Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Danny Blanchflower on BOE: Big Mistake to Not Cut Rates (Audio)

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Danny Blanchflower on BOE: Big Mistake to Not Cut Rates (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Headquarters.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Pellett. The Dow, the SMP, and NEZ DAC
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  Speaker 1: are all trading higher. Both the Dow and the SMP
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  Speaker 1: five hunded index trading at a record a ten point
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  Speaker 1: gain right now for the SMP five hundred index sixty three.
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  Speaker 1: That is a gain of five tenths of one percent.
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  Speaker 1: So stocks extending a rally amid corporate results. The point
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  Speaker 1: with earnings this morning. It is up by two point
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  Speaker 1: one percent. The Dow up one hundred thirty two points
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  Speaker 1: now to eighteen thousand, five hundred four. That's a gain
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  Speaker 1: of seven tenths of one percent. Nastack up twenty seven,
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  Speaker 1: a gain thereof six tents of one percent. Gold down
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  Speaker 1: eleven thirty the ounce the thirteen thirty two, a drop
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  Speaker 1: eighty eight cents forty sixty four on West Texas Intermedia Crude.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Peloton. That's a Bloomberg business flash. This is
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  Speaker 1: taking stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pimpbox on Bloomberg Radio.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty two thousand televisions. Yes, that's how many television's Amazon
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  Speaker 1: managed to sell by eleven AM Eastern Time on its
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  Speaker 1: prime sales day. But that number grew to about ninety
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  Speaker 1: thousand televisions by the end of the year. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: rather by the end of the day. Indeed, it's possible
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  Speaker 1: that when all the sales are finally counted for Prime Day,
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  Speaker 1: some reports estimate that this year's event could reach a
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  Speaker 1: billion dollars in a single day of sales. Now, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of that stuff that has purchased those televisions, for example,
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  Speaker 1: are moved by robots in warehouses. And here to tell
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  Speaker 1: us more about this is Bruce Wealthy. He is the founder,
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  Speaker 1: the chairman, and the visionary of Locusts Robotics. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much for being with us, Bruce Welty, All, I
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  Speaker 1: beg your pardon, Danny Blanche Flower, you're not a robot expert,
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  Speaker 1: well not really, your pardon. I was so you know,
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  Speaker 1: I was so hyped by that billion dollars singled sales
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  Speaker 1: day figure that I've just been focused on on the
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  Speaker 1: amount of stuff that people are buying, And maybe you
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  Speaker 1: can talk about that because you're a labor economist. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: if you could have a billion dollar sales day, what
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  Speaker 1: does that tell you about the health of the economy. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. Billion dollars maybe quite a big number,
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  Speaker 1: but in the context of central banking, it's not pim
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  Speaker 1: so I don't know good. I'm not an expert on
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  Speaker 1: sales at Amazon, but it was really interesting. But I
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  Speaker 1: came on to talk about central banks, all right, so
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  Speaker 1: tell us about central banks. In the Bank of England's
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  Speaker 1: non event today, Well, it's really quite a surprise in
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  Speaker 1: that it had pretty much been signaled that they were
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  Speaker 1: going to move, and Cannie had said that everybody was
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  Speaker 1: thinking it, and the members of the committee would have
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  Speaker 1: known that. It was a surprise. Not to move. Certainly
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  Speaker 1: was a surprise to me, especially when you read the minutes.
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  Speaker 1: If you read the minutes, there's really very little argument
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  Speaker 1: in there about not acting. It's sort of apocalyptic in
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  Speaker 1: lots of ways. It says business sentiments collapsing. There's terrible
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  Speaker 1: evidence from their agents is awful evidence from the housing market.
