Hacker News Reader

Comment by nly | Hacker News Reader

The Bank of England started raising rates before the Fed

Correct, but they are not raising rates as aggressively as the US. Powell was not afraid to do 75bps, while the BoE is already giving out dovish signals after a 25bps hike last month.

Many experts think that raising BoE rates will do more harm than good:

* inflation is mostly imported

* cost of living crisis

* incoming recession

So they are under pressure to both try to contain inflation (but see above) and prop up economy.

The Bank of England has since then dropped the ball though, sticking to a slow schedule of raises that seem to have endangered the value of the pound further, falling behind the action taken by other nations and sticking to tiny increases.

Couple that with their slow-ish response speed, because the monetary policy committee only meets 8 times a year, and you get a recipe for a lacklustre response. IMHO.

We’re talking about economies that make a difference.

our tiny economy makes no difference to global spasms.

UK is the same economic size (gdp) as california. The per-capita doesn't matter here

That just illustrates how important California is to the world economy.

UK is a G7 country. It's small compared to the US and China but nobody else.

Quite a lot smaller than the EU…

I do dislike this aspect of modern Britishness. Yes, be modest, be understated, don't exaggerate or boast about the nation. Yes, some poor decisions have been made by the people and the politicians - where isn't this true?

But the flagellatory "everything is terrible and we are merely worms" attitude that prevails among the bien-pensant class right now is so saddening. The UK does have an influence on the world, a pretty outsized one at that, because it is one of the larger and more modern economies. Ahead of it are the US, the world's two most populous nations (China, India), and two comparative economic powerhouses, Germany and Japan. That's it. If you want to count the EU as one economy, great, it takes Germany's place.

Does this mean where Britain goes all must follow? No, of course not. But neither does it mean total insignificance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com