FlyTheNest

refitman wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 5:58 pm Bloody hell, when the people in 'the city' are telling you you're cutting too many regulations...

If Reeves seriously believes this stuff she is heading for a rude awakening. Chancellors don’t need a crystal ball to tell them where financial deregulation leads; they can read the many books detailing what happened last time this was tried. The global financial crisis of 2008 came about because policymakers bowed to the pressure from big finance to sweep away “burdensome” regulations, pledging that more funds could be channelled into productive investment as a consequence.

Instead of providing backing for startup businesses, easy money led to ever more reckless speculation and a giant credit bubble. The inevitable crash led to a deep recession, the bailout of the banks and – in a textbook example of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted – a tightening of regulations.

With the economy on the brink of recession, the Bank’s monetary policy committee should be cutting borrowing costs by more than 0.25 percentage points each quarter.

Threadneedle Street is also making life more difficult for Reeves by gradually selling back the bonds it bought under its quantitative easing programme in the 2010s and early 2020s. This is leading to lower bond prices and higher government debt interest costs than would otherwise be the case. This process – known as quantitative tightening (QT) – should be halted.

It is also absurd for the government to be proposing cuts in welfare while the commercial banks are being paid interest at 4.25% on their risk-free reserves being held at the Bank of England. In 2023, NatWest, Barclays, Lloyds and Santander received more than £9bn between them – a rise of 135% on the previous year. There are far better uses for this money.

Reeves could order the Bank to halt QT and she could stop the payouts to the commercial banks. ((( YESSSSS ! ))))

In 2006, Reeves moved to Leeds to work for the retail arm of HBOS.[14][15] In 2024, due to criticism of Reeves saying she had worked as an economist at HBOS, her LinkedIn CV was changed, and her role at the bank was updated to "Retail Banking".[10][16] The Times reported her actual role was "running a customer relations department dealing with complaints and mortgage retention".[10] The report led to the media and opposition politicians nicknaming her "Rachel from accounts".[17][18]