Saturday, March 10, 2018

Stick to your roots - Bank of England

At a time of high unemployment, when its chairman Norman Tebbit said those without jobs should follow the example of his father, who in the 1930s “got on his bike and looked for work”.

Former BoE Governor, Eddie George, said in 1998 that job losses in northern England were an undesirable but acceptable price to pay to curb inflation in the south.

Britain suffers one of the highest degrees of regional inequality of any European country.

Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane said“In some ways for me, that probably is the largest of the economic issues facing ‘UK plc’ right now.”

Regional economic policy is not the BoE’s job - which is to ensure financial stability and control inflation across the United Kingdom as a whole - but asked if people who lived in poorer areas should move to a different city for work, Haldane said this was unreasonable.
“It’s a terrible thing to say and reflects a complete misunderstanding of how most people are made up. They like roots,” he said. “Most people don’t want to leave.”

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