Uncertainty about inflation and the impact of article 50 mean growth folllowing Brexit vote is unlikely to lastInterest rates are going up in the US, but in the UK they are going nowhere.That, bluntly, was the message from the Bank of England as it announced its latest decision on borrowing costs less than 24 hours after the US Federal Reserve not only tightened policy but signalled more to come in 2017.Related: Bank of England leaves UK interest rates on hold at 0.25% Continue reading...

Monetary policy committee votes to keep rates unchanged, but warns of likely slowdown in growth next yearThe Bank of England has left interest rates at their record low of 0.25% but repeated a warning that higher inflation and slower wage growth risk squeezing household budgets and spending next year.The Bank’s nine-strong monetary policy committee voted unanimously to keep rates on hold and maintain the current programme of electronic money printing known as quantitative easing. Policymakers had cut rates and expanded QE back in August to shore up confidence in the wake of June’s vote to leave the EU.Related: Bank of England leaves UK interest rates at record lows - business live Continue reading...

UK’s ambassador to EU is reported to have told PM of view that deal will not be finalised until early to mid-2020sEurope’s politicians believe a trade deal with the UK could take up to a decade or more and could still fail in the final stages, Downing Street has been warned by the UK’s ambassador to the EU.Sir Ivan Rogers, who conducted David Cameron’s renegotiation with the EU before the referendum, is reported to have told Theresa May that European politicians expect that a deal will not be finalised until the early to mid-2020s, according to the BBC. That deal could still be rejected by any of the 27 national parliaments during the ratification process.Related: Reality check: will it take 10 years to do a UK-EU trade deal post Brexit?Related: 'It terrifies me': Britons in Europe on how Brexit is going to affect themRelated: Philip Hammond: Japanese banks are concerned about Brexit Continue reading...

Currencies felt the pain around Asia as investors reacted to unexpectedly bullish comments by Fed chair Janet YellenThe prospect of three more hikes in US interest rates next year has sent the dollar to a 14-year high and caused a selloff on most Asian markets.

Federal Reserve predicts three US rate hikes in 2017, as it increases borrowing costs for the first time this year

Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen announced a 0.25% increase in the benchmark rate to 0.50-0.75%, and predicted three further rates increase in 2017The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates for the first time in a year, and only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis. The US central bank also predicted three further rates increase in 2017, up from previous expectations of two rate hikes.

In his comparison between 1936 and 2016 (A view from 1936: what Keynes would say now, 12 December), Larry Elliott omits to mention one of the major differences, and one that JM Keynes would surely have noticed as he speculated on its implications – namely the enormous increase in the productive power of labour and of the economy.Our priority should be to help people reduce their working hours (whether over a lifetime or weekly or daily) so that they can enjoy the leisure their productive capacity allows; today most people are still wage slaves, indeed more so than ever in the richest countries.Related: Keynesian economics: is it time for the theory to rise from the dead?The illusion has been created that higher house prices represent an increase in real national wealthRelated: Oh for the 1960s! People earned less but could afford more Continue reading...

Donald Trump and the EU crisis make the instability described by JK Galbraith nearly 40 years ago seem enviableThe year 2017 will mark the 40th anniversary of the publication of John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Age of Uncertainty. Forty years is a long time, but it is worth looking back and reminding ourselves of how much he and his readers had to be uncertain about.In 1977, as Galbraith was writing, the world was still reeling from the effects of the first Opec oil-price shock and wondering whether another one was in the pipeline (as it were). The US was confronting slowing growth and accelerating inflation, or stagflation, a novel problem that raised questions about policymakers’ competence and the adequacy of their economic models. Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild the Bretton Woods international monetary system had collapsed, casting a shadow over prospects for international trade and global economic growth.Related: Will Trump herald a US economic boom? Continue reading...

Latest ONS figures showing slight fall in employment after major rise in previous quarter are consistent with other surveysEmployment and unemployment down marginally. Wage growth and inactivity up a bit. Cut through the mass of data and the conclusion is clear: the improvement in the UK labour market has stalled.

Euclid Tsakalotos says Fund is ‘economising on the truth” after it insisted it wasn’t demanding more austerity to make Greek bailout targets credible.

Kent food manufacturer Nim’s Fruit Crisps faces higher import costs – but sees silver lining of increased export demand for productsManufacturer Nimisha Raja has been following the foreign exchange markets more closely than usual since the referendum. She makes dried fruit and vegetable crisps at a factory in Sittingbourne, Kent, and buying ingredients from abroad has become a lot more expensive since the Brexit vote sent the pound tumbling against the euro, the dollar and other currencies.Like other manufacturers who buy materials from abroad, Raja has had to decide whether to take a hit to profit margins at Nim’s Fruit Crisps, charge more to clients or change her products.Related: Inflation hits highest level in more than two years Continue reading...

