Thursday, 4 December 2008

Another day, another desperate throw of the dice (14)

Bank [of England] cuts interest rates to 2%

I trust readers are already familiar with the concept of "pushing a piece of string"? The government seems to have worked out how to bully banks into passing on rate cuts, but they still haven't realised that even if they do, there is a no benefit to 'the economy' as a whole (see Krugman on Japan and the Liquidity Trap, written in 1999).

John Band summarises which groups gain and which groups lose from this sort of madness.

3 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

I'm cool. I'm upping my extra payments to keep myself at the same level as I was before the interest rate cut.Pay off an extra couple of grand while the interest rates are low, what's not to like? :o)

Mark Wadsworth said...

Obo, you're in John B's Group 2, I take it?

Anonymous said...

2% base rates as car sales are reported to have fallen by 45% in November. (Private Sector non fleet)

Even if consumers want to buy, the lack of liquidity and finance are choking the market.

Push that string.