If markets are right, the Bank of England will deliver its tenth consecutive interest rate rise on Thursday. That would mean the central bank has increased the cost of money fortyfold since December 2021 to fight rising prices. However, such monetary tightening increasingly looks at odds with Britain’s dire economic conditions.
Bank of England hawks can point to key indicators that are still running hot, such as inflation, economic output and. That’s why economists expect them to ram through yet another 50-basis point hike this week, bringing the base rate to 4%. Yet those gauges are backward-looking and will cool down this year as a recession and past rate hikes hit consumers and firms.
Take the economy. The UK has been particularly hammered by the high cost of energy imports and rising hikes, which have battered its outsized consumer and housing sectors. The government’s austere fiscal policy, exacerbated by the fallout from Liz Truss’ catastrophic premiership, has further hurt growth.out an unexpected 0.1% month-on-month rise in November, rather than the 0.2% decline predicted by a Reuters poll of economists, thanks to World Cup-induced drinking and video-game sales.
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