In other more parochial news, UK interest rates have moved down by 0.25% to 4.75%. ‘At last’, if you have a mortgage with a fixed rate coming to an end, ‘oh, bother’, if you have money in the bank. OK, it’s not a lot, and it doesn’t mean that inflation is no more, just that it isn’t as much. All good for the moment, but the Budget and its longer-term effects could make this either short-lived or ensure that they won’t go down much further. The fact that, however it’s disguised as a ‘change to the fiscal rules’, the government will be borrowing more has meant that those speculating on future interest rates have speculated upwards. And more government spending, and, if it happens, more growth and more money in our/your pockets could mean, yes, more inflation as more money chases less stuff and prices go up to cover the extra costs the Budget has imposed on business and so it goes round. Anyway, falling interest rates are more often than not good for share prices, particularly those of smaller companies. Accentuate the positive.
Should Financial Education be as important as Sex Education?
We’ve talked before about the ‘Hotel des Parents’, where many are having stay well into their thirties, until incomes finally catch up with house prices and they can step onto the ladder and become first-time buyers.
