Today In Biden Land

[Kirkland Laing]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

[Master]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

You are right the Bank of England is separate from the Chancellor since 1998 but the government support the move.

[Kirkland Laing]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

You are right the Bank of England is separate from the Chancellor since 1998 but the government support the move.

Any government would support it. A Labour government would certainly support it. The default position of any western government is supporting sound money. If you have inflation at too high a rate then any government of any political stripe is going to support high interest rates to squash it even though they know that high rates will cause lots of people to lose their houses, jobs and businesses. It's an unfortunate aspect of capitalism when you have a situation like this but never mind, nothing else you can really do.

[Master]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

You are right the Bank of England is separate from the Chancellor since 1998 but the government support the move.

Any government would support it. A Labour government would certainly support it. The default position of any western government is supporting sound money. If you have inflation at too high a rate then any government of any political stripe is going to support high interest rates to squash it even though they know that high rates will cause lots of people to lose their houses, jobs and businesses. It's an unfortunate aspect of capitalism when you have a situation like this but never mind, nothing else you can really do.

This government have been in power for 13 years and since that time have had low growth, caused unnecessary division by Brexit, tanked the economy with Truss budget which has all led to unparalleled strikes, rise in cost of living and profiteering from supermarkets/utility companies.

[Kirkland Laing]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

You are right the Bank of England is separate from the Chancellor since 1998 but the government support the move.

Any government would support it. A Labour government would certainly support it. The default position of any western government is supporting sound money. If you have inflation at too high a rate then any government of any political stripe is going to support high interest rates to squash it even though they know that high rates will cause lots of people to lose their houses, jobs and businesses. It's an unfortunate aspect of capitalism when you have a situation like this but never mind, nothing else you can really do.

This government have been in power for 13 years and since that time have had low growth, caused unnecessary division by Brexit, tanked the economy with Truss budget which has all led to unparalleled strikes, rise in cost of living and profiteering from supermarkets/utility companies.

All of these things can be true and much worse. You can have even worse governments than this one but none of the stuff above has to do with monetary policy. Central banks have a mandate from the state to maintain stable prices/low inflation. This means bad economic stuff happens when inflation gets out of control but raising rates to damage the economy is seen as the lesser of two evils compared to allowing inflation to continue so that's what we get.

[Master]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

You are right the Bank of England is separate from the Chancellor since 1998 but the government support the move.

Any government would support it. A Labour government would certainly support it. The default position of any western government is supporting sound money. If you have inflation at too high a rate then any government of any political stripe is going to support high interest rates to squash it even though they know that high rates will cause lots of people to lose their houses, jobs and businesses. It's an unfortunate aspect of capitalism when you have a situation like this but never mind, nothing else you can really do.

This government have been in power for 13 years and since that time have had low growth, caused unnecessary division by Brexit, tanked the economy with Truss budget which has all led to unparalleled strikes, rise in cost of living and profiteering from supermarkets/utility companies.

All of these things can be true and much worse. You can have even worse governments than this one but none of the stuff above has to do with monetary policy. Central banks have a mandate from the state to maintain stable prices/low inflation. This means bad economic stuff happens when inflation gets out of control but raising rates to damage the economy is seen as the lesser of two evils compared to allowing inflation to continue so that's what we get.

Inflation has not gone down to the extent that it should have with the rise in interest rates. This is because banks have not passed on the benefits fast enough to customers, supermarkets have inflated petrol prices and food prices and utility companies have kept prices high. The government has a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen and have been inept in managing the economy.

No point raising interest rates when these economic factors do not help the inflation rate from going down.

[Kirkland Laing]

Our economy is not growing and the government seem to want to cause a recession first before recovery with their high interest rates.

The government isn't raising rates, the Bank of England is. That's how central banking works. When inflation gets going central banks raise rates to deliberately induce a recession/economic slowdown as this causes inflation to fall. Pretty much every recession since WW2 has been deliberately engineered by central banks to control inflation with the only real exception being the 2008 financial crisis. In the eighties after the twin oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 inflation was such a problem that central banks raised rates in some cases over 20%. Imagine how many mortgage foreclosures and business failures/unemployment etc etc rates like that would cause today. Rates won't get that high but they'll probably keep on increasing them until they get a significant economic slowdown.

You are right the Bank of England is separate from the Chancellor since 1998 but the government support the move.

Any government would support it. A Labour government would certainly support it. The default position of any western government is supporting sound money. If you have inflation at too high a rate then any government of any political stripe is going to support high interest rates to squash it even though they know that high rates will cause lots of people to lose their houses, jobs and businesses. It's an unfortunate aspect of capitalism when you have a situation like this but never mind, nothing else you can really do.

This government have been in power for 13 years and since that time have had low growth, caused unnecessary division by Brexit, tanked the economy with Truss budget which has all led to unparalleled strikes, rise in cost of living and profiteering from supermarkets/utility companies.

All of these things can be true and much worse. You can have even worse governments than this one but none of the stuff above has to do with monetary policy. Central banks have a mandate from the state to maintain stable prices/low inflation. This means bad economic stuff happens when inflation gets out of control but raising rates to damage the economy is seen as the lesser of two evils compared to allowing inflation to continue so that's what we get.

Inflation has not gone down to the extent that it should have with the rise in interest rates. This is because banks have not passed on the benefits fast enough to customers, supermarkets have inflated petrol prices and food prices and utility companies have kept prices high. The government has a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen and have been inept in managing the economy.

No point raising interest rates when these economic factors do not help the inflation rate from going down.

It takes twelve to eighteen months for any rate rises to have an effect on the economy. Rates started off from a historically low level and have only really begun to hit a level that's inflicting any kind of pain in the last six months or so. So over the next six to twelve months they'll start to have an effect on the economy and inflation. There are no benefits from rate rises for the vast majority of customers. Banks have ten to twenty times more borrowers than savers. Rate rises hit borrowers and vacuum significant sums out of their pockets every month (and hence out of the economy, slowing inflation) and hardly affect savers who by definition have lots of disposable savings and don't change their spending levels significantly. In terms of monetary policy/central banking it doesn't matter what the individual components of inflation are, it's the overall inflation level that matters. When inflation is too high central banks pump up rates to drain money out of the economy causing layoffs, mortgage foreclosures, reduced business investment, business failures and so on. This slows the economy down/puts it into recession and coupled with the removal of so much money causes inflation to slow down.

What governments do, whether it's regulating utilities or whatever is a separate issue.

Also:

https://www.theguardian.com/business...insburys-tesco

and same goes for petrol prices. Inflation isn't down to supermarkets or profiteering. It's down to economic dislocation caused by the pandemic followed by Russia invading Ukraine and causing a huge spike in energy prices. Stuff out of government control.