The Financial Times tells us about monetary policy dissent at the Bank of England, and the first call for a rate rise since August 2008 according to Reuters. Bring on the inflation hawks, I say. I can guarantee you that there are many of the feathered predators over at the RBA, which has been conspicuously hawkish since the ascendancy of Mr Stevens. And rightly so (although the time was emphatically not right back in early 2008)...Price inflation will be a problem whose time eventually comes. Stevens will be proven correct in the long-run. On a related note, our central bank should follow the BoE's lead and release the voting records of individual members for public scrutiny. Now that would truly be some ground-breaking transparency. Go on, Glenn--change the way we do business:
"The Governor invited the Committee to vote on the proposition that:
*Bank Rate should be maintained at 0.5%;
*The Bank of England should maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.
Seven members of the Committee (the Governor, Charles Bean, Paul Tucker, Spencer Dale, Paul Fisher, David Miles and Adam Posen) voted in favour of the proposition. Andrew Sentance voted against, preferring an increase in Bank Rate of 25 basis points...
For one member, developments over the past month were consistent with a pattern which had been developing over the past year. Inflation had proved resilient in the aftermath of the recession, casting doubt on the future dampening impact of spare capacity on inflation. Demand had recovered at home and abroad, and the average growth of the main measures of UK nominal demand in recent quarters had been above typical pre-recession rates. Despite current uncertainties, for this member, it was appropriate to begin to withdraw gradually some of the exceptional monetary stimulus provided by the easing in policy in late 2008 and 2009."
