Here are the nine rich white people paid £2.5m to control inflation
Inflation has hit 7%. That means the cost of everything you buy is now spiralling out of control. But guess what? There are rich white people paid hundreds of thousands each to control inflation. And the fact they’re clearly not doing their fucking jobs properly while the rest of us suffer is another example of the class war we’re currently fighting.
Inflation: the rich white people who are supposed to control it
As journalist Paul Lewis tweeted:
The 9 members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England are paid £2.5m a year between them and 'Monetary Analysis and Monetary Policy Committee' costs £40m a year (all 2020/21 figures). Its job is to keep inflation at 2%. A year ago it was below that. Now it is 7%.
— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) April 13, 2022
Yes, that’s right. There’s an actual committee at the Bank of England (BoE) that’s in charge of controlling inflation. It’s called the monetary policy committee. Here they are:
Read on...
If there was ever a group of white bankers in work clothes, then this is it. Take Michael Saunders – previously an economist-turned-banker for HSBC and Citigroup. Then there’s Jon Cunliffe, who has worked high-up in the civil service and the EU advising governments for decades. Catherine L. Mann is also an economist-turned-banker, having worked for Citibank.
WTF is the BoE doing?
The BoE monetary policy committee is supposed to, in its own words:
set monetary policy to achieve the Government’s target of keeping inflation at 2%.
Clearly, it’s not doing a very good job of that at the minute. In fact, these rich white people keep getting inflation quite drastically wrong. They predicted in December 2021 that it would hit 6% in April – not the 7% we actually already reached in March. Even in February, the committee was saying inflation would be 6% in March; wrong again.
You’re probably wondering just WTF these nine people are actually doing to earn the £156,500 a year they get paid for a three-day week. Good question – especially for the overall BoE boss, Andrew Bailey, who receives nearly £575,000 a year.
They’re clearly not doing a lot. But why would they?
Class war
While rich white people are in charge of keeping rising prices under control, the result will always be the same: they won’t. That would involve putting up interest rates. Why won’t the BoE do this? Because of the economy. As Costas Milas wrote for the London School of Economics (LSE), the BoE won’t act because:
a series of interest rate hikes could “derail” economic recovery.
That’s not economic recovery for most of us, by the way. It’s economic recovery for the richest people. As The Canary has repeatedly reported, the most well-off in the UK generally feel the least strain financially – and low interest rates just make them even richer and the poorest even more in debt.
Once again, we’re seeing the state (this time via the BoE) waging class war on many of us. The only people severely affected by spiralling inflation are the poorest – the rich, on the other hand, laugh all the way to the bank.
Featured image via the Bank of England – screengrab
We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support
The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.
The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.
So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
There’s nothing they can do to stop the inflation we’re seeing as it’s caused by supply problems over which the BofE has no control whatsoever. Frankly, they shouldn’t have put the interest rates up at all, even the small amount they have, as all it effectively does is enable the finance sector to justify raising interest rates in turn, engaging in what is essentially looting from all the other sectors. There’s arguably a scandal going on then, but not the one you think there is. You could reasonably ask, however, what exactly is the point of these highly paid people in this day and age if, when shit hits the fan, there’s nothing they can do? You would not be alone in asking.