The pound has climbed to a one-week high versus the US dollar and a 21-month high against the euro after data showed UK inflation is running at its highest rate for a decade.
Figures showing that inflation surged to 4.2pc in the year to October are stoking expectations of an interest rates rise as early as next month.
It sent sterling 0.4pc higher against the euro to €1.19. Against the dollar, it edged 0.3pc higher to $1.3480, its highest level since November 10.
I usually do these things as because, not despite. This seems to be reversed here. Higher inflation will reduce a currency value – over time at least. And interest rates are going to have to change hugely to cover that gap. Looks to me more like one of those random changes that folk are attaching a story to.
Describe it in the other direction, maybe it makes more sense. Dollar & Euro are weak against the pound.
These days, it’s not which countries are managing their financial affairs better but which ones are doing worst.
US affairs in the hands of a senile geriatric with a Black Power enthusiast waiting in the wings, & Europe’s of a coven of incompetent old women. What’s not to like?
I think that BIS has got the causality better. The EU and USA economies are not doing very well and their central banks seem to be handling the situation even worse than the BoE
US core inflation was 6-point-something. If we’re “only” at 4.2% then this is probably better than expectations for even higher, which had already been priced in.
As above, with inflation in both the Euro zone and USA also taking off markets appear to be betting that the BoE raises interests first.
Has Spud called for tax rises yet?
OT – Talking of “despite”.
I see Germany is hitting all time highs on Corona infections despite Covid passports* and mask mandates. The guy I follow on Twitter who reports daily has had to rescale his y-axis because its getting so high.
Despite that I still expect Boris to implement passports at the earnest opportunity.
*Having been tested positive and recovered you get exemption for 6 months in Austria and I presume Germany although I haven’t seen anything. Perhaps BiNK (GP) can confirm?
@BiND, your HTML tags are broke and the link doesn’t work
Johnson can “implement” whatever the fucker likes. Millions of us are taking no notice of his bullshit either LD or vax pass. The UK will stay open this winter. With vax passes inserted sideways up Blojob J’s hole.
And Tim–polit scum printing vast amounts of counterfeit cash is not a “random” event. I think you may be losing your grip on your marbles.
I can’t really comment. I haven’t left BiG City since March 2020 (a thrilling day trip to a windowless meeting room at Schiphol airport for an exciting chat with a customer), or been anywhere other than grocery stores in BiG City for several months (well, essentially we have spent most of the time since March 2020 on some brand or other of lockdown so have done almost nothing since then).
I’m sincerely not interested in even attempting to participate in society with this madness going on, consequently I am not in a position to advise on what the rules are, other than it is a constantly changing and incomprehensible federal and local patchwork of bullcrap defining what the unclean are allowed to do where, when and how, and even who is unclean in any particular place or time. So can’t help you with covid passport stuff, I don’t have one, never have had one, and don’t plan on getting one.
The one thing I do know is that federal government sources are speaking openly about banning the unclean from even leaving the country (and it’s practically impossible to do so without at least a temporary certificate of cleanliness), so I am making vague plans to do so before that comes in, just not confident that the UK is going to stay halfway free or sane. And even entering the UK, nowadays Her Majesty’s request to all concerned to allow me to pass without let or hindrance counts for jack shit.
Remember 2007, when the pound was worth two dollars? Fun while it lasted.
The Germany positive test numbers are a reflection of testing and the lack of corresponding deaths or hospitalizations* tend to suggest rather decent vaccine efficacy (against clinically relevant outcome), actually. The clean are not testing themselves, schoolkids are testing 3 times a week. We don’t get age-stratified propaganda numbers so difficult to be sure but it is probably mostly kids responsible for the current, so-called “incidence rate”. Even vexxed vs unvexxed in hospital gets quashed when the numbers look bad for the narrative so don’t expect anyone to volunteer the information.
Complicating factor is Germany missed out on the first wave (April 2020) completely. Literally nothing happened here. So who knows what this one will look like. It doesn’t really matter because whatever happens, good or bad, provides an excuse to implement further authoritarianism rather than claiming a political victory and going back to the old days.
*: Yes, these are lagging indicators and will rise.
“government sources are speaking openly about banning the unclean from even leaving the country”
Re-implementing East Germany!
Yes, I increasingly think we lost the cold war. It just took us 30 years to realise it.
Austria and Germany have a bit of history when it comes to arbitrary segmentation of the populus. Is it something in the water?
BiNK, maybe leave Germany Province and go straight to NK. It might be a bit freer.
“@BiND, your HTML tags are broke and the link doesn’t work”
No fancy footwork:
https://twitter.com/gereonas/status/1461246863911362562?s=20
“Remember 2007, when the pound was worth two dollars? Fun while it lasted.”
Oh yes. We were touring the canyons and other sights and it made the holiday a lot cheaper than expected when we’d booked the flights a year earlier. Those were the days.
“Germany missed out on the first wave (April 2020) completely.” Have there been any intelligent suggestions as to why that might be?
Speculation: is Angela Merkel one of those sleeper agents working for the old DDR?
‘Yes, I increasingly think we lost the cold war. It just took us 30 years to realise it.’
Actually BiNK(GP) I think we lost WW2.
“Have there been any intelligent suggestions as to why that might be?”
Yes, obviously we locked down much better 😛
Some other countries in eastern Europe had the same phenomenon. We didn’t have zero cases, but had proportionately very little death. I attributed at the time to keeping it out of care homes (the mistake that the UK, US, and Sweden made), but am no longer so confident.
Everywhere is out of sync with everywhere else, even in Germany. Clearly some seasonal effect, but I think more and more that infection waves are a kind of fractal phenomenon, the curves look the same shape at every resolution from global to village, but happen at different times when you look at smaller and smaller geographies.