The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has a new ‘spring in his step’ and he is back on the pontification trail.
There is no question that he speaks eloquently, and he is quite handsome to boot, but his record, to date, of being a forecaster of economic trends in the UK has been pretty abysmal.
The most recent and notable ‘gaffe’ was to predict that the trigger for an interest rate rise was when unemployment reached 7% and this was 18 months ago. In reality unemployment reached well below 7% within 4 months and he had to backtrack on this – smartly.
His views on inflation have been totally fatuous and it does appear that he has taken an inordinate amount of time to fully understand the dynamics of the UK economy. Learning the job whilst being paid an inordinate amount of money is, perhaps, not something that the UK tax-payer bargained for. Would we not be entitled to have someone with known experience who had thrown away the ‘L’ plates a long time ago?
Perhaps as a Governor of the Bank of Canada his preoccupation with the American economic model has blinded him to fully understand the UK version?
Why then should we believe his latest comments about immigration, inflation and growth of the UK economy?
The so called lack of productivity that the UK has suffered since the financial crisis started, is difficult for the most sophisticated analyst to understand which they say has had the most visceral effect on the low growth of standards of living in the past five years. Whether this is due to immigration or any other factor, nobody quite knows. So maybe, Mr. Carney, you should think twice before you proffer advice in this regard.
His modest forecast of growth in the UK economy takes no account of the fillip that the recent General Election result will have on many aspects of the UK growth figures and, in this respect, he may again have ‘missed a trick’.
My advice, Mr. Carney, is to get your ‘tackle’ in order before you make any further predictions otherwise you may become a ‘lame duck’ Governor.
Just my thoughts, for what they are worth!
Written by Trevor Abrahmsohn.
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