With inflationary pressures all too visible, Threadneedle Street could perhaps be slightly more worriedInflation is “likely to exceed 3% for a temporary period”, says the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, which would prefer the emphasis to be put on the word “temporary”. The rate-setters, or most of them, are sticking to their script: once the inevitable strong period for growth and inflation is out of the way, both readings will fall back, so there’s no need to be alarmed.The benign view has a lot going for it, of course. Inflation plunged last year during lockdowns and the reopening phase was bound to produce a spike of some size. May’s inflation reading was 2.1%, a relative surge from just 0.7% in March. But if the peak proves to be 3%-ish, the “transitory” narrative – central bankers’ favourite word these days – would still be intact. Continue reading...

UK interest rates put on hold with post-Covid boom expected to have impact on prices in coming monthsThe Bank of England expects the strength of Britain’s economic recovery to push inflation above 3% by the end of the year before falling back in 2022 as the post-Covid boom slows down.Policymakers on Threadneedle Street’s monetary policy committee (MPC), who have come under pressure to signal when interest rates will rise in response to higher levels of inflation, said the Bank’s base rate should remain at 0.1% until the economic outlook was more certain. Continue reading...

Arts programme Who We Are Now will take place in both countries and aims to revise old assumptionsForget Tim Tams, Vegemite and moderately cheaper Jacob’s Creek wine, the UK and Australia are to collaborate on the biggest cultural exchange programme there has ever been between the two countries.Early details of an ambitious UK-Australia season were announced on Thursday, with events taking place in both countries from September and encompassing visual arts, theatre, film, dance, design and literature.Related: Scott Morrison has agreed in-principle to a UK free trade deal. What’s in it for Australia? Continue reading...

For the hardline conservatives ruling Poland and Hungary, the transition from communism to liberal democracy was a mirage. They fervently believe a more decisive break with the past is needed to achieve national liberationIn the summer of 1992, a 29-year-old Hungarian with political ambitions made his first visit to the US. For six weeks he toured the country with a coterie of young Europeans, all expenses paid by the German Marshall Fund, a thinktank devoted to transatlantic cooperation.America had long fascinated Viktor Orbán, but he seemed disengaged and unaffected as the group walked around downtown Los Angeles, which was still reeling from the Rodney King riots two months earlier. One Dutch journalist on the trip recalled that the eastern Europeans in the group preferred to spend their daily stipends on “a Walkman and other electronics” rather than on food or fancy hotels. The free market and cutting-edge technologies certainly appealed more to Orbán than American debates and struggles over equality, justice or the rights of people of colour.Related: The conspiracy theorists who have taken over Poland | Christian DaviesRelated: How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe Continue reading...

Thousands of leaseholders should benefit from leasehold changes, says CMA

Manufacturing and services grew at near-record rates in June but face staff shortages and delays to supplyBritain’s economy surged ahead in June as private-sector businesses secured extra work and created thousands of new jobs, but analysts warned the boom could be short-lived if shortages of skilled staff and hold-ups to vital supplies continue into the autumn.The manufacturing and services industries, which account for more than 80% of business activity, expanded at near-record rates in June, according to a survey by IHS Markit, building on the unprecedented burst in output growth in May. Continue reading...

The imbalance is more extreme than it’s been in over a century. We need to fix this structural problem before it’s too latePolicymakers and the media are paying too much attention to how quickly the US economy will emerge from the pandemic-induced recession, and not nearly enough to the nation’s deeper structural problem – the huge imbalance of wealth that could enfeeble the economy for years.Related: ‘When is this going to end?’: US factory town devastated by jobs moving overseasA giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.There’s so much wealth at the top that the prices of luxury items of all kinds are soaringRobert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US Continue reading...

