The prime task of Central banks is to support commercial banks

Keeping inflation to 2% is a crucial role of the Bank of England, ECB and Fed. As events in the USA have just shown, it is however less important that avoiding banking collapse. Since Silicon Valley Bank got into trouble the Fed has made a huge change to its money policy, flipping from ultra tight with plenty of money withdrawal by selling bonds, to a large easing   with $300 bn of loans to commercial banks. It had to make the switch as it is the first duty of a Central Bank to provide cash to commercial banks so they can honour their deposits if a lot of people all want to withdraw at the same time.

The decision to shift to a much easier money policy in the short term was screened by still continuing with a 25 bp or 0.25% interest rate hike. The Fed wished to reassure some that it is still battling inflation, whilst reassuring others that their deposits are safe. Silicon Valley Bank had got into trouble because the Fed has raised rates so much, losing SVB money on the bonds it held. It is a reminder that shifting money policy to too tough brings different kinds of problems.

All the Central banks need to review where they are in money tightening and in bringing down inflation. There are always lags – it takes time to get inflation down by raising rates and throttling credit. It is important not to overdo the tightening as that can undermine banks as it  hits the affordability of credit and the value of bank investment holdings in bonds. They will all need to make sure plenty of cash is available to any bank that comes under unwelcome pressure to repay deposits, as that is the way to make sure there is no such run.

80 Comments

  1. turboterrier
    March 30, 2023

    And all the time this manufactured financial uncertainty keeps rolling on in its many shapes and forms China is moving in here there and everywhere doing deals and signing agreements that will end up with even more control of the Western World. Nobody seems to be showing any concerns.
    The globalists will control nothing, all the main areas of industry and commerce will be under the umbrella of China.

    1. Sea_Warrior
      March 30, 2023

      I see that the King has kicked-off his round of state visits with a focus on Europe. He should, of course, had made the minor Commonwealth realms in the Pacific his first ports of call – to do his bit to keep them out of the avaricious clutches of Communist China.

      1. Donna
        March 31, 2023

        Absolutely. But then he has quite a track record of doing the wrong thing.

    2. agricola
      March 30, 2023

      Absolutely correct. One chinese maker of EVs has already announced the shipping of the first 5000 cars to the UK, with many more to follow. Chinese MGs are already here. It is all down to our governments destruction of the UK car industry by edict led by scientific and engineering ignorace. The way in which our government opens our market to our enemies is criminal. The latest episode is this morning with Grant Shapps busy selling grotesquely expensive heat pumps with a proposed tax on gas to force people in that direction. They won’t have a manifesto at the next GE, it will be a last will and testament. RI Discomfort.

      1. Fedupsouthener
        March 31, 2023

        Yes and finding companies that sell too many gas boilers. Whatever happened to customer choice? How can any company be held responsible for what the public want to buy? A gas boiler is a better product with the advantage of being cheaper too. It’s a no brainer.

        1. Fedupsouthener
          March 31, 2023

          Should read fining.

  2. Peter Wood
    March 30, 2023

    Good Morning,

    No, SVP did not fail because the Fed raised interest rates. The Fed started raising interest rates nearly a year ago, and TOLD everybody, who would listen, that they were going to do so. SVP failed because it didn’t take timely action to sell it’s long dated treasuries, the most liquid of investments, when they new rates were going to be rising. Simple management incompetence.
    UK long gilt holders, particularly leveraged investors, are equally to blame for their losses. Will bonuses be cut…?

    1. Nottingham Lad Himself
      March 30, 2023

      Yes, Peter, that’s my analysis too.

      John seems to me to imply that CBs are there to underwrite commercial banks against risk, i.e. to nationalise potential losses.

      It’s quite a lark, this capitalism business, eh?

    2. PeteB
      March 30, 2023

      Spot on Peter. Banks that matched and managed their exposures are fine.

      I’d challenge Sir J’s prime aim too. Commercial banks / lenders managed for centuries without central banks. They had real assets backing their promises, set interest rates that reflected risk and didn’t over reach. Think crusader times and the knights templar.

      Central banks who control interest rates and cash liquidity are causing many of the problems in western economies.

