Wednesday 18 June 2008

They Call It Stagflation

To borrow a line on economics from Harry Truman, who is dead and probably doesn't need it: "It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours".
To me the way economics works is that i choose something, pay for it and then moan about how much it cost for weeks afterwards.
As soon as the conversation turns to inflation or interest rates, my mind generally wanders off to a tropical island where David Boreanaz is serving me a Sea Breeze while dressed in only a pair of tight speedos and a glint in his eye. His toned, muscular torso browning slowly in the heat of the sun while he lays the tray down beside me, the sweet fragrance of sun lotion toying with my senses as he moves closer....ahem.
So, anyway, in a desperate attempt to show us that they know what they are doing, the Bank of England have made up a new word for whatever it is our economy is doing, Stagflation, and then warned that whatever they decide to call it, it's going to crash above 4% by the end of the year driven up by soaring food and fuel prices. Cue the news channels full of sombre looking men in suits holding clipboards and pointing to messy line charts and mumbling something about economic efficiency and frugal policies.
I am happy to admit that i know very little about economic matters and there seems to be so many contributing factors that it is hard to get a simple answer to the question, who is to blame?
Something, somewhere, has changed and it has had a domino effect on everything else from oil prices to worldwide food shortages and maybe it is too simple a solution to suggest we just work out what that disastrous change was, and change it back again.
My money, if i have any left after filling up my car and buying a loaf of bread, on what has driven everything to this present climate is iffy wars in the Middle East and someone in a financial institution being greedy and wanting to make a few billion more.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's a stupid word. And as for economists - someone once called them $2000 an hour psychics - which is dead right.

Cheezy said...

I got a delivery from my local curryhouse last night. My usual beef vindaloo had gone up from £5.95 to £7.50 in one foul swoop...

Right, this is getting beyond a joke now...

Nog said...

Oh my! "As soon as the conversation turns to inflation or interest rates" I get all fired up!

"I am happy to admit that i know very little about economic matters and there seems to be so many contributing factors that it is hard to get a simple answer to the question, who is to blame?"

I'll answer this question for you. Primarily, the folks who are responsible for:
1) the debacking of the pound
2) the institution of government level setting in fractional reserve banking
a) Some will go so far as to say that fractional reserve banking itself is the problem but I don't go that far.
3) the creation of the Bank of England as a banking monopoly

But most if not all of these dumb fellows are dead.

-Nog