Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey has created a world of misery
Thanks to Andrew Bailey, head of the Bank of England, we are all now stuck in a “wage-price spiral” – an economic whirlwind.
Half the country is on strike, seeking wage increases to match the inflation he caused as bank governor.
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This fuels further inflation and new wage demands.
“But don’t blame me,” he moaned last week.
“Anything I would have done would only have made things worse.”
Bailey is the slumbering keeper of our official inflation target.
His only job is to keep the percentage at 2 percent or below — or write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining why.
Instead, for the past three years he has ignored warnings from his own adviser about rising costs – even as the war in Ukraine has sent energy prices skyrocketing.
He kept printing money like there was no tomorrow and giving it away for next to nothing.
Inflation has been above 10 percent for months now – five times the official target – and food prices are rising twice as fast.
British families are struggling to get meals on the table long after things have gotten cheaper in other countries.
The cost of living crisis is a gift to union activists across the public sector – hospitals, airports, railroads, schools, passport offices and driving test centers.
The blob has even stopped “working” from home.
As Bailey’s chief economist Huw Pill explained, “We are all needy.”
That went down like a cup of cold.
But Pill was telling the truth.
The British economy is weakening. Crippling wage strikes can only prolong the agony.
The taxpayer—you and I—can’t afford a blanket 10 percent increase, let alone 35 percent for doctors.
Feeling the crisis themselves, the strikers are looting their savings, taking on debt and wondering if industrial action is the answer.
Ambulance drivers called off their strikes in March and are now considering a salary deal of five per cent plus one-off bonuses for the Covid pandemic.
Thousands of security forces at London’s Heathrow Airport want to secure a ten percent offer that has been on the table for weeks.
It was blocked by a group of striking Unite members, whose militant leader is refusing to allow a vote.
“I’m annoyed,” says one. “It doesn’t matter if people want to take the deal or not, but at least give us the choice.
“I just want to have a say. It would be even more annoying for me if we lose the offer now because the union does not listen to its members.”
Railway workers, earning up to £80,000, are poised to burden many low-wage workers with walkouts aimed at sabotaging the summer break.
Teachers are on the rise, destroying the education of a generation of school children.
Inflation could slip below double digits for the first time since September, but the bank still announces more ordeal for homeowners with another mortgage hike.
Union militancy was inevitable under a third-term Tory government. Marxists wanted to paralyze the country with a general strike.
Bailey’s inflation further fueled those flames.
City experts were amazed when this historian with a patchy past was given a pivotal role in the economy as head of the Financial Conduct Authority.
Concerns reigned as he continued to print money – also known as “quantitative easing” – just as the government was spending billions on Covid.
Too late, too slow
Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane publicly warned of the risk of inflation months before the bank began too late and too slowly to curb borrowing.
Wage-price spirals are known to be difficult to overcome.
They destroy economic growth and destroy governments.
Economic competence is – or was – the unique selling point of the Conservative Party.
Bank of England Governor Bailey almost single-handedly foiled it.
But it could be worse.
Labor is at odds with the unions.
Sir Keir Starmer will simply keel over, following Gordon Brown’s lead and pouring billions we don’t have into the public sector, particularly the NHS, all contributing to this inflationary wage-price spiral.
And leave the poor damn taxpayer to reap the hurricane.
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