Bank of England Holds Rate, No Boost to Bond Buying

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced that the single currency’s interest rate has been left unchanged at the record low of 1%. The announcement was made following the decision by the Bank of England to leave the United Kingdom’s rates as they were, at 0.5% (also a record low). Growth [...]

OTTAWA — Mark Carney hasn’t even taken up his new post at the Bank of England, but already there is growing speculation about where his policies will take the country. The U.K. central bank wraps up its monthly monetary policy meeting Thursday with new signs the economy is barely afloat and few options left to reverse that trend. Mr. Carney, who is jumping from the Bank of Canada to lead the BoE through an uncertain few years, is expected to pull out all the stops to keep the U.K. from sinking into yet another recession.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at a record low of 0.5 percent on Thursday, and said it would take another two months to complete its 75 billion pound quantitative easing program.

Noam Scheiber’s article on the Obama administration’s dilemma as it tries to pair the dual imperatives of job-creation with deficit control is pretty disturbing. In particular, it suggests an administration that’s started to internalize some of the political constraints on fiscal expansion. To review, back last year Christina Romer told her colleagues that something like $1.2 trillion in fiscal stimulus was needed. For political reasons, that was scaled down to something more like $800 billion.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England left interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent for the seventh month running on Thursday and said it would keep its 175 billion pound asset buying programme in place.