    3. outsider
      March 30, 2023

      Dear Peter Wood, Long-term bonds are only liquid assets in the sense that one’s car is liquid asset now that one can sell it more or less instantly online. You have to take the price offered. For a bank, long-dated fixed interest bonds are a risk asset like business loans. And the liquidity risk is much higher when banks’ liabilities are mainly wholesale and large-scale deposits that are much more volatile that traditional retail deposits and companies’ working balances, as we discovered in 2008.

      1. Peter Wood
        March 31, 2023

        Quite so. It’s called banking, borrow short and lend long. However, first rule, for any business, know your customer. If you know the deposits were flighty, then for sure SVB did, but they took a gamble on interest rates and got it wrong. Bad bank.

  3. Mark B
    March 30, 2023

    Good morning.

    Why 2% ? Why not 5%, or 1.25% ?

    I do not understand why there has to be a target in the first place. Why not have a more sensible policy of trying to maintain an inflation rate equal or better of that of our competitors ? Anyway, no one believes the inflation figures. Real inflation is running between 25 – 50%.

    As I said in a previous post. The BoE and others cannot ‘control’ inflation, just influence it. The problem we are having, and something I keep banging on and on about, is the fact that the government is just using interest rates and taxes as a tool and does not want to cut public spending and generous subsidies.

    The government is hobble itself and the nation.

    Reply Inflation is nothing like 50%. Inflation is measured on a range of items making up a typical household budget, not just a few food or service items that have gone up a lot.

    1. Fedupsouthener
      March 30, 2023

      So if inflation worries the government so much why are they adding to it by putting up the price of gas in the hope we will buy heat pumps which are totally unsuitable for most homes? Net zero is self defeating g. The government has been handing g out cash during this cost of living crisis and now tells us the price to heat our homes is going up. I ask again, where are people going to find the money for EVs and heat pumps?

      1. Berkshire Alan
        March 30, 2023

        FUS

        Exactly, yet another stupid Government idea, but I guarantee they will not stop it, or other plans like it.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        March 30, 2023

        It is a massive relief that people will not have the money to bankrupt themselves on EVs and heat-pumps.

      3. MFD
        March 30, 2023

        I am not even going to try FUS, as an OAP it is not feasible. I will buy a log burner, I already have a chain saw so I will stay warm.

        My vote will be used to get rid of both the global loving trash we are governed by!

      4. Cuibono
        March 30, 2023

        +many
        Well
if they ban wood burners too (and they have made mighty certain that modern houses are reliant on gas and electricity) then we will all freeze to death in another globally warmed winter.
        Win, win for them!
        Out will pop the cozy best bunnies from their free 4* hotels.
        But will they work for nowt to make the powers that be richer?

      5. Christine
        March 30, 2023

        Why indeed. It seems the net zero cult has taken over the minds of our politicians. Even the EU has backtracked on their ban of the combustion engine but UK politicians continue with their job destroying policies. They don’t seem to care they are destroying our car industry and making people poorer.

        If we don’t vote out these people at the next election we are doomed.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          March 31, 2023

          We will all be buying our cars, new and second hand, in Ireland. Probably our gas boilers too. Globalists who can’t control the whole world control none of it. We shall do as we please.
          Have you seen the vicious State attacks on peaceful protestors in France – China will be complaining to the UN soon.

      6. turboterrier
        March 30, 2023

        F U S
        It is money everywhere you look.
        Consumers to fund the distribution infrastructures and networks.
        The house holder, landlords to pay for the installation of heat pumps when there are over 60% of properties that do not meet the design criteria for installing them whether it be whole house insulation, mini and microbore pipework, combination boilers with no space to install cylinders and buffer tanks and the majority of radiators sized on a Delta T of 70 degrees centigrade and the heat pumps operating at 50 degrees on a good day if your lucky. Delta T is the mid temperature of the radiator allowing for an 11 degree drop across the rad.
        Most systems will require larger radiators and associated pipework
        In our present low wage economy for most people not a cat in hells chance of affording it and for those on benefits the taxpaying system will find it totally unsustainable.
        The reason it is all talk and no costing is that when reality hits the fan the present French protests will look like a tea party. The people will rise up.