Our best chance of building consensus is if we engage with voters’ concerns about jobs, society and rapid changeDonald Trump’s surprise election as the 45th president of the US has spawned a cottage industry of election postmortems and predictions in the US and abroad. Some correlate Trump’s victory with a broader trend toward populism in the west, and, in particular, in Europe, exemplified by the UK’s vote in June to leave the European Union. Others focus on Trump’s appeal as an outsider, capable of disrupting the political system in a way that his opponent, the former secretary of state and consummate insider Hillary Clinton never could. There may be something to these explanations, particularly the latter. But there is more to the story.In the months preceding the election, the mainstream media, pundits and pollsters kept repeating that Trump had an extremely narrow path to victory. What they failed to recognize was the extent of economic anxiety felt by working-class families in key states, owing to the dislocations caused by technology and globalization.Related: US economy adds 178,000 new jobs making Fed rate hike likely Continue reading...

Fearmongering Donald Trump and optimistic Silicon Valley seem to epitomize opposing ideologies. But the two have far more in common than you thinkTomorrow, Silicon Valley leaders will sit down for a summit with Donald Trump. Larry Page, Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and Sheryl Sandberg are all expected to attend. The agenda is unknown, but the mood is likely to be tense. After all, tech executives overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton and loudly railed against the dangers posed by a Trump presidency. And Trump regularly lashed out at Silicon Valley on the campaign trail, bashing the industry for building hardware overseas and importing foreign engineers.But tech has little to fear from Trump. If his cabinet appointments are any indication, he seems keen to govern as a free-market fundamentalist, cutting taxes and regulations to the bone. Trump’s elevation of ultra-hawkish ex-generals to key cabinet posts also suggests that he will aggressively expand the sprawling surveillance state inherited from Obama. This is excellent news for companies like Palantir, which sell data analytics tools to the CIA, the NSA and other agencies. Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire who broke with his Silicon Valley colleagues to embrace Trump. Thiel now sits on the transition team, and has begun drawing a select circle of tech industry allies into Trump’s orbit. He and his friends are likely to make lots of money.Related: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problemsNo industry has played a larger role in evangelizing the neoliberal faith than Silicon ValleyThe irony is that Trump will only intensify the crisis that put him in powerRelated: 2016: the year Facebook became the bad guy Continue reading...

The 1.2% rate in November was driven by higher petrol and clothing prices, with leather sofas, bleach, pizza and computers also contrubuting, says ONSUK inflation climbed to 1.2% in November, the highest level in more than two years, in a sign that the fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote is fuelling a rise in the cost of living.

Lords Brexit reports: Cross-party peers accuse ministers of misunderstanding nature of free trade and overestimating negotiating positionBritain is naive to expect a “free lunch” in trade negotiations with the EU, according to a scathing House of Lords report that calls for a transition phase to ease the pain.“The notion that a country can have complete regulatory sovereignty while engaging in comprehensive free trade with partners is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of free trade,” said the cross-party group of peers. Continue reading...

Mark Carney is right that we must stop creating badly paid low-productivity jobs and redistribute wealth – and that will involve unleashing the machinesThe headlines were inevitable, once Mark Carney uttered the word automation. Robots, the Sun told us, are set to “steal 15m jobs from Brits”. Sadly, our main problem is not robots; still less the artificial intelligence technologies that will power them.Our real problem is symbolised by the car wash. A car wash used to mean a machine. Now it means five guys with rags. There are now 20,000 hand car washes in Britain, only a thousand of them regulated. By contrast, in the space of 10 years, the number of rollover car-wash machines has halved – from 9,000 to 4,200. The free-market economic model, combined with a globalised labour market, has produced a kind of reverse industrialisation. Continue reading...

Funding cuts, staff costs and rising need have spurred the government to consider increasing council taxThere is not a crisis in adult social care, says Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association. “We are now beyond the crisis point. We really are at the edge of the cliff now.”Residential care homes are closing at an unprecedented rate, hospitals are logjammed with elderly patients with nowhere to go; in the community, local authority cuts are leaving more than a million people desperately in need of more assistance in their homes.Related: Council tax hike being considered to cover social care costs Continue reading...

Inflation, cautious consumers and weak pound will be drag on output, says BCC, which puts 2017 GDP at 1.1%The UK economy will slow markedly next year as uncertainty about the country’s future position in Europe and higher inflation hit consumers and businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has predicted.The business group believes the UK will avoid recession but still lose momentum as the weak pound pushes up import costs and the resulting rise in inflation erodes people’s spending power. Continue reading...

Pankaj Mishra’s exposé of the poverty of economic man (Welcome to the age of anger, 8 December) is powerful but, among the “more complex drives” he lists, he omits “belonging” – key to understanding “identity politics”. Facing danger our instinct, like that of animals who herd, is to cling to the familiar and the group. Incomers may or may not be a realistic threat, but they are easily perceived to be in times of disturbing upheaval. This need not be a counsel of despair; it could be a cause for hope. Globalisation and technical change may not be inevitably destructive: whether they do harm or good depends on the values by which we handle them. If we remain dedicated to the competitive pursuit of material gain and are indifferent to the feelings of shame, humiliation, helplessness and anger of those who are left out – or if, worse still, we continue our persecution of the poor – then recent events are just a foretaste of a future that will be bleak indeed.

