Tag: Bank rate

Bank Interest Rate Raised, the Prime Minister’s Tax Return and Credit Suisse Bond Wipe Out

The Bank of England has raised bank rate to 4.25% which will create howls of anguish among mortgage holders. The US Federal Reserve also raised its rate. But with UK inflation still above 10% p.a. it is quite justified in my view. We do need to get back to reality with real interest rates, i.e. they should be at or above the rate of retail price inflation. At least PM Rishi Sunak has made it his top priority to clamp down on inflation. Let us hope he sticks to it.

High interest rates will certainly put a damper on stock market investment but the short-term pain is worth it. As I suggested in my comments on the budget, the probability of inflation falling to 2.9% by the end of the year is a grossly optimistic forecast.

We also now have sight of Rishi Sunak’s last tax return. The prime minister paid £325,826 in capital gains tax and £120,604 in UK income tax in the last tax year. Good for him is all I can say. He clearly has a lot of investment holdings but might have done better with his tax planning. However he has contributed to the UK exchequer so we should not complain. But the politics of envy always rule in such circumstances.

The key point to remember is that someone from a modest background can become both Prime Minister and wealthy in the UK – it’s clearly the land of opportunity! Note: you don’t need to tell me how he acquired his wealth, but it was legally I believe.

Another disaffected group are those who held the Credit Suisse AT1 bonds who have been wiped out by the terms of the rescue by UBS. Investors are complaining that ordinary shareholders should have been wiped out first in priority as is normally the case. But these bonds have rather specific terms and were acquired by sophisticated institutions. They should have read the small print, as always when investing in bonds.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address below. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added

Interest Rate Sanity and Chancellor’s Announcements

The Bank of England’s announcement of an increase in base rate to 2.25% was just one step in a return to sanity. With inflation nearing 10% why would any idiot lend money at 5% or less as many mortgage providers have been doing. In reality the last few years have seen lower interest rates than have been available for the last 5,000 years.

This has been possible because of Quantitative Easing (QE) to keep the economy afloat. A misguided policy that has resulted in horrendous side effects. It has resulted in property price bubbles and stock market bubbles. When you can borrow money at 2% and use it to buy houses which have been rising in price at 8% or more (as they have done in 2022), people will buy houses as an investment – and the bigger the better. This is one key reason why house prices have been rising to levels that make them unaffordable to those not yet on the bandwagon.

Yes it will mean the cost of mortgages will rise thus making some people poorer for a while. But it is a necessary step to return the UK economy to a rational position.

It is still some distance from enabling savings rates to return to a situation where savers can obtain a real return. This has encouraged speculation in alternative investments that might promise a higher return. This was one reason why small cap AIM shares have been popular in the last few years. But that bubble is now bursting – the AIM index is down 31% so far this year.

In summary, I welcome the rise in bank rate and it should preferably go further to match inflation rates or more.

Chancellor’s Announcements

Kwasi Kwarteng has today announced a number of things including tax cuts.

The 45% top rate of income tax is scrapped and base rate reduced by 1% earlier than planned. The planned increase in National Insurance is scrapped and stamp duty reduced, while the planned increase in Corporation Tax is also cancelled.

The chancellor confirmed that the scheme to protect households and businesses from rising energy prices is expected to cost £60bn for the first six months. With the aforementioned tax cuts, the resulting likely increase in Government debt has caused a sharp drop in the price of gilts (and rise in their yield).  

It has also meant a falling pound which will not help the cost of living but will help exporting companies and those with revenues in dollars. By making imports more expensive it should stimulate UK production – for example of food and make us less reliant on imports.

A surprise announcement is the winding down of the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) and revision of the IR35 rules. These are sensible moves as the OTS has been totally ineffective in simplifying the tax system which is horribly complex while IR35 rules have been incomprehensible and impractical to apply in the real world without adding massively to bureaucracy.

More reforms to planning laws are promised to stimulate infrastructure building and aid the Government’s growth agenda but we have heard that before. Unfortunately planners just love complex regulations as they generate work for planners and there will be resistance from nimbies so I expect this will see major objections and delays.

There will be new anti-strike laws for essential services and there will be encouragement for 120,000 people on universal credit benefits to “take active steps to take more active work or face having their benefits reduced” (the number of inactive people in the workforce has been rising while jobs go unfilled).

In summary, my personal opinion is that that these are positive moves on the whole. In the short-term, we might all be poorer but some of these reforms were well overdue.  

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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