The US Federal Reserve or Fed, and the UK Central Bank or the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC,) both made the decision on whether to cut interest rates on the same day, although, given the time difference, it happened at different points. The US Fed cut interest rates by ½% to a range of 4.75% to …
A political budget – one for the short term economically not the long
Nothing announced in the Budget on Wednesday was a surprise because it was all leaked in advance. But that did not make it any less surprising in one regard: the lack of any bold action to deal with the economic challenges facing the UK of an aging population, poor productivity, the need to reform the …
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Interest rates can be cut now
One of the oddities about the narrative on the direction of interest rates is the argument that, because consumer price inflation is still above the 2% target, the Bank of England cannot cut interest rates. That suggests that interest rate policy changes immediately impact the current inflation rate in the short term. However, this view …