I still don't get how we are issuing massive amounts of gilts (ie government debt) and the Bank of England is buying up half of them (ie Quantitative easing). Doesn't seem to make sense to me. Massively increase public debt to avoid a really bad recession (or to avoid Gordon Brown looking bad), but that debt could really draw out the pain of recovery (GB will be gone well before the bill turns up so doesn't really care).
We are printing money, sinple as that. The government is, I suspect, hoping to inflate its way out of debt without anybody catching on and demanding higher prices for its gilts. At least until the BOE has brought them all with made-up money and then sold them on in bits to the pension funds. Like you said, Gordon will be long gone by then and he either doesn't understand what he is doing or he doesn't care. Neither are great when you consider that this is the man who was entrusted with our finances for 10+ years before inheriting the leadership proper.
but why not just have the money the bank of england prints shipped by the boat load over to the government. Why sell and then buy back gilts....other than to give profit to those who buy and sell gilts of course.
I think it is just late. I have also being saying that I thought it would be a fairly rapid turnaround when it happened but I am not so sure now as everyone is panicking about paying down debt and losing jobs, which will slow it up.
People are certainly paying down debt - seeing that all over the place. The NHS is an island of relative job security but even so, folks are just feeling over-exposed.
Which, you know, they were. Those plasma tellies need paying off, that's an essential part of the "correction" that the pundits pund about. While the big organisations might be able to make decisions and restructure stuff and invent money, the spuds on the street just have to keep on making payments.
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There are enough commentators that think so
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/5906778/Huge-gilts-row-barely-registers-as-the-UK-sleepwalks-into-stagnation.html
I still don't get how we are issuing massive amounts of gilts (ie government debt) and the Bank of England is buying up half of them (ie Quantitative easing). Doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Massively increase public debt to avoid a really bad recession (or to avoid Gordon Brown looking bad), but that debt could really draw out the pain of recovery (GB will be gone well before the bill turns up so doesn't really care).
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Which, you know, they were. Those plasma tellies need paying off, that's an essential part of the "correction" that the pundits pund about. While the big organisations might be able to make decisions and restructure stuff and invent money, the spuds on the street just have to keep on making payments.
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