{"id":510554,"date":"2026-03-08T05:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510554\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T05:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:09:10","slug":"theres-an-inflation-wave-coming-how-worried-should-we-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510554\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s an inflation wave coming. How worried should we be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran has not actually formally closed the Strait. They have de facto been closed voluntarily as insurance costs soar, and sailors fear for their safety.<\/p>\n

The net result is a wave of inflationary pressures emanating from the conflict zone, and upsetting global markets for energy, fuel, food, industrial chemicals, and credit.<\/p>\n

On Monday night I gently suggested that forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK government’s independent forecaster, could prove rather out of date even before publication on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The extent of that mismatch has surprised me, four days on from the Spring Statement <\/a>and a week into this conflict.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday the price of a barrel of crude oil was assumed to be $63. It closed at $94 on Friday. <\/p>\n

A therm of gas delivered to the UK was assumed to cost 74 pence. It is \u00a31.35, and got as high as \u00a31.70 this week. <\/p>\n

The gilt rate, the effective interest rate on 10-year government borrowing was assumed to be 4.4%, it ended the week at 4.6%, having nearly hit 4.7%, a significant difference.<\/p>\n

The UK’s bonds have been hit more than other countries as traders recall the UK’s sensitivity to energy price inflation during the Russia-Ukraine crisis. <\/p>\n

The essential bet is that the Bank of England (BoE) will rein in interest rate cuts as inflation stays sticky. <\/p>\n

All this came just at the moment when the markets had started to give credit to the government for the speed of its planned fall in borrowing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran has not actually formally closed the Strait. They have de facto been closed voluntarily as insurance costs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-510554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}