Labour shortages are causing widespread disarray. Perhaps employers might consider something radical: paying people more and exploiting them lessGot an advanced degree? Twenty years of experience in your field? The ability to drop everything to respond to work emails? Great! Then you meet the qualifications for an entry-level job paying miserable wages. But you’ll need to have a gazillion interviews and write a thank-you letter after each one to have any chance of getting it, of course.That’s an (only slightly exaggerated) reflection of what the job market has looked like for a long time. Wages have been stagnant for decades. Companies have been demanding more, and offering less: the power has been very much in employers’ hands. Now, in the US at least, the power balance may be shifting; people are quitting their jobs in record numbers. Almost 4 million Americans quit their jobs in April: the highest numbers since government record-keeping for labour turnover began in December 2000. Meanwhile, in the UK, a lot of people are seriously thinking about quitting – one study found 38% of employees are looking to change roles in the next year. Continue reading...

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Scott Morrison’s free trade agreement with the UK is a win for the Nationals, but the return of coal-loving Barnaby presents a new challenge for the PMOn Monday morning we saw one of those organic redirections that sometimes happen in politics. If the Nationals hadn’t lunged to take out their leader Michael McCormack, another story about Scott Morrison and an undeclared pilgrimage in Cornwall to engage with his convict ancestry would have dominated the day.If you missed this story in the melee, a quick recap. On Monday the London correspondent for Nine newspapers, Bevan Shields, reported that Morrison had last week embarked on an undeclared pilgrimage to St Keverne, a small village 45 minutes south of the G7 summit site in Cornwall, to explore his family’s convict past. This ancestry dot com sortie was undertaken minus the travelling press.Related: The double standard Scott Morrison walks past (on his way to the pub in Cornwall) is the double standard he accepts | First Dog on the MoonRelated: Barnaby Joyce’s Nationals threatens to blow up any climate ambition, and it’s making life hard | Gabrielle ChanRelated: Net zero by 2050? Over our dead body, bolshie Nationals tell Scott Morrison | Katharine Murphy Continue reading...

Reopened economy brings warning of prices rising at fastest pace in almost 40 yearsBritish factories enjoyed the strongest growth in output on record in June but warned they expected to raise their prices at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years in response to a shortage of key components and materials.The Confederation of British Industry said its quarterly survey of manufacturing showed that the rebound across the sector was gaining momentum going into the autumn.Related: UK government borrowing eases as recovery helps tax take Continue reading...

Former Citigroup and OECD chief economist has warned of economic harms from austerity and BrexitThe chancellor has appointed former White House adviser and Citigroup chief economist Catherine Mann to the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, in a move that ensures two of the nine individuals responsible for setting the country’s interest rates will now be women.The Treasury announced on Tuesday that Mann, who has previously warned about the economic harms that could be caused by austerity and Brexit, has been appointed for a three-year term as an external committee member beginning on 1 September. Continue reading...

Move is key part of Liz Truss’s plan to pivot trade away from Europe after Brexit

Reopening of economy in May causes rush to shops and increases VAT and fuel duty receipts

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

The economic damage from Covid will make Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s decisions even harder

Poor families cannot afford healthcare and schooling but good harvests offer some hope, World Bank findsThe number of Zimbabweans in extreme poverty has reached 7.9 million as the pandemic has delivered another economic shock to the country.According to the World Bank’s economic and social update report, almost half of Zimbabwe’s population fell into extreme poverty between 2011 and last year, with children bearing the brunt of the misery.Related: 'My parents sold me': poverty drives trade in child brides in Zimbabwe | Nyasha Chingono Continue reading...

Output picked up in May as sectors reopened but lockdown extension may hit some hospitality firms

