The impact of changing the inflation target

Readers Question: The task of MPC is to stabilise inflation at 2%. Current inflation is around 5% and the Bank of England has to tighten the Monetary policy to control the inflation. If the Government revises the inflation target and set it to 5%, then what would be the effect on the economy and what …

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Data on extent of austerity in UK

Following on from previous posts – How much has government spending been cut – | How was budget deficit cut by 25%?. It will be useful to republish some data from Mainly Macro – on a post UK austerity and some facts UK Cyclically adjusted primary deficit 2010 2011 2012 2013 IMF 2 -6.1 -3.9 …

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How the Budget Deficit was cut by 25%?

The government have repeatedly pointed to their ‘achievement’ of cutting the budget deficit by 25% in the past two years. But, how has this been achieved? and has it actually helped the UK economy? UK Net Borrowing 2007-08 £40.3bn 2008-09 £104.2bn 2009-10 £167.4bn 2010-11 £145.1bn 2011-12 £119.3bn 2012-13 £127.3bn – estimated This shows a 25% …

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UK Retail Sales Oct 2012

The amount of UK retail sales increased by 2.5% in the 12 months from September 2011 to September 2012. This measure includes the amount (quantity) of goods in all retailing, seasonally adjusted. The amount spent (value of goods) increased by 3.2% Annual store price inflation was estimated to be 0.7 %. This suggests that the …

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Why Do Some Countries Create Money?

Readers Question: Why is it, that some countries e.g USA, UK, Japan etc can electronically create money whereas India, Germany, Euro etc have to work, trade and manufacture exports and growth to keep pace with the above mentioned ? Any country could electronically create money if they wanted to. To summarise, the only good time …

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OBR Admit Failure to Predict the Double Dip Recession

One feature of the current economic malaise is that growth predictions for the UK economy have been consistently over-optimistic. For example, the Office for Budget Responsibility originally forecast economic growth of 5.7% between 2010 to mid 2012. The economy failed to meet this target, growing by just 0.9% during this period. To be fair to …

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Chinese Currency Manipulation

The Chinese government have been criticised for the ‘manipulation’ of their currency. They would prefer not to use the word ‘manipulation’ perhaps they have an unofficial exchange rate target to keep Chinese currency undervalued to promote growth and exports. At the moment China only pegs its currency against the dollar and not a wider basket …

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