      7. Ian B
        March 30, 2023

        @Fedupsouthener +1

        Controlling the minds of the plebs comes to mind

      8. Timaction
        March 30, 2023

        An out of touch bunch of fools who know nothing of science but believe the propaganda about the bogey gas CO2 with….no evidence.
        Immigration is back on the agenda with our useless or deliberately useless msm never asking when and how many have been deported, then we wouldn’t need new accommodation. The Government and opposition have tucked us up like turkeys with their pretence to want to stop it when in fact they’re encouraging and accommodating more. Secret migration pacts and the like, no doubt. Just go and let us vote for a patriotic party who looks after the English and not everything minority and foreign. The Tory’s are toast. They’re not changing their spots now.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          March 31, 2023

          Agreed. Let’s go back to basics and have them explain how CO2, without which we cannot live, is the horror of horrors!

      9. agricola
        March 30, 2023

        FUS,
        Conservatism meanz cockups and failure. Consider:-
        Illegal and legal migration.
        Road state.
        Defence.
        Taxation.
        Nett zero
        Energy supply.
        HS2 and railways generally.
        NHS administration and cost through lack of it.
        Subservience to Woke and PC.
        Education, cost and effective privatisation.
        Breakup of Union by EU and its fifth column in parliament.
        Please God, let Reform save us.

        1. agricola
          March 30, 2023

          FUS
          Sorry I missed out Fishing. Our government are about to introduce medical requirements for inshore fishermen that will kill their livelyhoods. The scribes and minister demand that fishermen have a BMI lower than prevails in most members of the English Rugby Union team. The idiot fringe are out to destroy the UK.

          1. rose
            March 31, 2023

            The EU always uses health and safety as a means of political and economic control. And our civil service always gold plates everything from the EU it possibly can.

      10. rose
        March 30, 2023

        It is not just domestic consumers who are affected by tax on gas. It affects the whole economy, including SMEs. Just take the tax off gas, encourage the increase in supply at source, and watch the economy start to recover. (Other tax cuts would need to follow.)

    2. Dave Andrews
      March 30, 2023

      Why not 0%, so the value of money is maintained?
      Inflation is a stealth tax to diminish government debt.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        March 31, 2023

        Yes! Let’s have Honest Money. Stuff you can save and end up with the value that you put in. Easier to price too (I.e work out interest rates) which should be left to the market I.e. the people.
        If the BOE does more damage than good, we are better off without it. Same goes for the Courts, Parliament, the Arch-Bishop and the King.

    3. Sea_Warrior
      March 30, 2023

      The government’s subsidy of my fuel bill means that I am paying less now than I did before the invasion of Ukraine.

    4. formula57
      March 30, 2023

      The Retail Prices Index (RPI) yearly increase figure for February (reported on 22, March) was 13.8 per cent.. Mr. Sunak is going to halve that by year’s end of course. 🙂

    5. formula57
      March 30, 2023

      @ Mark B “Why 2% ? Why not 5%, or 1.25% ?” – that is never, ever explained. Nor it is explained why falling prices generally would be such a bad thing.

      1. Mike Wilson
        March 31, 2023

        Nor it is explained why falling prices generally would be such a bad thing.

        When prices are falling people put off buying things in the hope of getting it cheaper. This leads to depression, not recession.

    6. outsider
      March 30, 2023

      Dear Mark, Annual inflation is about 40 per cent only if you account in Bitcoin. Mind you, in Bitcoin, goods prices fell by about 75 per cent in 2021-22, which suggests that banks are irreponsible to have had anything to do with it.

  4. DOM
    March 30, 2023

    Wrong. Central Banks now exist to finance a poisonous left wing ideology that’s been embraced by western governments.

    Authoritarianism is expensive

    1. Donna
      March 30, 2023

      Correct. The manufactured banking crisis is part of the process intended to result in Central Bank Digital Currencies and a Chinese-style Social Credit system.

    2. Ian wragg
      March 30, 2023

      It looks like the wheels are literally falling off the net zero scam bandwagon
      The Germans are refusing to stop producing internal combustion engined cars. The French and Dutch are rebelling on agriculture being decimated and the Scandinavians are kicking off about mass gimmigration
      I can see it’s becoming popcorn time. The next few years will be interesting.
      Then of course we have Gove who’s mission in life is to destroy the private rental sector.

      1. Fedupsouthener
        March 31, 2023

        Gove raising his ugly head again. That man is a menace to society. If we reach a scenario where you cant get a mortgage on a property that’s not met net zero standards are we going to see big banks start to take over housing when the poor elderly pass on and their homes can’t be sold? How does it go? You’ll own nothing and be happy.

