Ben Bernanke, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) chairman, and Spencer Dale, Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of England, have both given the markets food for thought.
Ban Bernanke, giving his half yearly assessment of the economy to the US Congress, …read more
Another month, another interest rate decision, another snooze. The MPC rightly left Bank Rate on hold at just 0.5% this month, the fifteenth in a row. But with Canada having recently started to tighten rates, and some people worried about soaraway inflation …read more
It turns out that the FSA may survive even after the Tory pledge to abolish it as part of their restructuring of oversight of the UK financial services industry and talk in the Queen’s speech of handing “control of macroprudential supervision” and “oversight of microprudential supervision” to the Bank of England (BoE). …read more
Last October, the Bank of England presumably at the behest of the Government made secret emergency loans to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS). These totalled some £61.6 billion pounds and prevented them going under. What this amounts to is that banks that the general public thought were on the verge of going under had already effectively done so. Details of this ‘Emergency Liquidity Assistance’ have just been released. …read more
The three way split within the Bank Of England’s Monetary Policy Committee over the future of quantitative easing highlighted the different interpretations of QE within the committee itself.
As widely predicted and agreed by us, the MPC have maintained the interest rates not unsurprisingly at 0.5%. What they have done, again as we expected, is to increase the quantitative easing programme by another £25 Bn over the next 3 months. But where will the money end up? …read more
David Blanchflower, ex of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, has called for the Bank to make the decision to expand its quantitative Easing programme when it has its monthly meeting tomorrow. It would be a surprise if there was any move to change the base rate from 0.5 % but it appears to be open season on QE. Although it has to be said that last month the British Chambers of Commerce did call for increased QE but also for a move of interest rates into negative territory so as to ‘guarantee recovery’. …read more
Are lenders really changing their position and lending more or are they just giving the appearance of lending to prevent government intervention in lending?
The growth projections were just wishful thinking, £175bn in liquidity was not enough to put the brakes on the economy as it heads downhill. So will there be a continuation of the quantitative easing over the next couple of months/years?
The country and the halls of power in Westminster eagerly await today’s figures to find out if the combined policies of both government and the Bank Of England have prevailed and dragged us out of the sharpest recession in living memory.
Quantitative easing and a contracting money supply in the real economy
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010…read more
Tags: Bank Of England, boe, Comment, Hyper inflation, inflation, interest rates, money supply, News, Oil, Peak Oil, Quantitative Easing
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