Bank of England economist Huw Pill recently said Britons should stop seeking pay increases and “accept” they are worse off in order to prevent prices rising further. Karen Trainer, the manager of a community centre and shop in Wolverhampton, a city with the highest poverty rate in England, could barely contain her anger as she watched the news.

  • anji
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    61 year ago

    Odd how always workers are being blamed for seeking pay increases, not companies seeking higher profit margins. Both are natural behaviors in a free market economy, both drive up prices, but only one is “the problem causing inflation”. Hmm.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      51 year ago

      This is a gross over-simplification imho. Inflation occurs when the aggregate demand of goods/services at a given price level increases faster than the aggregate supply of goods/services at that given price level. There are a some factors to consider about inflation.

      One major issue especially in the UK is the austerity policies we have seen in the last 40 or so years (that goes back to Thatcher). The problem is the distribution of wealth imo.

      That’s particularly important as it has nothing to do with a ‘free market economy’ or any other form of economic policy. For example, we see the same unequal wealth distribution (and capitalist excesses) in centrally-planned economies across various forms of communism.

      • anji
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        31 year ago

        Sure. I’m just pointing out that inflation has multiple factors driving it (and it is understood “inflation expectations” are in fact one of the biggest drivers of inflation, which is not a price mechanism but a purely psychological phenomenon!) yet the majority of media articles I see about inflation place the blame at the much delayed wage gains we have been seeing these past two years, not the spike in corporate profits.