The idea that the country could spend less on key frontline services than what was planned before the pandemic needs to be discardedLast week the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, claimed in a TV interview that the government cash being spent to keep the economy running during the pandemic was not his money to spend but the viewers’ money. The subtext was that Covid-19 bills would have to be paid for. Mr Sunak was channelling his inner Margaret Thatcher, who in 1983 told her party conference that there is “no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money”. It is rhetoric frequently used by those who wish to suggest that the government faces the same budget constraints as a household. It is also economically illiterate.The UK is not going to run out of money. The Bank of England is financing Covid spending by buying up huge amounts of Treasury debt under quantitative easing. Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, a former City regulator, told peers earlier this year that QE “is lubricating a fiscal expansion and making it easy for the government to run large fiscal deficits without the danger of setting a rise in interest rates”. We are living in an era of cheap money. Boris Johnson’s apparent repudiation of his own party’s austerity policies cannot be squared with real-terms cuts to some department budgets. The Treasury remains committed to balancing the books in mean-spirited ways: whether it is paying nurses a miserly 1% extra or cutting aid to the poverty-stricken parts of the globe. However demotic the slogans used by Mr Johnson, his words all too often betray the party’s real instincts. While Mr Sunak won’t find the cash to pay for catch-up lessons, his boss praises rich parents who buy private tuition because they “work hard”. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak should think again as scheme will be badly missed by businesses in hardest-hit sectorsThe complaints from employers are getting louder. Far from the headlines a year ago warning of a rerun of 1980s-style unemployment, businesses are worried there aren’t enough workers to go around.And yet Britain’s economy faces a paradox: after the government delayed the final easing of Covid-19 restrictions in England, employers are also turning up the volume about the growing risk of job losses. Is this simply Janus-faced corporate lobbying or can both somehow be right at once?Related: Furloughed workers reluctant to return, says Andrea LeadsomDelaying the easing of lockdown is unlikely to be severely damaging for the economy at large Continue reading...

The Viatris plant in West Virginia has been making pharmaceuticals since 1965 – but it’s closing down and laying workers off“Disbelief. Distraught and traumatized.”Just some of the words the United Steelworkers Local 8-957 president, Joe Gouzd, used to describe how he and hundreds of other workers felt after their 56-year-old pharmaceutical plant in West Virginia was shut down, sending between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs to India and Australia. Continue reading...

Resolution Foundation’s forecast prompts new concerns about household budgets as planned cut in universal credit loomsThe government should prepare for a jump in inflation this year that will eat into household living standards and force more low-income families into poverty, according to the Resolution Foundation.Inflation is on course to rise above 4% in the next few months as the economy opens up and consumers begin to spend some of the savings they have built up over the past 16 months, the thinktank says. Rising prices will squeeze average household incomes by £700 by the start of next year with low-income families among the worst affected, it forecasts. Continue reading...

Andy Haldane, Threadneedle Street’s free-thinking chief economist, is bowing out after 32 years in central bankingFew central bankers will have clocked up more miles travelling the UK than Andy Haldane. This week, the Bank of England’s chief economist is on the move again, as he departs Threadneedle Street after 32 years.Stepping down after his final monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting on Thursday, Haldane leaves with a reputation as a maverick economist interested in big ideas – willing to look beyond dry economic models for insights by talking to small businesses and community groups up and down the country, on a path less travelled for a central banker.Upbeat about the prospects for a 'V-shaped' recovery fuelled by billions of pounds in lockdown savings, his views have put him at odds with more cautious colleagues Continue reading...

Optimistic forecasts about ‘bouncing back’ will only come true if new variants do not close borders and devastate trade again

Former business secretary claims UK’s economic recovery under threat with firms struggling to persuade staff back to the officeThe former business secretary Andrea Leadsom has said some people are reluctant to return to work because furlough has been “great” for them while others were “terrified” of going back to the office, sparking criticism from workers and business owners.The Conservative MP said some businesses in her South Northamptonshire constituency were struggling to get employees to go back to work because “people have, to be perfectly frank, become used to being on furlough”.Related: Ministers ‘reluctant’ to push furlough scheme for self-isolating workers Continue reading...

Companies should be subject to globally agreed carbon floor price to reach Paris climate goalsCompanies with high greenhouse gas emissions should be subject to a carbon price of $75 a tonne of carbon dioxide, the International Monetary Fund has said, as a way of reaching the goals of the Paris climate agreement.A carbon floor price would mean that companies, including energy generators and heavy industries, would have to pay for the carbon they produce. At present, many countries and regions have their own carbon pricing systems, but there is no globally agreed carbon price.Related: Rolls-Royce’s jet engines to run on synthetic fuels as part of net-zero plans Continue reading...

