GoSeigen wrote:BT63 wrote:scrumpyjack wrote:Andrew Bailey sadly is woefully inadequate in his job.
Are there any central bankers who seem competent?
I can't think of any for decades.
They all apply too much stimulus for too long, which leads to distortions which causes boom and bust cycles about once per decade.
This point has been debated many times. Competence is one thing, but the idea that central bankers' policy has been too loose is a logical error IMO. Over the period discussed the mandate of CBs was to bring down inflation by applying tight monetary policy. This they succeeded in doing. One must therefore interpret monetary policy as having been tight, not loose, else inflation would have risen (or stayed the same) rather than falling. In fact policy was so tight that inflation was driven to practically zero or negative at times; this produced a problem for Central Banks (but recently not decades ago) where they had to reverse their strategy and try to raise inflation back to their targets. So yes, perhaps policy is loose or even too loose now, but that is a recent phenomenon.
GS
Globalisation and technological advances helped with the disinflationary forces.
It should never be the case that lending money is a loss-maker in real terms. Lenders need to be rewarded for their capital being tied up for a period of time and for the risk that some or all of it might not be paid back due to defaults.