Central bank independence is a policy goal of neoliberal economics that seeks to undermine democratic control of the economy and the accountability of the government for it, but it is not what happens in practice.
In the evidence given to support this it is said that:
What this makes clear is that the purpose of the move was political: it was to reassure markets that a new Labour government would be seeking to prudent with regard to government finances by passing control of interest rates to the Bank of England.
Quite, the point of central bank independence is to take control of interest rates and the money supply away from whatever nutter manages to get elected. Or at least to make it more difficult for whoever does to Zimbabwefie the economy. Which is why it was brought in by a Labour government. They being at most risk of the belief that they will, they therefore gaining the most from the perceived reduction of that risk.
The problem is one of mission creep. Carney was allowed to drift away from the mandate of controlling inflationin order to do all sorts of weird things to so with climate change, ecofreakery, the supposed output gap, avoiding recessions, Brexit, the housing market,the CoE….the list is extensive.
Is there any other sphere where people who have asked for tools used them far more than expected but with little success would be given even more powers? Central banks were supposed to be independent and run monetary policy yet a confession of failure seems to make them think they can tell elected politicians what to do
Diogenes: the CoE…
The First Church of Latterday Marxists?
As I always say, replace the word “economy” with “weather” and only proceed if it still makes sense.
Diogenes:
In your barrel, recall Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of politics:
1.Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2.Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3.The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
Very true, Theo, just think of the Electoral Commission,the director of regulation of which declared her dissatisfaction with the last general election result.
A new fucking irritating phrase I’ve been hearing these past few days, black interviewee blaming the white interviewer “seeing racism and race through a personal prism”. FFS.
In other news, MickyD drive-inn was open, the queue went around a large retail park, normal people want their burgers instead of kneeling in front of strange people.
Just like police and judicial independence, we like it because it makes things harder for tyrants. Or idiots. Either way really.
@Jussi
+1
Way beyond irritating
This is horrendous and frightening – Gov surrendering to Left & Black mob rule
– “Kneeling will never be enough for the mob
Why are Americans surrendering to violent mobs? Because they’ve been told they have to”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qwif8PF1EI
FFS:
LA Mayor kneels and begs for forgiveness
BBC QT host Fiona Bruce orders panel to kneel – Elected Politicians obey BBC; they don’t represent me