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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29602 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Even Thatcher, elected on an inflation-fighting platform in 1979 and subsequently said by many to have brought inflation down too rapidly, only brought inflation down to about 5% by late 1982, which was exactly the figure that Labour promised in their 1979 manifesto:

That is more that the UK followed USA monetary policy. Even after the fixed exchange rate system that was Bretton Woods ended, countries still didn't want their exchange rates to the dollar to change very much. It was the tightening by the Federal Reserve that forced the Bank of England's hand.

True to some extent, but the UK exchange rate with the dollar did vary a lot in this period:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=19Q2p

Exchange rates always vary alot for various reasons. The question is if they follow changes in USA monetary policy. And they do. It's easy to see in the graph.

Insofar as exchange rates are varying due to divergences between UK and US monetary policy, the Fed is not forcing the Bank of England's hand.

In theory they could just let the exchange rate vary, but in practice they don't. That was my point. It's no coincidence inflation fell world wide after 1982 when it fell in the USA. Just like there was worldwide deflation in 2008 when there was deflation in the USA.

It's hardly relevant to his point. They were still being criticized for implementing the Labour platform. Your argument means they might not have even done that, were it not for the US.

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