John Maynard Keynes penned his General Theory in 1936. Faced with the upheaval of 2016, what would a cryogenically frozen Keynes do?Imagine this. In late 1936, shortly after the publication of his classic General Theory, John Maynard Keynes is cryogenically frozen so he can return 80 years later.Things were looking grim when Keynes went into cold storage. The Spanish civil war had just begun, Stalin’s purges were in full swing, and Hitler had flouted the Treaty of Versailles by remilitarising the Rhineland. The recovery from the Great Depression was fragile. It was the year of the Jarrow march and Franklin Roosevelt’s second presidential election victory.Related: John Maynard Keynes died 70 years ago. We ignore his wisdom at our peril | Justin Talbot Zorn and Merle LefkoffRelated: Keynes helped us through the crisis – but he's still out of favour Continue reading...

Tough choices must be made to safeguard economy, including scrapping of migration cuts, warns party’s former leaderThe UK should stay inside the EU’s single market and customs union even if this means there can only be limited cuts to immigration after Brexit, the former Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said.Spelling out his own Brexit strategy, and insisting that tough choices must now be made, Miliband argued that safeguarding the strength of the economy should be the number one priority in negotiations over leaving the EU, rather than a focus on the “undeliverable promise” of cutting immigration to tens of thousands a year.Related: Brexit must be fair to working people – or there will be a backlash |Ed MilibandRelated: Poll suggests public will not accept a Brexit that leaves them worse off Continue reading...

After a week of intense scrutiny of Brexit arrangements, this Saturday’s observance of Human Rights Day provides a welcome pause to reflect on the role the UK should play on the international stage. This is especially important when we consider how global businesses based in the UK or listed on the London Stock Exchange impact on the world’s poorest people. There are real examples of UK leadership on human rights, from support for the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to the Modern Slavery Act 2015. However, the government must follow through on its commitments and ensure that its leadership in these areas is not jeopardised by falling short elsewhere.Legal changes have made it harder for communities affected by British companies’ actions overseas to seek justice in the UK. It is also concerning that some government departments have regarded international standards as optional, rather than essential protections to ensure that business operations do not harm society’s most vulnerable. Continue reading...

Why has the EU given the world’s oldest bank a deadline, how much money needs to be raised, and what impact is the Italian referendum having?The Italian banking system now poses the biggest risk to the financial security of the eurozone and its most venerable institution is at the heart of the problem. Here is what you need to know.Related: Crisis-hit Monte dei Paschi bank refused ECB help Continue reading...

Senior official says proposed budget cuts, which have been protested in violent street clashes, are ‘lacking in all nuance and compassion’Brazil is poised to implement the most socially regressive austerity package in the world, a senior United Nations official has warned.Despite violent street protests against budget cuts, President Michel Temer – who came to power after engineering the impeachment of his former running mate, Dilma Rousseff – is pushing through a 20-year social spending freeze that will be locked into the constitution.Related: Brazil turns right as old elite wastes no time erasing Workers' party influenceRelated: Brazil is in crisis. And once again, the poorest will bear the burden | Mariana Prandini Assis Continue reading...

EU emissions pledge could be undermined by bank’s investments in oil, gas and auto industries, new analysis showsThe European Central Bank’s (ECB) quantitative easing programme is systematically investing billions of euros in the oil, gas and auto industries, according to a new analysis.The ECB has already purchased €46bn (£39bn) of corporate bonds since last June in a bid to boost flagging eurozone growth rates, a figure that some analysts expect to rise to €125bn by next September. On Thursday the bank said it would extend the scheme until 2018. Continue reading...

Rise in exports in October fuels hopes economy will end year strongly – but construction output suffers surprise fallNews of a pick-up in exports has fanned hopes the UK economy will finish the year on a strong note, confounding earlier fears that the Brexit vote would spark a sharp slowdown.Official figures showed the UK’s trade deficit with the rest of the world narrowed more than expected in October as exports rose and imports fell. But statisticians said there was little evidence that the weak pound – which makes UK goods cheaper overseas – was boosting exports.Related: Protectionism and trade disputes threaten world growth, says OECD Continue reading...

Brexit vote is cry of community outrage at imbalances of wealth and power, warns IPPR NorthEstablishment figures should stop sneering at northern England’s Brexit voters and instead work to understand their concerns, a leading thinktank will warn on Friday.Speaking at its annual State of the North conference in Leeds, the director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) North, Ed Cox, will argue that Brexit negotiations should focus on the needs of the areas that voted most strongly to leave the EU. Continue reading...

Food and drink industry flags up labour shortages as EU workers leave after Brexit vote or stay away due to fall in poundFood prices will rise unless the government ensures EU citizens can work in the UK after Brexit, according to industry groups representing the major supermarkets and food manufacturers, including the owner of Marmite.Related: EU workers in food and drink industry need assurance over Brexit | Letters Continue reading...