Two hefty items
in Bank
Underground offer thoughts
from people involved in the Bank of England, but only expressing their view of
course.
On Friday 10
July, Alastair Cunningham and Glynn Jones ask the question "Does business
intelligence still point to labour market slack" which suggests that out
there is a continuing mismatch between
the skills needed and what is available to hire.
The article
concludes:
Quote:
As
a result, we believe that there is little – if any – slack remaining in the
labour market and that the potentially inflationary impact of a tightening
labour market is therefore being offset by other factors.
These
might include compositional changes within the workforce, lack lustre
productivity growth, softer hiring intentions, constrained margins and the
impact of low CPI inflation on pay bargaining.
That
matters because it suggests a risk that wage inflation will pick up more
sharply if and when any of these factors ‘wash out’.
Unquote.
The
article might answer a question in the item
"Fancy A Pint" of
Wednesday, 8 July which has comment on what our Higher Education system
is supposed to be doing or rather not doing .
In the Bank
blog on Wednesday 8 July there was an article in which Rhiannon Sowerbutts and
Peter Zimmerman ask a fair question "Who benefits from the implicit
subsidy to too big to fail banks"?
Their analysis concludes:
Quote:
The
available evidence implies that most of the implicit subsidy benefits senior
bank employees and shareholders.
The
structure of credit markets suggests that not much of the benefit is passed on
to creditors and customers.
But
further empirical investigation is needed in order to come to any definite
conclusions.
Unquote.
Surprise,
surprise?
We don't really need further empirical investigation. Democracy will never sort out this kind of thing unless voters pay more attention. Probably not even then.
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