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  Speaker 1: The Bank's uncertainty indicator has risen. Um. Basically, it's about
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  Speaker 1: that they're going to take some time to think and
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  Speaker 1: move in August because there's a new government and a
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  Speaker 1: new Chancellor who they have to coordinate with, and he'd
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  Speaker 1: been in office for twelve hours. So that's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the problem. But it's a problem about nobody in
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  Speaker 1: England really is actually making economic policy. Um, there's chaos
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  Speaker 1: while there's a chance for you. Danny Blancheflower, you're a
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  Speaker 1: professor of economics at Dartmouth College, a Bloomberg Television contributing editor,
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  Speaker 1: and you were on the policy making committee of the
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  Speaker 1: Bank of England. If if all of this information that
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  Speaker 1: you're receiving turns out to give you are wrong signal,
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  Speaker 1: does that mean you need to change your antenna or
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  Speaker 1: does need to change Well? I think I think if
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  Speaker 1: you're at a central bank, you always have to worry
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  Speaker 1: on two sides. You say, if I act and I
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't have done, what then? But you also think if
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  Speaker 1: I should have acted and I didn't, what then? And
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  Speaker 1: the second always looks looks worse. I mean, you have
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  Speaker 1: a sentence in the in this minute, we said the
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  Speaker 1: evidence suggested the uncertainty flowing from the Brexit result would
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  Speaker 1: likely to depress economic activity. Well, then perhaps you you
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  Speaker 1: should act. The reason I would say is that they're
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  Speaker 1: likely to go to quantitative easing, but the way it's
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  Speaker 1: set up in the UK, because of the bank's balance sheet,
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  Speaker 1: they need to get permission from the Chancellor um and
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  Speaker 1: so this is a delay. But it's a delay because
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  Speaker 1: of a of a vote that wasn't expected, a government
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  Speaker 1: that didn't plan for this vote, and markets obviously should
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  Speaker 1: be mindful of that. I think it was a big
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  Speaker 1: surprise is that they hadn't acted. And I think there's
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  Speaker 1: many similarities and people will not like to hear this,
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  Speaker 1: but there are many similarities in comparison with two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and eight, where the data started to tank and it
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  Speaker 1: took the MPC and it took the FIT a long
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  Speaker 1: time to work out that the economy had actually moved
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  Speaker 1: into recession. And many forecasters now in the UK are
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  Speaker 1: actually saying credit suites, golden sacks, others are saying the
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  Speaker 1: UK may quickly go into recession. So you think they
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  Speaker 1: ought to act, but but there's this chaos going on
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  Speaker 1: as the government's fallen, and of course there's boris, So
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  Speaker 1: all right, well do you first of all, do you
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  Speaker 1: do you concur with with the Bank of England's a
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  Speaker 1: desire to stimulate the economy and that maybe there will
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  Speaker 1: be a recession. I think the evidence certainly looks that way.
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  Speaker 1: My my biggest concern is that is really the surveys
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  Speaker 1: out in the last week or so, with a big
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  Speaker 1: collapse in consumer and business confidence, businesses saying they are
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  Speaker 1: going to delay investment projects, postponed recruitment. I mean, animal
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  Speaker 1: spirits can move very quickly, and once they move, you've
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  Speaker 1: really got to put a stop to them, because they
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  Speaker 1: can really spiral downwards. So I would have said the
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  Speaker 1: bankoeving this should be getting its retaliation in first and early,
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  Speaker 1: but it has a history of basically delaying. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: the arguments are we've got all this evidence, why don't
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  Speaker 1: you do something, and they say we're going to delay.
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  Speaker 1: And the thing you would argue would be, or what
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  Speaker 1: evidence to the upside are you're going to see between
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  Speaker 1: now and August? The like the likehood is you're going
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  Speaker 1: to see more bad news and you probably should have
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  Speaker 1: got in first. So I don't think that's a very
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  Speaker 1: good idea, and I think markets will respond to that,
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  Speaker 1: especially if we if we get bad data in the
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  Speaker 1: next month or so much. I suspect we're going to
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  Speaker 1: get well. There was a news item today that Burbery
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  Speaker 1: is putting off a decision to expand its A weaving
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  Speaker 1: facilities in the United Kingdom, delaying the implementation of about
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  Speaker 1: a sixty five million dollar project. But they said that
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  Speaker 1: delay might be quite short and as long as they
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  Speaker 1: get a fixed on what Brexit will really mean for them,
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  Speaker 1: do you think that that will all this business will
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  Speaker 1: come back? Well, we will have to see him. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I think what we're what we realized is that the
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  Speaker 1: government neither had a plan of what to do in
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  Speaker 1: economic terms if there was a post Brexit vote, and
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  Speaker 1: the Brexit is themselves have no plan about the form
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  Speaker 1: in which organisms which discussions would take place with the
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  Speaker 1: European Union. So really we don't know. Um. The new
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  Speaker 1: chance and I think said yesterday instead of the two
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  Speaker 1: years it would take to resolve the exit, it might
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  Speaker 1: take six, Thank you very much. Danny blanche Flower, Professor
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  Speaker 1: of Economics, Dartmouth College of Bloomberg Television contributing editor. This
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  Speaker 1: is Bloomberg coming up on taking stock. Yes, we are
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  Speaker 1: going to talk about Amazon and Amazon's Prime sales day
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  Speaker 1: volume jump sixty sales when all tallied could reach a
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  Speaker 1: billion dollars in a single day. That's next