      2. glen cullen
        March 31, 2023

        Not today but maybe sometime in the future we may be able to capture co2 
but only about 5% of the co2 produced in the UK and that’s accounts for about 20% of industry 
will never be about to capture co2 from farm animals or humans, but heyho lets spend £20bn on another vanity project

    3. Narrow Shoulders
      March 30, 2023

      It does beg the question as to why our central bank needs to take a position on net zero and inclusion?

      That is not the remit of a central bank.

  5. Chris S
    March 30, 2023

    In my view, Bailey has already enforced one rise too many.
    Given that almost every economist is forecasting a rapid drop in inflation, the UK needs stimulus, not restraint.
    Mortgage rates are now at crippling levels and need to be brought down, as does stamp duty, to allow the housing market to recover, which will stimulate growth. A divorced friend of mine has to move for personal reasons, admittedly she is well healed, but the stamp duty on her new house is ÂŁ82,500! Bad enough for her, but nobody in their right mind is going to trade down, as the government wants us to do, with penal rates such as these.

    But this is just the last rate rise was just the latest mistakes Bailey has made throughout his career. He really should have been sacked before the crisis he deliberately caused to bring down the Truss government. He conspired with others in the Treasury and subverted the legitimate government because their preferred candidate, Sunak, did not win. Nothing less than a coup, and they got away with it!

    1. Ian B
      March 30, 2023

      @Chris S +1

      To logical

    2. Timaction
      March 30, 2023

      Only for a short time. Their number is up.

    3. formula57
      March 30, 2023

      Tax setters see usurious stamp duty rates as being in lieu of abolishing the capital gains tax main residence exemption perhaps?

    4. forthurst
      March 30, 2023

      Higher (not high) interest rates are only problematic when coupled with rip roaring house price inflation which has taken place of many years now as a result of a flawed measure of inflation which has ignored asset price inflation as though this is potentially harmless rather than a potent time-bomb waiting to explode. The acquisition of houses at very low mortgage rates has created an army of very wealthy buy-to-let landlords that predate on would be first time buyers who cannot get on the mortgage ladder because they cannot afford the deposits. These predators need to be squeezed out of the market before there can be an orderly market again. The measure of inflation must take into account asset price inflation as much as an increase in the cost of gas now imported from the USA rather than that from that in the European sphere where a significant source of gas from Russia is now being rerouted to China and India at even lower prices.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        March 31, 2023

        Rip roaring house prices are the only way ‘ordinary people’ can hedge against inflation. They can’t save, they have to be in debt because only debt pays.
        The Government, the biggest debtor ensures that this is the slant on the playing field.

    5. Mark B
      March 30, 2023

      +1

    6. Mike Wilson
      March 30, 2023

      Boo, boo. Buying a house for £1.4 million. And that’s trading down!

  6. Donna
    March 30, 2023

    No Government wants to go into an election year with high mortgage interest rates, a moribund housing market and falling house prices.

    So I predict that around November, Bailey will reduce interest rates and the housing market will stabilise. There’ll be an autumn financial statement which tells us “we’ve turned a corner and things are looking up.” There might be a reduction/revision of Stamp Duty levels.

    There’ll be another interest-rate reduction in Spring 2024. The housing market will pick up; house prices will start rising. The Budget will promise tax reductions (providing you vote the right way, of course) and there’ll be an autumn General Election.

    The Government will still insist that the B of E is independent.

  7. Sea_Warrior
    March 30, 2023

    I’m left wondering if the American banking regulators had ‘stress-tested’ the banks, in the way that we do, against the predictable rise in interest rates. Had they done so, SVB’s problems would have been exposed earlier than they were. I’ll look forward to reading a book on the subject.

  8. Sir Joe Soap
    March 30, 2023

    Moral hazard should be the watchword. One would hope these commercial banks pay insurance for this bailing out expectation. Presumably they need to reveal their positions and are charged insurance appropriately, previous bad behaviour also being taken into account.

    O/T can I take action against Shapps for removing carbon dioxide from my air? “I can’t breathe” could soon take on a second and deeper meaning. Also my plants need CO2 to generate oxygen.

  9. Christine
    March 30, 2023

    “They will all need to make sure plenty of cash is available to any bank that comes under unwelcome pressure to repay deposits, as that is the way to make sure there is no such run.”

