What is going on around the financial world at the moment. I stop blogging for a year and the world’s economy and banking system collapses. Sheesh!
Here in the UK the interest rate has today gone done to yet another record low, a mere 0.5%! Though I doubt many of the banks (if any) will pass on the reductions to their poor customers, preferring to hide behind rate capping to protect any money they might make by borrowing from the tax payer so they can pass them on to Lord Goodwin’s retirement fund. My what a cynical old dinosaur I am sometimes.
The Bank Of England (BoE) has also announced that it is going to release another £75 billion into the economy through quantitive easing (QE) to try and encourage banks to start lending again. Basically they will be electronically printing money to get the banks lending again and get people to spend more now that the BoE can’t reduce interest rates any further. In fact ratherthan just the £75bn the chancellor has actually authorised purchases of up to £150bn should the banks require.
Maybe I am just getting old and forgetful, but wasn’t that the idea behind the previous funds being made available to the banks?
Although there are a few arguable differences, this is still basically what happened in both the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe, and what a success that proved [extreme dino-sarcasm].
QE is also what happened when Japan hit hard times a few years ago before resurfacing again in July 2009. When Japan did emerge out of their troubles, it is widely agreed that the QE didn’t work and was just a very costly exercise. So it looks like we are all saved then [cue more dino-sarcasm].
Meanwhile taxpayers, savers and pensioners are all losing out as their money is used without their permission to support the banks in providing bonuses and bail outs.
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March 5, 2023
banking