The stupidity of our inflation

JUST as they promote the panic buying of fuel, the media are talking up the idea of inflation, assisted by the Bank of England’s own “apocalyptic” 10 per cent forecast. So, at every point in a supply chain, something is added to a passing cost whether needed or not. The end effect is an appreciable and unwarranted price rise for the consumer, and inflation thus becomes a selffulfilling prophecy.

Inflation is the result of an imbalance between money and goods available, and that has been caused by the “narrow” money of quantitative easing at last filtering into the economy, plus a goods shortage caused by Brexit, which has created delivery problems. Many haulage firms will not now deal with Britain, as they can’t afford to sit in a lorry queue at Dover for two days.

To add further gloom, energy costs have finally responded to the high cost of our unreasoning drive for renewables, plus the dogmatic discarding of clean nuclear, as opposed to the use of our huge reserves of fossil fuel. All in all, a perfect storm of stupidity. Malcolm Parkin, Kinross.