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Prospect of Fed slowing its emergency stimulus package triggers heavy selling of sharesThe FTSE 100 posted its biggest fall in more than a month on Friday as the prospect of America’s central bank slowing its emergency stimulus package triggered heavy selling across the financial markets.London’s blue-chip stock market index fell by 136 points, or 1.9%, on Friday to 7017 points, its worst one-day drop since mid-May, and its lowest closing point in a month.Behold the Fed’s new dot plot: The central bank is mum on tapering but the dot plot (in purple), which signals the path of interest rates, shows it’s definitely more hawkish than before and suggests there could be rate increases by the end of 2023. pic.twitter.com/XalDdNXFR8 Continue reading...

Business body acknowledges ‘pent-up demand and ambition’ but points to staff shortages and inflation as risksBritain’s economic recovery will accelerate into the autumn despite the threat from staff shortages and higher inflation, according to a forecast by the business lobby group, the CBI.The economy will expand by 8.2% this year and by 6.1% next year as the successful vaccination programme allows lockdown easing to continue next month, driving a surge in consumer spending and business activity in the second half of 2021, the CBI said.Related: Spring economic boom signals UK Covid recovery is still on track Continue reading...

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UK and US agree to suspend retaliatory tariffs on goods also including cashmere and stiltonWhisky makers are raising a glass after the UK and US agreed to suspend retaliatory tariffs on goods including Scottish malts for five years, in the de-escalation of a transatlantic trade dispute stretching back almost two decades.Liz Truss, the UK international trade secretary, said a “historic deal” had been reached with Washington to ensure tariffs, which affected UK exports to the US worth £550m, remain suspended. Continue reading...

CDC eviction moratorium ends on 30 June – and in the vast majority of states, help could arrive too late, housing advocates sayMillions of Americans are in a “race against the clock” to receive rental assistance before the end of the month, when a federal eviction moratorium designed to help people cope during the coronavirus pandemic expires.Related: Charles Koch funded eviction push while investing in real estate companiesIt’s been a lot of sleepless nights, worrisome days, crying a lot of tearsRelated: ‘Pure insanity’: emails reveal Trump push to overturn election defeat Continue reading...

Figures from the jobs website Indeed expose the impact on employers as they struggle to recruit staffThe number of EU citizens searching for work in Britain has fallen by more than a third since Brexit, according to a study that exposes the impact on UK employers as they struggle to recruit staff.Figures from the jobs website Indeed show searches by EU-based jobseekers for work in the UK were down by 36% in May from average levels in 2019. Low-paid jobs in hospitality, the care sector and warehouses recorded the biggest declines at 41%. Continue reading...

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Analysis: Threadneedle Street believes the above-target 2.1% figure will prove temporary

Low-paid workers will earn an additional $18.80 per week after decision by the Fair Work CommissionThe Fair Work Commission has ordered a 2.5% increase in the minimum wage, lifting it to $20.33 an hour, but the pay rise will be delayed for industries hardest hit by the pandemic.The new full-time minimum wage will be $772.60 per week, an increase of $18.80 for Australia’s lowest-paid workers. Continue reading...

Bank of England target breached for first time in two years to fuel fears of sustained rise in cost of living

Those who bear a disproportionate share of a carbon tax will mobilise against it … unless they are given reason not toIn his classic book, The Logic of Collective Action, the late great Mancur Olson explained that the hardest policies to implement are those with diffuse benefits and concentrated costs. Olson’s argument was straightforward: individuals bearing the costs will vigorously oppose the policy, while the beneficiaries will free ride, preferring that someone else take up the cudgels.Olson’s insight applies to the single most pressing policy challenge facing humanity today, namely the climate crisis. The starting point for addressing it, economists agree, is a tax on carbon. The resulting reduction in emissions would deliver benefits to virtually everyone on the planet. But specific segments of society – Olson’s concentrated interests – will bear a disproportionate share of the costs and mobilise in opposition.Related: Covid-19 and the climate crisis are part of the same battle | Jeffrey Frankel Continue reading...

