Monday 13 June 2011

Bank of England tracks Google - what will they find?

Loved this story in the FT today - apparently the Bank of England - known for their terrible modelling over the last 3 years where they have been wrong about inflation consistently, have upped their methodological game.

Interestingly, they have decided they need to use google and Internet search algorithms to try and understand more about the state of the UK economy. How sweet, it seems that it you type in 'Cityunslicker, Bank of England' you get plenty of information to work with, perhaps they can start here?

More importantly, they point being made by the Bank is that they are struggling to get accurate information on the UK economy which is up to date. This is what happens when you print a few hundred billion pounds and reduce interest rates to zero - having previously had to bail out your broken financial system. After all that, there now appear distortions that make predictions hard - how unpredictable!

7 comments:

Timbo614 said...

But you don't get much if tytpe "Bank of Englad, cityunslicker"

CityUnslicker said...

your typo in that comment is perfect!

Steven_L said...

Wonder if they'll find my pic of Mervyn with a d*** drawn on is forehead?

Budgie said...

"Bank of England - known for their terrible modeling over the last 3 years where they have been wrong about inflation consistently ... "

Hmmm, wrong? Or lying?

Don't forget their pension fund smothered itself with index linked gilts a couple of years back.

Anonymous said...

Well said Budgie. They know their models are useless, they are supposed to be, their only purpose is to mislead the public.
"The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth" Alan Binder, of the Fed.

Anonymous said...

Alan Binder would just love this.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/exclusive-feds-600-billion-stealth-bailout-foreign-banks-continues-expense-domestic-economy-

Time to rethink a few things

Anonymous said...

The B o E reputation has been erroneous for many years as has the CBI, I think they try to talk the economy up and unemployment down, the trouble after a long time it begins to dawn on folks, that they as much idea of what will happen as they do. They only know what they are told, mainly the South East of England and they apply it to the rest of the UK, economic activity varies over the country its no good averaging the figures out.
I don't know if things are edging towards 5% deposits before getting a mortgage, new houses £120625, £6K does not look like a good safety net, rates will go up shortly or the £1will= 1 Euro then the broon stuff will hit the fan, and the government will have to pay more to borrow, Oh dear, what a mess