Monday, May 11, 2009

Money printing starting to work, says Bank of England

I don't even know to begin with this article, conflating lies and falsehoods into rationality. I certainly don't know where they get these M4 figures of less than 4% from. Perhaps they are talking about HPRs (Holding Period Returns) over 3 months, rather than 12 months, but the BoE's own released figures, if we can believe them, are currently showing M4 at approximately 18% per annum.

I suppose they are letting everyone assume they are talking about annual rates, when really they mean three monthly rates without clarifying the difference, but if they are, then this just underlines their crookedness.

As to the comments about the government being unable to sell their bonds unless the BoE buys them, I will speak no more, except to recommend that you read the thoughts of Chairman Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, for further reflection.

4 comments:

not an economist said...

I would have thoguht this will get worse with even more monetary pumping to come. I say this because on Radio 4 this morning the BoE was reported as saying that it believes the downturn will be even worse than it had previously thought (late last year). On past behaviour the reaction to this will be more initiatives like Quantitive Easing. I wonder if they will get to the point of sending everyone a cheque for £1,000 or more on the grounds that the Banks just aren't lending enough.

Jack Maturin said...

1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000.

I think just going for the straight million will work best.

At completely destroying the economy.

Katabasis said...

Jack,
out of interest - have you seen the BoE's pension report:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/humanresources/pensionreport.pdf

Interesting reading - especially p24-5

Jack Maturin said...

I'm afraid reading balance sheets and accountancy never been my strongest forte, but I think what we can tell from these figures is that staff at the Bank of England will be "Alright Jack", no matter what stupid policies they follow.

Which I believed Mervyn King once termed moral hazard.