Why does the UK have quantitative easing when Germany shuns it? Because of our attitudes to inflation. But it is not fear of a return to the astronomical price rises of the Weimar Republic that scares the Germans; it is because they think 5 per cent is high when Britain thinks it is low.
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Conspiracy or cock-up? Does the overshoot on UK inflation show incompetence by the Bank of England or is it deliberate policy?
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If the experts at the Bank of England keep getting their inflation forecast wrong, why not ask the non-experts? Citi bank has done that, and the general public says inflation will average 4.1 per cent for the next five to 10 years.
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How much should we worry if high-street shopping goes out of favour? Recession and austerity have accelerated the long-term trend away from traditional town-centre retailing but should we welcome this as progress rather than try to preserve the past?
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Critics say the Bank of England’s policy of printing money – quantitative easing – is fuelling inflation. But if it printed more five-pound notes, might that ease the pressure on price rises?
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The most radical aspect of the new Office of Budgetary Responsibility is not that an ‘independent’ agency is now producing forecasts but that the government body is risking predicting house prices. And it confidently says house prices will keep rising.
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Disposable cameras are ejected from the government’s inflation calculations and cereal bars inserted: it may reflect our changing lives but it distorts the statistics. The 2010 retail prices index cannot properly be compared with the previous year’s if the components keep changing.
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Supermarkets are probably the most competitive business in the UK. Why then are they being lumbered with an ombudsman, a new supplier code and all the compliance bureaucracy that goes with them?
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The period of falling prices and low inflation was novel but all good things come to an end: from now on it looks like business as normal as prices rise again. And why would any government or central bank want otherwise?
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The first indication that post-crisis regime of low interest rates is ending has emerged – on the opposite side of the world. Australia’s quarter per cent rise will gradually trigger increases across the rest of the globe.
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