    The USA has already said it will only bail out those banks that are too big to fail. Small banks can go to the wall taking depositors money. This is causing a run on the small banks forcing their closure. The government is herding all the money into the big banks making it much easier to control and paving the way for their digital currency.

    Soon government’s will control access to your money and what you spend it on. Cash will be phased out.

  10. Sakara Gold
    March 30, 2023

    Global debt is now over 250% of global GDP, with $trillions gambled on derviatives by huge investment banks. This situation cannot continue indefinitely. The last thing the world needs now is more money printing by central banks.

    The BoE should be buying gold via the London bullion market while a kilo of the yellow metal can still be had for ~ÂŁ52k. Two years ago in March 2021 it was ÂŁ40k. Gold is the asset of last resort and has been regarded as a store of vaue for millenia.

  11. agricola
    March 30, 2023

    Why not link in all commercial banks to the central bank so that the CB could see on a daily basis how robust the commercial banks were. This would allow a degree of anticipation, possibly preventing disaster, rather than the firefighting after the event.

  12. Ian B
    March 30, 2023

    Good morning Sir John

    Surely in the UK the situation we find ourselves in is due to neglect by the very things you are suggesting is the purpose that these institutions are there to protect and ensure effective management.

    The BoE keeps getting it wrong, they neglected inflation, then tried to deflect blame – LDI funds, Ukraine, Truss Government and everything else they could find. The LDI fund situation was flashed up for the FCA to address many years ago the FCA couldn’t be bothered. So we get those responsible first for the FCA then the BoE (The very same people) blaming others to protect their own back.

    It doesn’t stop there the OBR(the Chancellors leading light) admits it is generally wrong. Even picking up on your comment the other day of things being ‘data lead’ the ONS only deals in data and they are never correct at the time of pronouncements.

    The real concern for us all, is these outlets are relatively new concoctions, the taxpayer is paying for them and yet they are never ever held to account for their refusal to do the job. In reality it is the Government that is in denial, it is they that are responsible for the output of these entities, it is them that are refusing to manage and take responsibility to where they throw our money.

  13. Bloke
    March 30, 2023

    A Central Bank is like a larger bank with its own limitations when nearly everyone demands their money back. Trying to bale itself out with an empty bucket is futile.

  14. glen cullen
    March 30, 2023

    ‘’In October 2021, the Bank of England (the Bank) published its Climate Change Adaptation Report (CCAR), which set out early thinking on climate change and the regulatory capital frameworks for banks and insurers’’
    https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prudential-regulation/publication/2023/report-on-climate-related-risks-and-the-regulatory-capital-frameworks
    SirJ your thinking on this subject may be out of date – I believe that the main task of the BoE is to control all investments in-line with the UN IPCC

  15. James4
    March 30, 2023

    Chris S they got away with it yes because the people who know behind the scenes , lthe people who really know behind the scenes the same people who organised the Framework vote outcome, the investors, bankers, big industrialists, old families know only too well what a bonkers idea brexit was in the first place and then the Truss Kwasi show of borrowing to the hilt in order to fund a helicopter money budget splurge thinking that trickle down would get people spending again was absolute bonkers, Yes the people who know in this country had to stop the Truss madness somewhere to try to put this country back on track and that is why Sunak is there. The behind the scenes people were caught off guard once over the brexit vote – but it’s not going to happen again – so do you still think we have a democracy?

  16. Ian B
    March 30, 2023

    The prime thing missing from all these situation is where the money comes from, albeit for what at first appears to be well-meaning reasons, but who actually ‘pays’

    We know the Bank of England is off the hook because it is always the Taxpayer that pays. What is wrong then, is when the likes of the BoE say it is them bailing someone out or even the Government insisting they are the ones that come up with the money. It never is anyone but the Taxpayer.

    That means the taxpayer pays for all miss-management and all failures to manage. We now have a society that sees it as good to reward failure. So the failures just keep on coming. Its everywhere, even when the bosses of the UK Post Office failed, the taxpayer got to pay all the compensation. Next we will be saying that at the Olympics the guy in last place must surly get a gold medal. Failure first, achievement last.

    You could go on and on showing illustrations were the taxpayer is ‘forced’ to reward failure. The problem then is there is no money for the essentials that keep society rolling that then creates the taxes for Government to throw away.

    Knee-jerk might make a good headline and they get away with it because the hide the cost to us all.

