{"id":8867,"date":"2011-02-15T12:13:31","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T10:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=8867"},"modified":"2011-02-15T15:50:02","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T13:50:02","slug":"inflation-up-again-and-yet-we-still-dont-read-read-it-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2011\/02\/15\/inflation-up-again-and-yet-we-still-dont-read-read-it-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation – up again – and yet we still don’t read read it right"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the BBC report:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) annual inflation rate rose to 4% in January, up from 3.7% in December.<\/p>\n

Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation - which includes mortgage interest payments - rose to 5.1% from 4.8%.<\/p>\n

The CPI figure is the highest since November 2008, and will put pressure on the Bank of England to lift interest rates to curb accelerating inflation.<\/p>\n

\"Two of the main factors that had an impact on the January data are the increase in the standard rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) to 20% and the continued increase in the price of crude oil,\" the ONS said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is going to be extraordinarily painful for people suffering pay freezes.<\/span><\/p>\n

But let's be clear: this inflation is the result of government policy and something we're going to have to get our heads round - and that is increasing costs of carbon energy.<\/p>\n

How significant is the latter going to be? I was at a seminar yesterday and it was forecast that whereas we now import 20% of our energy by the end of the decade we will import 80% and this will be in a market where peak oil has happened and price changes will be dramatic, and upward only as a result.<\/p>\n

We are taking no action to address this fundamental issue in our economy.<\/p>\n

All that is suggested is that we increase interest rates to enforce recession as a mechanism for dealing with the inflation which such action will not impact, but which it could make worse through reducing our capacity to create export earnings - something we have ignored for far too long, and for which Thatcher is to blame.<\/p>\n

Such is the poverty of our economic thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the BBC report: The UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) annual inflation rate rose to 4% in January, up from 3.7% in December. Retail Prices
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}