Good news is not, of course, always good news. The US economy is doing well, higher interest rates haven’t led to unemployment and more jobs are being created rather than lost. So the matching/contrasting headline from a couple of weeks ago was ‘strong economic activity prompts Fed to hold rates for fifth time’. Everyone, well, everyone with investments or borrowings rather than cash in the bank, wants to see interest rates at least edging down. Then once again, owning ‘real assets’, shares and property will make more sense than do other options. Bonds, fixed interest loans to companies and governments, will also go up in value, if the rate they pay becomes more than you could get elsewhere. Win win, then, for a while; but they can’t go down forever, and shouldn’t as 10 years or more of rates at pretty much zero actually did not much good to most, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. We need that unattainable happy medium, or, as Gordon Brown famously once said, ‘no more (Tory) boom and bust’. Would that it were so simple.
“Reaction: UK economy returns to growth as GDP rises by 0.3%”
OK, this sounds like good news, doesn’t I? Last month’s figures showed a fall in GDP, and three of those in a row equals ‘technical recession’.