  17. Original Richard
    March 30, 2023

    “Keeping inflation to 2% is a crucial role of the Bank of England, ECB and Fed.”

    This is an impossible task.

    Make no mistake, we are going to suffer high inflation as a result of our energy policymakers Net Zero policies to make our energy as expensive as they think the public can withstand.

    Hence the transition from cheap, abundant, high energy density, reliable fossil fuel energy to expensive, intermittent, low energy density, unreliable renewables and the impossible electrification of heating and transport.

    Completely pointless as increasing CO2, necessary plant food, produces negligible warming because of IR saturation (see the work of Happer and Wijngaarden) and our emissions are only around 1% of the global total.

    The latest crazy nonsense is the spending of £20bn of UK taxpayers’ money on CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation & Storage) to reduce global CO2 emissions by 0.01% (1/1000ths) per year!

    Whilst the rest of the world burns 8 billion tons of coal. Even Germany uses coal for a third of its electricity production.

  18. Bert Young
    March 30, 2023

    The knock on effect of a BoE decision to hike the Bank rate has had considerable influence on day to day living standards ; Sunak must put this on the top his list of priorities as well as controlling inflation . In any event the Government decides first – not the BofE or any other non elected body .

  19. turboterrier
    March 30, 2023

    Further to my previous comment regarding China,

    The following arrived in my inbox following on from a telephone conversatiion this morning about how being all woke, Net Zero and worry about transgender reforms is stopping this country seeing the big picture of the real world.
    The Growing Power of the China-Iran Alliance Thanks to the Biden Administration

    The deal grants China significant rights over the Iran’s resources and help to Iran in increasing its oil and gas production. Leaked information revealed that one of the terms is that China will be investing nearly $400 billion in Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemicals industries. In return, China will get priority to bid on any new project in Iran that is linked to these sectors……..

    National Security Threat: Another Latin American Country Chooses China.

    Both these articles are on The Gatestone Institute web site Posted on the 25th& 28th March respectively and are well worth a read.

  20. formula57
    March 30, 2023

    Certainly liquidity support ought to be provided to the solvent.

    In the case of the Federal Reserve, it evidently accepts no responsibility for its own failures in respect of Silicon Valley Bank, so the Wall Street Journal opines (28, March) following Vice Chairman for supervision Michael Barr’s recent Senate testimony.

    All the while, until very late 2021, the Fed assured everyone inflation was transitory so it would not change its policies, being prolonged quantitative easing and zero interest rates that induced banks like SVB to hold longer-term, higher yielding securities.

    Meanwhile the Fed’s supervision saw it only flag deficiencies at SVB in late 2021 and May 2022. Its “severely adverse scenario” stress test in February 2022 used a three month interest rate of near zero with 10 year Treasuries falling to 0.75 per cent.. Fed staff apparently did not model rising interest rates.

  21. Ian B
    March 30, 2023

    Off Topic

    The anticipation of the UK joining the CPTPP. Who’s political Court do they use to enforce the political thinking of the unelected and unaccountable? (sarcasm)

    1. hefner
      April 2, 2023

      So please tell me, where is the ISDS (that could intervene in case of dispute between companies and CPTPP countries) located? Is that a political court? Is it elected? Is it accountable? (guffaw)

  22. Keith from Leeds
    March 30, 2023

    Thank you, Sir John, for being a voice of sanity in an increasingly mad world. But as I keep saying, why has Andrew Bailey not been sacked? The only conclusion is that he is doing what the PM & Chancellor want him to do. What has happened to the intelligence & common sense of the average MP? Why don’t they educate themselves to see net-zero is complete nonsense?
    Why do we charge VAT on gas/electric fuel bills, when the government then subsidises them?
    Because we are still under EU rule & 525 MPs voted for it to remain that way. Is this the lowest calibre of MPs we have ever had in Parliament? When will they wake up & start doing what is right for the UK, starting with getting serious about energy & food security. What a stupid decision by Grant Shapps to say we will still phase out petrol & diesel cars by 2030, when finally some sense is happening & the EU is postponing that tom 2035!

  23. robert lewy
    March 30, 2023

    Would it perhaps be preferable for Base Rate changes to be less dramatic?

    Why not change to a system whereby the rate is changed daily with no option to leave the rate unchanged? If the BOE is undecided the change should be very small such as +1BP or -1 BP.
    This would leave the market with little uncertainty as to BOE thinking.

