Interest Rates: Too Low Too Long

An influential think tank considers that the Bank of England is headed for trouble when the next financial crisis hits. It considers interest rates have been left much too low for far too long and when problems in the economy next loom, it will have no meaningful  room for bosting the economy by lowering them.

This blog has been arguing the same literally for years. Interest rates are an important tool in the management of inflation, the currency level and the return of savings, as well as the headline attraction, the cost of borrowing. By keeping them at tantamount to nil, borrowing to inflate assets is the best investment around, whilst the return on savings becomes so poor as to be a disincentive. We know all this so well it will become one of the great historic mysteries as to why the BoE lost the plot, leaving printing the only way out of a crisis.