter in reaction to the Bank of England interest rate rise announced this lunchtime:
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
As predicted by hook and crook they have their interest rates hike, the headline 0.25 will be multiplied by lenders, finance and credit co’s. I will predict that they will increase again and again through the next year.
These 8 who voted for it should be named and known. They may be mere minions but they have put themselves into that position.
How they were put there and what qualifies them? Who they represent? Should be plain.
How are they personally liable for their actions?
How can we fire them and get who we need into these positions ?
The farce gets daily more fantastical even as people still fail to realise that Grinches were always going to steal their Xmas -again! As a diversion from the great plan for us over the decades. Aided and abetted by the complicit Opposition and Media.
What’s that line about suckers and even breaks?
I am already having to reassure a lot of older, single folks and parents and fools who constantly act against their better interest because they only ever get their knowledge from the press, tv and radio – that they can get through the next couple of weeks without being seriously depressed – isn’t it time they listened to some of what I have been banging on about without kneejerking to the standard Conspiracy Theorist dismissal when challenging their idiocy.
A lot of businesses in hospitality face a second Christmas of reduced income. Many are forecast to go out of business and that affects one of my family. Yet, from what I hear, it seems while businesses and employees lose income, rent still has to be paid. Unless the landlords grant a reprieve or defer to the future.
It not only seems unfair that capital should be privileged over the productive parts of the economy. If they go down capital loses their income.
This also applies to the mortgages and loans. Yet from from what I understand, QE creates wealth for banks.
Surely they should be the ones making a ‘sacrifice’?
I have argued so since March 2020
Yes, it is nuts. But it does all seem a bit like deckchairs on the Titanic. Whether 0.10% or 0.25% seems to have been overtaken by events (Omicron infections etc.).
It just reinforces my view that Central Bankers should keep quiet and respond to events as they occur. “Guidance” or any other predictions suggest foresight and understanding that they just don’t have.
The real crime is that we were kicking around ideas on policy responses a year ago. Sure, time was too short to make them realistic immediate options at the time… but it is now a year later. Have they all been asleep ant HMT and BoE??
Yes, in a word
At one level, I am not sure a rise from 0.1 to 0.25 will make a huge difference. But at a much more important level, it says a huge lot about how much the BoE is in touch with the real world.
How do they find these people?
Oxbridge, once removed at least from reality
This is a interest rate coup as far as I am concerned – proof that those in charge are nothing but puppets for rentiers who feel that they are losing out on price increases.
Only greed can explain such insanity.
I agree: if they genuinely wanted to take some heat out of the economy, they should do so using taxes…whether on high (and likely disposable) income of top earners, or wealth taxes, or consumption taxes on luxury items.
They don’t, because as a tool for taking heat out of inflation, by curbing spending, tax is slow to take effect and interest rates are usually much quicker.
It’s admittedly tricky to target some taxes at the right people – but then again it’s even harder, or impossible, with interest rates. Higher interest costs will hit borrowers and curb their ability to buy essentials – which is inhumane. It won’t curb the spending (or therefore the inflationary impact) of the rich by much – it’ll be marginal.
Managing inflation by making it hard or impossible for the poor to feed themselves is brutal. They should be targeting wealthier peoples’ discretionary spending if they want to defuse price rises – and that is best done by tax, either on the individuals or on the consumables.