    This could be achieved by votes remotely and later reviewed in periodic meetings.

  24. glen cullen
    March 30, 2023

    £20bn + for carbon storage 
.we must be a stinking rich country 
so how come my council has a deficit of £49m

  25. outsider
    March 30, 2023

    Dear Sir John, The recent bank troubles seem to be yet another outcome of more than a decade of emergency low interest rates, money creation and low total productivity growth in the West. Competition in financial services forces banks and other investment and finance players to aim for rates of return much higher than can be achieved, on average, in that climate. So they have to resort to higher risk assets and financial engineering.

    You are right that central banks’ duty is to provide short-term liquidity as lenders of last resort. They do not have a duty effectively to subsidise higher risks by shielding depositors from them. Formal or implicit deposit guarantees need to have more tightly drawn strings attached.

  26. glen cullen
    March 30, 2023

    Home Office –29th March 2023
    Illegal Immigrants – 23
    Boats – 1
    Just a mid sized hotel today

    1. Fedupsouthener
      March 31, 2023

      Glen. As Farage said the other night. Nobody will leave the hotels and the barracks will only house enough illegals for a couple of months worth of journeys here. On a good day in the summer we can expect a 1000. Yet another stupid idea from this useless government.

      1. Handbrake
        March 31, 2023

        Don’t know where we are going to put them all – Suella said that there are 100 million migrants in the world all heading this way and then if we add in the other 70 million Turks snaking their way here like we were promised pre brexit – well really don’t know where we can put them all – ah yes!!
        I do know! Rwanda

      2. glen cullen
        March 31, 2023

        They could reopen Napier Barracks in Folkstone today if it was a serious proposal ….just another con

  27. mancunius
    March 30, 2023

    “They will all need to make sure plenty of cash is available” giving the BoE an excuse to print even more.

  28. turboterrier
    March 30, 2023

    Will all our money troubles and Net Zero and all the other problems we are infected with, our government fails to see coming over the horizon at a pace that seems to be accelerating the threat of a World catastrophe,
    China building up all many alliances to meet its stated aim to replace the USA as the world superpower.
    Iran would seem months if not weeks away from having nuclear weapons.
    Russia invading Ukraine was yet another land grab if it had been successful more would follow.
    Honduras getting massive financial support from China
    China is well entrenched in South America and has an influence on both sides of the Panama Canal.
    Reports in the Telegraph highlight that China is beginning to work with Saudi Arabia.

    With all these alliances built around fossil fuels it would seem that China is paying only lip service to the declared intent of Saving the World from CO2

    Is our government too focused on all the wrong things?

  29. Mike Wilson
    March 30, 2023

    Yeah! Drop interest rates and stamp duty and inflate the housing market again! Just like it’s been done over and over again for the last 60 years! Problem with the economy? No growth?! Slash interest rates and get the plebs borrowing! House prices too high for the next generation? Stuff them. Let them rent!

    I have to sa your philosophy makes me sick.

  30. turboterrier
    March 30, 2023

    Ross Clark in the Telegraph: The EU’s Net Zero plan is in tatters – and not a moment too soon

    Why are we not following them? Are we going to be the first nation to implode because of a principled Government and elected representatives that apart from a few brave souls have not got a clue about what they are doing, Net Zero Watch and Not a Lot of People Know That have highlighted the German Motor Industry decisions and concerns.
    https://netzerowatch.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=78e9b5f35b&e=4961da7cb1
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/ross-clark-the-eus-net-zero-plan-is-in-tatters-and-not-a-moment-too-soon/

  31. turboterrier
    March 30, 2023

    UK Govt’s green subsidy ‘reform’ punishes the poor and benefits the rich
    Another very good report from the net Zero Watch team highlighted by NaLoPKT

    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/uk-govts-green-subsidy-reform-punishes-the-poor-and-benefits-the-rich/

    1. Fedupsouthener
      March 31, 2023

      Two excellent posts Turbo highlighting just how stupid this government meant is. I wonder how many other countries are laughing at us? I actually ALMOST wished we were back in the EU.

  32. glen cullen
    March 30, 2023

    This Tory government can’t go a full day without messing something up !
    “The only thing necessary for the triumph of stupidity is for good men to do nothing”

Comments are closed.