Thursday 5 July 2012

Here we go again...

More quantitative easing.

Today, the Bank of England announced that it will print a further £50 billion, bringing their total of newly minted funny money to £375 billion.

It is not as if that last tranche of newly minted money made much difference. As the Bank of England's press release pointed out; the economy is in a bad way.

UK output has barely grown for a year and a half and is estimated to have fallen in both of the past two quarters. The pace of expansion in most of the United Kingdom’s main export markets also appears to have slowed. Business indicators point to a continuation of that weakness in the near term, both at home and abroad. In spite of the progress made at the latest European Council, concerns remain about the indebtedness and competitiveness of several euro-area economies, and that is weighing on confidence here. The correspondingly weaker outlook for UK output growth means that the margin of economic slack is likely to be greater and more persistent.

When confronted with this appalling list of dismal economic indicators, one might think it was time for a change in policies. Not so. It will be more of the same.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

nothing fails like failure.

Neale said...

I suspect they'll keep at it until we start printing money the old way again: expanding our mortgage debt.

ernie said...

Any honest politicians left? Shouldn't just one stand up and ask how well the previous 325 bill is doing?

Anonymous said...

Still pushing on a string.

Jayarava said...

The worrying thing is that they still haven't figured out that private debt is the problem.

Alice Cook said...

Jayarava,

Or the want to nationalist private debt.

Alice

Electro-Kevin said...

They do nationalise debt.

I hear that bankruptcy does not come with the finality that it once did.

Hand yourself over to the State and there is a never ending offer of 'second' chances.

Did you know that benefit dependants are allowed to run up credit card bills ?

That they can stand surety for working relatives even ?

Kitz said...

Ernie ,

If you think there are honest politicians in government stick to delivering milk ......

ernie said...

Kitz
Red top or green!?
Ok your cynicism is understandable. But I'll stick my neck out and say that someone will emerge to "do a Churchill" economically speaking. He/she will of course be villified but their time will come and sooner than anyone believes. Present situation is not tenable in even the medium term.