If only economics had the exactitude of mathematics or physics, we wouldn’t be in the muddle we are in today. Specify the growth-inflation combination you want and a computer should have told you what liquidity and interest and exchange rates should be. Alas, things are not so simple. Ask two economists and you will get three opinions on what governments and central banks should do. In fact, former US President Harry Truman is supposed to have asked for a one-handed economist — so fond his economic advisers were of expressing their opinions as ‘on the one hand’ and ‘on the other’. One cannot blame him if, in a moment of exasperation, he even ordered one of their hands cut off. In medieval times, that might have well happened, so valueless are a lot of the prescriptions sloshing around. True to pattern, there is no agreement on policy. Both in the US Fed and the Bank of England, there are wide divergences of views, with some seeking higher interest rates, some lower and the rest falling...
A blog about bachelors life, his thoughts, views, jobs, humor, fun, love affection and much more.