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Analysis: No 10 hopes we’ll enjoy price reductions in supermarkets but estimated savings put at £1 per householdIt is billed as good for British consumers and good for business, and the first of many post-Brexit trade deals. But while hailed as a “new dawn” by Boris Johnson, the prime minister’s trade treaty with Australia has few economic benefits.Ministers hope consumers will have more choice on the supermarket shelves, a Brexit boost in the first entirely new trade deal since leaving the EU. Tariffs will be cut on Australian products such as Jacob’s Creek and Hardys wines, as well as on beef, lamb, swimwear and confectionery. However, by the government’s own admission, the savings add up to £34m a year – little more than a pound each per household.Related: Fears UK-Australia trade deal could cause surge in tariff-free meat imports Continue reading...

Labour says import quotas are so high they are meaningless and raises concerns about animal welfare

Key elements of the ‘historic’ post-Brexit deal signed by Boris Johnson and Scott MorrisonBoris Johnson has hailed a “historic” trade deal with Australia as a “new dawn” for the two countries, but what is the deal about?Related: Farmers raise concerns as Boris Johnson hails ‘historic’ UK-Australia trade deal Continue reading...

Analysis: Rishi Sunak has rejected calls to extend furlough – and things could turn much worse when it endsThere are danger signs lurking in the unemployment figures.For government ministers, cheered by the resilient jobs market, it may be a little premature to crack open the champagne. It is plausible that the current benign situation turns decidedly worse in the autumn.Related: UK unemployment rate drops again as firms hire more staff Continue reading...

Jobs boosted by partial lifting of Covid restrictions on non-essential shops and hospitality venuesUK unemployment fell for the fourth month in a row in April as businesses took on more staff in response to the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions.The Office for National Statistics said the jobs market showed further signs of recovery as non-essential shops and hospitality venues were allowed to open outdoors across the UK.Related: Rishi Sunak rejects calls by businesses for furlough extension Continue reading...

Failure to maintain Covid support measures will push firms into bankruptcy, says Labour

The Bank of England’s consultation on public digital cash could represent the biggest shift in the monetary system for 200 yearsLast week, the Bank of England launched a consultation on a UK central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the regulation of private digital currencies, joining dozens of other central banks around the world who are investigating “digital cash” and some, like the Chinese, who are already trialling it.Modern digital money that we use for everyday transactions on our credit cards and for online transactions has become increasingly important to the functioning of the economy, accounting for 97% of the circulating money supply. But unlike physical cash and coins, digital money is not created by the central bank or government but by commercial banks. When a bank makes a loan, it creates new, sterling-denominated electronic deposits in your bank account: money. The total “money supply” in the economy is determined by the rate of new loans issued to households and firms and the rate of repayment by those borrowers.Josh Ryan-Collins is head of finance and macroeconomics at University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Continue reading...

With unemployment among the world’s worst and those under 35 hit hardest, young Nigerians see their prospects rapidly diminishFavour Obi graduated in 2016 with a first class degree in biomedical sciences and what felt like reasonable hopes for a career in medical research.Before a recent shift waiting tables at a fast food restaurant in Lagos, the 27-year-old explained how gradually she let those hopes drift away. “I knew it would be hard to find a job but at the same time I was so determined, I was staying hopeful,” she said. Continue reading...

Full-time female employment in UK has actually risen over the crisis as average working hours slip less than menWomen’s average working hours in the UK have taken a far smaller hit during the pandemic than men’s, according to the Resolution Foundation.Defying predictions of a “shecession” at the start of the pandemic, the thinktank’s quarterly labour market report found that women were not as hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic as initially thought. Continue reading...

Pent-up demand is temporary and the prospect of a third wave, with all its economic havoc, is very realBritain is on the verge of a historic moment. More than a year since the Covid-19 pandemic began, the endpoint for all social restrictions is within touching distance as spring slips into summer. An announcement is expected from Boris Johnson on Monday.Delay rather than a reopening on 21 June is the most likely decision, as the spread of the Delta variant fuels a third wave in coronavirus infections in the UK. Far from the “freedom day” we had hoped for, we are at yet another moment where the prime minister has built up hopes and then disappointed.Related: GDP rises and suddenly everyone’s afraid of the big, bad inflation beast Continue reading...