Why a US rate hike could force the Bank of England's hand: ALEX BRUMMER
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Kevin Warsh’s arrival as chairman of the Federal Reserve was meant to put an end to the battle with Donald Trump’s White House.
The first real test of whether the problem of central bank independence has been fixed could come today should the Fed vote to raise the key federal funds rate from its current range of 3.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent.
Trump argued earlier this week that the US should have the lowest interest rates in the world.
Nothing could be further away at present with the sell-off of US bonds accelerating, sending the yield on ten-year US Treasuries to 5.04 per cent – the highest level for two decades.
The pressure on US borrowing costs is not a surprise, given upward pressure on fuel prices as Red Sea routes have come under fire from Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
Bond markets also are agitated by the possibility that if Republicans do better than expected in the mid-term elections then Trump’s gift of a $5,000 cheque for every American – at a cost of $1.2 trillion – could become reality.
Pressure: US Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh (pictured) is widely expected to raise rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday - a move likely to draw criticism from President Trump
Rising bond yields and stubborn consumer price inflation at 3.4 per cent may well convince the interest-rate-setting Open Market Committee that there is no alternative but to lift rates by a quarter of a percentage point to slay the inflation dragon.
Politically, that would be very sensitive ahead of the November 3 mid-term elections. It could drag Warsh into tricky territory.
Famously, the late Fed chairman Paul Volcker’s choice to sharply raise interest rates ahead of the 1980 presidential election was seen as decisive in ousting Jimmy Carter from the White House in favour of Ronald Reagan.
Traders’ bets on a rate rise have climbed in recent days from 50 per cent to 90 per cent. If they prove right, sparks will fly and it might even provoke a late change of thinking at the Bank of England.
Not working
The Labour Government endlessly waxes on about supporting working people.
The sledgehammer of tax rises and employment law changes is damaging the very people it represents by lifting jobless numbers and damaging career prospects for young people.
Headline unemployment is stable at 4.9 per cent of the workforce. Below the surface, the fissures in the jobs market stand out.
Payrolls fell by 26,000 in August, meaning that more than 200,000 jobs have been lost since Sir Keir Starmer marched into Downing Street.
Wickedly, young people are among the hardest hit, with joblessness among 16 to 24-year-olds at 16.4 per cent.
That figure doesn’t capture the 981,000 young people estimated not to be in education, employment and training (Neets).
The causes of this shameful outcome are not hard to fathom. They include the jump in employers’ national insurance, the hike in minimum wage and laws that will make it harder to part company with under-performing colleagues.
The jobs market has become a hostile place for young people. This betrayal ought to be an open goal for the Tories and other opposition parties.
Much of the attention in the labour data will be on the prospective jump in state pensions, the awkward tax problem it poses for Chancellor John Healey and the ongoing budgetary cost of the triple lock.
Joblessness also has big costs, adding to the benefits bill and causing disruption to the social fabric, as recently seen in Middlesbrough. Labour’s restless backbenchers need to recognise the harms.
Ice cold
Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing after all that Unilever spun off ice-cream unit Magnum on the Amsterdam stock exchange.
Magnum inherited the fractious dispute between the Unilever board and hipster ice cream subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s over the sale of intellectual property rights in Israel.
Legal papers allege the deposed chair of Ben & Jerry’s, Anuradha Mittal, ‘was abusive, discriminatory and unprofessional’.
The row, which saw Ben & Jerry’s independent board replaced earlier this year, dates to 2021 when Unilever refused to cave in to pressure to stop selling ice cream in the West Bank.
Magnum shareholder Nelson Peltz, with 3.7 per cent of the stock, is refusing to budge on the Palestinian issue. A happy ending looks a distance away.
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